tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119678062024-03-14T00:15:12.090-04:00ksquestkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.comBlogger955125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-255586571444998482012-10-28T23:54:00.000-04:002012-10-28T23:54:06.845-04:00We have lost Karen.<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We lost k on August 29th, 2012 around Noon, EST.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My aunt, my confidant, my mentor, my friend k died in the hospital ICU after 12 days of unconsciousness. Per her wishes, she was cremated and there will be no service. If anyone would like to send a gift, she asked that a donation be made in her name to Broward Health, a nonprofit that offers inpatient and outpatient services to the uninsured and the underinsured. The details are below. She is survived by her parents, her brother and sister and her niece and nephew (my sister and I). k called me b around these parts, but you can call me Brian.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don't know why k didn't want a service but I wasn't surprised when I heard we weren't having one. I'd guess that she felt it would be unnecessarily sentimental, or perhaps too much of a burden on those around her. Our immediate family is made up of independent, strong-willed folk so the desire to carry on without a public fuss speaks to us. Whatever her reasons, the family has decided that this small note posted on her blog will serve as our public goodbye to k.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'll forgo the standard obituary of her life. The most important points are given in the first person on this blog, and they are told by k better than I ever could. Besides, the majority of it would be facts that could soon be forgotten. The defining qualities of k were not things like the school she graduated from or how she earned her money. Instead, she was defined by the spirit she kept while working through two decades physical decline.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When her body's troubles were in a managed check, she shared life with her partner, Walter. She maintained a beautiful yard with flowers and plants, she cooked, she read, she thought. She cared for her cats. She watched TV shows about serial killers. She repaved her driveway with bricks. She sang to the lizards in her yard as she fed them grubs she pulled off her plants. She dug up fossilized sharks' teeth and saved plants from hurricanes. These things were the Fun Stuff that kept her spirit fed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During the times when her physical needs took priority, she still found excitement in learning and talking about every new disease or injury she encountered, taking plenty of pictures, and sharing them with whomever was interested. And the truth was that for her, that was all Fun Stuff too. There were descriptions and stories, play-by-plays of hospital calls, grades for the nurses and post-game analyses of which doctor did right and which doctor was merely a witch doctor. Those of us that have followed this blog were her witnesses and her support group and she was thankful for it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My sister's and my eternal love and gratitude for k flourished in our teenage years. k never wanted children, but there was plenty of Fun Stuff to being an aunt. She was a village for us. She talked to us as if we were already the adults we'd eventually become. She taught us about people and adulthood and society. She taught us what it meant to suffer and to change and the difference between surviving and thriving. She taught us that when you're an adult you can eat a whole jar of maraschino cherries if you want to. She taught us that it was okay to think that work is hard as long as you did it anyway. (She also tried to teach me about flowers and cooking, but that didn't stick so much.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the years, modern medicine gave k's body a lot of help but I think her spirit was the magic elixir that kept her body going beyond reasonable expectations. And no matter how much energy the diseases took, the Fun Stuff was always there to fill her spirit back up. The Fun Stuff was still there after her cats passed. The Fun Stuff was still there after my sister and I grew up and got busy with our adult lives. The Fun Stuff was still there after her mobility declined to the immediate 60 feet around her bed and the yard outside became overgrown with weeds.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The medicine says that the end came when she finally caught a disease it couldn't cure, but that doesn't tell the whole story. I think the Fun Stuff finally stopped being fun when she lost Walter. Its fitting that this post sits above her post about Walter's passing. Her words are there, promising that her spirit will continue on, but I didn't believe them when she posted them and I don't believe them now. They are the rote promises of someone with years of practice. No, medicine did not come up short in the end because medicine was always fighting a losing battle. It was her spirit that could no longer make up the difference.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A half an hour before I got the call from my father with the news, I was talking with my cousin. She's blessed with many of the gifts k valued- intelligence, will, curiosity, a strong sense of right and wrong. We were talking about some social issue or another and she thanked me for giving her some new ideas to think about. I told her I couldn't take all the credit because my mind had been opened by k 18 years earlier. It was probably over a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle and a jar of Maraschino cherries. That is the k that will not be lost. Her name may fade into the family tree but her and her spirit will be passed on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thanks k.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I miss you, we miss you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brian</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">P.S. Gonna make a bunch of Sin Rolls this Thanksgiving, k.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Contributions should go to:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Broward Health Foundation</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">12 SE Davie Blvd</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"In memory of Karen Goodheart"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know that this post is two months overdue, and I apologize for that. At first we had problems logging in to her blog. And once we got the password, this proved harder to write than I thought it would be.</span><br />
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khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-84475616984281115092012-05-25T23:24:00.000-04:002012-05-26T00:00:36.455-04:00We have lost Walter.. <br />
I must do this. And so I will.<br />
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I am so sad to tell you this. We have lost my husband, my Walter. He died from brain cancer April 19.<br />
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He had reached a place and time of inner healing, of unexpected peace. Just beginning, really. It would have been so good to watch that grow, grow with him, revel in that healing between us.<br />
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Long months ago he asked me what my life would be like if he passed
away. I told him. So he said, All right. Then I'll fight it. I'll
fight to live.<br />
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No one will ever love me like that again.<br />
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I do not want to learn how to be a widow.<br />
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I do not want to learn how to keep staring down this incomprehensibly limitless emptiness and still survive.<br />
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I told him I would, though. So I will.<br />
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There's more to tell. Of course.<br />
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But this is all I can manage for now.<br />
.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-66820955249972000192011-08-13T15:07:00.001-04:002011-08-13T15:21:54.866-04:00Return of The Yard: Or, It Isn't All Just Sadness, You Know..
<br />Dealing with chronic illnesses, dealing with being disabled, can be a full-time job.
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<br />In fact, if it isn't, maybe yer doin' it rong.
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<br />As far as I'm concerned? Life is truly precious. It shouldn't be wantonly destroyed. It shouldn't be wantonly made painful or hard or mean or of little use, either.
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<br />Fun is precious too. And what an excellent assistant for that full-time Deal With It job!
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<br />Some people believe that making conscious efforts to be happy gives false results. That if happiness doesn't arise spontaneously, it isn't real. Surely we've all seen instances of the type of phoniness that portrays an emotional falsehood, whether of happiness or sorrow or anything else. But that isn't the same as putting forth effort to be happy, not to me.
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<br />Long ago, a sibling's psychiatrist friend asked me what my ultimate, overriding goal in life was. At the time I was in my late twenties or so and hadn't seriously reconsidered this important question for a while. A little surprised, I thought for a moment and said, "Well -- to be happy, I guess."
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<br />And the man jumped down my throat. Looking like he was trying to mask a bit of honest hostility, he told me, "No no no. Happiness can't ever be a goal on its own. It's only a state we can reach by meeting some other goal - getting that job you wanted or getting married, having a baby, things like that." (At the time this rang a bell I couldn't place. It seems to parallel the philosophy espoused in a wonderful book called <i>Man's Search for Meaning,</i> by WWII concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl.)
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<br />Goals tend to make you think, to consider and deliberate. Assumptions tend towards suspending judgement. Such useful qualities! Yes, both of them, thinking and assuming. And both need to be used with care, so much care. Care and caution and honesty and strength.
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<br />As time went by, as my respect for Mr. Frankl and disrespect for Mr. Shrink grew, I finally decided Mr. Shrink was dead wrong. Not only <i>can</i> happiness be a stand-alone goal, it <i>must</i> be one, if we're ever to think clearly enough - to understand ourselves well enough - to find it.
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<br />Not to mention, making happiness a goal can go a long way towards protecting us from certain Elementary Errors of Assumption. Like believing money or fame or lots of cheap hot sex will bring us happiness. Eeek!!!
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<br />Maybe it's human nature to assume certain events or conditions must make happiness. WAHHH!!! STOP! Maybe the dubiousness of the Happiness Value of Money is clear enough. But even blessed events like having a baby won't necessarily make a person happy, any more than that seemingly perfect job or marriage or fancy espresso will. Or that glad little breath of relief from seriousness... ;-)
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<br />Some day you may be walking around sad, not knowing what will make you happy or how to get some of it. Sure, time will pass and your emotions will change and I bet you'll feel better, happy even, once again. But if you do know what some of your personal Happy Stuff is, and how to get it, it stands a decent chance of happening quicker and better. Right? Makes sense?
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<br />Even more so if you're willing to put some time and effort into it.
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<br />Yeah.
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<br />That four-letter word.
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<br />Work.
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<br />heh!
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<br />Of course, sometimes a four-letter word is a very <i>good</i> thing.
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<br />Like L o v e.
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<br />And me, I <i>love</i> to work.
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<br />Now, certainly you've heard me over the years going on and on about Gardening Happiness. The mirrored equivalent of no-gardening unhappiness too. The waiting-to-exhale hope of an approaching day when some two years of no-gardening comes to an end, and my modified body can handle tiny bits of modified gardening activities out in the Florida sun...communing with nature once again, talking to the birds and lizards and singing to them and tossing them bugs, and finding wonderful little treasures in my yard and watching as my plants bring forth buds and flowers and fruit, and I clear away this *sick ol' neighbor lady's* weeds and vines and mess and my pretty walkways' brick paths emerge once again for cats and people to amble down, shyly peeking about to see if anyone's watching them take such liberties...
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<br />OHHHHHHH, my.
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<br />Some happiness lives there. Yes.
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<br />Okay. Here we go, back to the present, out in the here-and-now. Time, finally; it becomes time to explore. After an exhausting 10-minute venture outside in the front yard - in the power chair, sure, <i>but!</i> dressed in my genuine same-old gardening clothes! - the first requirement needed to obtain this glorious Gardening Happiness freedom was clear.
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<br />A trip to Home Depot was in order. Another big, big venture: not just going there, up and out of my sickbed; but maybe even going there all by myself. A first.
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<br />A couple weeks ago, a Saturday looked good. I could handle it, I knew I could, even though Walter couldn't come.
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<br />I called TOPS the day before and made my reservation. TOPS stands for Transportation Options, or some such; it's an adjunct of our local city bus service that picks up the disabled, even in heavy motorized wheelchairs, only $3.50 each way. I made sure they knew I was shopping and might buy something large, and they said, --Fine!!
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<br />OHHH!!! Deep breath! The next day arrived, it actually did! And TOPS came and Home Depot was there and I shopped, all by myself, and thought and zoomed around in my speedy chair and explored and compared and made decisions and spent the carefully, precisely budgeted funds I came prepared with.
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<br />Rendering me the ecstatic new owner of the following: the fanciest pole saw I've ever owned; a 3 1/2' *dandelion weeder* - a digger stick long enough for leverage, we don't have actual dandelions around here; a spray bottle to fill with rubbing alcohol for mosquito control; and the most kick-ass long loppers you ever saw. They actually <i>ratchet!</i> I mean, I had no <i>idea!</i> Never even heard of 'em before! Wheeeee!!!
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<br />heh heh heh!
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<br />Now you can see why I absolutely must get my camera in order. How can I brag about my fabulous new gardening tools and not post their pix?!? Sheesh!
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<br />And you can see why once again, I find proof that together with the hardships and pain in my life, I was granted - through no action or special merit or earned deservedness of my own - real blessings. The exact sorts of blessings that make those hardships bearable. And along with blessed things like an oddly twisted sense of humor, a desire to refrain from taking myself too seriously too often, the will and need to think for myself, oh so much more - together with all that came this settled certainty that happiness is good and right and belongs to us, that we can and should understand it and seek it out.
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<br />Our country's founders recognized our innate human right to the pursuit of happiness. And no cynical shrink - or pastor or parent or teacher or doctor or anyone who thinks they're somehow in rightful absolute charge of our souls - not with all the well-honed manipulative skills they may possess, no one can ever succeed in taking away that right. They might - if they're bitter and destructive and mean-spirited and so inclined - try pretty hard to do it. But the most they can ever achieve is making people believe something that's incorrect. Don't you let them. Never forget that they can't take your right to happiness away.
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<br />khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-13042521777354391232011-07-22T02:35:00.004-04:002011-07-22T13:05:44.663-04:00Sadness and Bad NewsA *gore alert* on this post, too, okay? Plus there's graphic medical stuff, without links or definitions, and I didn't even link the references to older posts.<br /><br />Thank you all so very much for those wonderful comments. Once you've read this post you'll understand why they mean especially much to me right now. While I haven't written back my responses yet, I certainly have answered them in my mind.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br /></div><br />I'm sitting here quietly, calmly, listening to the strong but muted rumble of thunder in the distance. I love that sound, I love the way it rains and storms here in Florida. When I first moved to Charlotte Harbor in 1980, I'd sit outside on this bayside patio at the secluded little motel where I lived. The harbor was just a few yards away from my door, and I'd lie on a lounge chair at night and watch the lightning overhead. It would strike from cloud to cloud for hours at a time, never once hitting the ground, and I'd watch it for hours, let it fill my shattered soul with peace.<br /><br />Well, well. Today is so far away from that past. Now I'm lying, instead, in this hospital bed, here in my first and only very own house. My sanctuary. My shelter. Not even Katrina and Wilma broke through it, two trees on the roof and still it held me safe and secure.<br /><br />But those were just hurricanes. Terrible, yes. Of course. But there's lots of other scary stuff out there too.<br /><br />So much for all my fine bite-the-bullet type talk about just <i>do</i> it, just <i>say</i> it...It isn't that I've changed my mind in any way at all. That's absolutely not it. I was just hoping for a little breathing room, I guess, before having to dive right in to the sort of current hard news I <i>had</i> been avoiding blogging about. So much for thinking time might give us a small reprieve if we just talk to it the right way, huh? <span style="font-style: italic;">ha!</span> Well, well.<br /><br />For what it's worth, at least I feel I truly wasn't in denial about it. That matters to me, because where denial can be a useful temporary ploy, it can't be adopted as permanent strategy without getting into real danger. IMO, at least.<br /><br />Here's some backstory.<br /><br />Among the things that have kept me so sick for so long are the Big Awful Major Abdominal Surgery in March, 2010; and a years-old systemic infection by a germ called mycobacteria chelonae abscessus. It's set up some rather spectacular housekeeping in my upper right arm, where it occupies nearly all of it - the upper arm, I mean - in a huge, deep, complex, multi-layered abscess. On the surface it doesn't look like much. But it's had three surgeries, and has multiple openings where it volunteers, decides to drain on its own at unexpected intervals. Uh, I did post that goriness alert, I hope. This surely qualifies. Even for me, it can be unsettling to feel something wet rolling down your arm, and look over to see pus flowing out of your bicep and dripping off your elbow.<br /><br />I go on regular and super-antibiotics for these things. Sometimes, as the myco and various other germs become resistant, we switch the permanent antibiotics, or make a cocktail of several different kinds, or stick me in the hospital again with IV antibiotics for bad flareups. Various types of infection are behind many of those 30 or so hospital admissions in the last couple years.<br /><br />A couple months ago we got some blood test results showing it was time to change antibiotics again, and did. Now most of you probably have some experience with antibiotics and their side effects. One way they impact me has to do with that 2010 abdominal surgery.<br /><br />See, it all started with really severe diverticulitis, which led to a really bad three-way fistula, a sort of tube, connecting my bladder, large intestine, and various female parts to each other. This isn't good. Among other awful things, my bladder filled with feces to the point of nearly rupturing. Which, in turn, left me two or three days to live unless I did the surgery.<br /><br />But the docs only gave me about a 30-50% chance to survive the surgery, as near as I could force them to admit. I was way, way, way too sick with other things for such an operation. Surely my heart would fail. I explained to the doctors that those odds were still better than a three-day life span, and besides, I knew I'd survive their table. So they very kindly and sweetly said "goodbye" in various ways, and family gathered round, and of course I did make it after all.<br /><br />By a hair's breadth, yes. Minus several inches of gut, my appendix, my left ovary and fallopian tube, and a big garbled clump of tissue the surgeon tossed into the bucket for the pathologist to sort out. Plus another ICU stay, a ventilator, food by IV, a long-time foley, loads of stitches and staples in great variety of type and place - and a long term temporary opening in my belly, which they still haven't closed yet.<br /><br />Back to now: Now add back the good old immunocompromised condition, the recent change in antibiotics unsettling the digestive tract bacteria balance; toss in a previous bout with c-diff, plus the right arm abscess acting up lately (setting up a sicker-and-weaker, feverier row to hoe) and you can get...a messed-up abdominal condition which could be another c-diff infection, a thing not to be messed with; then throw in a bunch of blood and other gore I'll skip for now, AND, a patient who's been running around refusing to go back to the hospital even One. More. Time.<br /><br />That would be me.<br /><br />So I didn't.<br /><br />Instead, I talked to a bunch of doctors and such on the phone, and almost called 911 twice; but after six days it seemed the new antibiotic had battled the New Problem back for a little while. Long enough to see my Infectious Disease doc and get some tests run; and next Monday, see a new GI doc.<br /><br />Okay. Lots of old news on that March 2010 surgery. Today's New Problem, too. And it was all just background, because today's news doesn't actually pertain to my own health at all, really.<br /><br />It's not about me this time. It matters for a whole different reason than me being sick and being stubborn about the hospital.<br /><br />I truly heal better and faster at home. I have more energy. I can hang around with Walter, who is much less depressed if I'm at home when I'm sick, instead of at the hospital when I'm sick.<br /><br />That's very important right now, because of the results Walter got last week of a routine follow-up cat scan on his left lung. That's where they removed the small lung cancer tumor ten months ago. They declared it 100% removed, and small, Stage 1; but it contained not one but two forms of lung cancer that rarely appear together. At the time, his pulmonary doc pushed very hard for a full battery of radiation and chemo. He'd had personal experience battling the same unusual cancer combination in a few other patients, and believed he knew what to expect and what the treatment should be. But the Cancer Board turned him down, which apparently carries great weight; and the doc couldn't do what he thought was necessary to keep the tumor from regrowing.<br /><br />He was a lone voice in the wilderness. And -- he was right.<br /><br />The current routine follow-up cat scan, then pet scan, showed not one but several new tumors. Big. Virulent. They'd grown from nothing as of a few months ago, when another routine CT scan and biopsy showed a small unidentifiable lesion. Suddenly, today, the biggest tumor is 45 x 37mm; the next biggest is around 22 x 22mm, and there are several smaller ones nearby. They take up about a third of his lung. This is fast growth. A bad thing.<br /><br />Walter has a very important factor on his side: it hasn't metastasized.<br /><br />Tuesday, we go to the oncologist. His radiation and chemo may start as early as next week.<br /><br />So this is why I need to stay home from the hospital. You see? I can't take care of him. I'm too sick. But if I stay home and stay as strong as I can be, I can do <i>some</i> things: I can keep him company, I can help some, and most of all I can <i>manage.</i> I can try to put together all the insurance and social services help available to him. He'll need nursing care, and aide care, and for my own aide care to be increased so he won't worry about me not eating again. Things like that are what I can do to help him the very best that I can.<br /><br />Now you know.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-59161004644853713882011-07-04T23:57:00.001-04:002011-07-05T00:00:24.792-04:00Happy Independence Day, Everyone!Ah. Independence. Now <i>there's</i> a theme you've seen recurring here. And its revivals won't be going anywhere but up.<br /><br />Because that theme - broad and universal, timeless, so uniting on a day like today in a country like ours - hits home just as powerfully on the microcosm of one small and inconsequential life.<br /><br />Like mine.<br /><br />The hushed but ever-present threat of not-quite-voluntary stays in nursing homes and SNIFS probably wasn't what the founding fathers had in mind on this day in history. Seems they had some loftier thoughts in mind. Taxes. Free assembly. The safety and protection of regular folks by a government of their own choosing. Heh! Self-<i>governance.</i> Such a prettier word than <i>government,</i> isn't it?<br /><br />Independence.<br /><br />Ah, yes.<br /><br />My recent streak of good fortune continues. I haven't heard one single bottle rocket go screaming past my windows. So I'm not hiding under the hospital bed, or under the commode either. That one's worse, because you don't want to get suddenly startled and jump around while you're crouched down under there.<br /><br />heh heh heh! I've acquired the most amazing new store of useful knowledge and experience, these last couple years. And if you don't mind hearing it, well then I don't mind sharing it. LUCKY you! Lucky <i>lucky</i> you!<br /><br />I hope all y'all had a wonderful sunshiny day full of fireworks and corn-on-the-cob and parades and watermelon and BBQ and salad and fried chicken and iced tea and family and friends and neighbors and swimming and, and, and all the good stuff you might like on a day like today.<br /><br />Including a simple little joy like being able to post <b>Happy Independence Day, Everyone!</b> once again.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-23327570047411709172011-07-02T16:54:00.003-04:002011-07-02T17:15:16.790-04:00A Thousand ApologiesWhat I'm truly sorry for is this: for not finding some way of letting you all know that Walter and I are both okay.<br /><br />We are. That's not to say we're doing fine, or even doing very well; but we <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> okay, and that sees us through. And before I go one more step, go anywhere else, first, first - recently, we've been doing <span style="font-style: italic;">better.</span> I want to assure anyone and everyone who might be even mildly interested that we've had some smallish but significant pieces of good news lately.<br /><br />The biggest one is this: Walter's been approved for social security disability, and his 5-month *waiting period* is over, so he now has an income. I keep running around saying we're rich. Ha! No, of course it isn't much. It has no bearing on the house still being in foreclosure. But when you no longer have to make those awful choices between essential heart medications and food, you sure do feel rich. It's enough. It gives me enough of a boost of energy and hope to find the strength to try to speak again.<br /><br />I don't know why I lost my voice. I only know I want it back. Maybe understanding *why* could help me figure out better how to overcome it. But I see no point in waiting any more to figure it out first; in fact, that's probably been slowing me down. Instead, I'll try - try - to just bite the bullet and let myself talk.<br /><br />One thing that's surely been holding me back is how rough the path life's got me on has become. The combined and accumulating weight of the illnesses, the poverty, the losses, became crushing. Choking. I'm way beyond caring whether anyone thinks less of me for *letting it get to me,* or for admitting out loud that it hurts that bad, or for appearing weak, or afraid, or blind to how much this entire country is suffering. Anyone who never felt these impacts is either a sociopath or a stone cold fool, and I'm neither. No more than I'm weak, or a coward. I have the facts, and I know better.<br /><br />Mingled in with the devastation are these extraordinary episodes of peace and joy, of fabulously good luck, of hope that seemed so unreasonable early on, yet turned out right and true. For whatever reasons - yes, probably including that I make the effort to watch for them - those episodes have long been another part of my life's path. In the midst of the worst, those wondrous blessings keep coming.<br /><br />So, then: What changed? Not so much the occurrence of the events, I guess; rather, it was their intensity.<br /><br />It's never been a secret that we bloggers blog, in varying degrees, for our own good. For therapy. Oh yes, me too. You betcha.<br /><br />But that intensity, especially the levels and degrees of the wretchednesses that kept coming up, made me not want to dump those harsh realities on you, my readers, my blessed, faithful, intelligent, discerning, incredibly kind, patient, forgiving readers.<br /><br />From the comments and emails that you've continued to send in spite of my silence, I see you figured it out anyway.<br /><br />Meaning...I might as well go ahead and tell the whole story, as best I can.<br /><br />I may have to leave tiny bits out, but not by much. The hard stuff gets pretty bad sometimes, and gory, and I want to be sure you understand the risk of continuing to read here. I'm still myself, of course I am; but where I'd rather be telling you about these beautiful three flowers slowly unfolding by my driveway, and how my entire ponytail palm burst into bloom from every separate head at the same time, and posting their gorgeous pics - instead of all that, I'll have to start with things like the day I learn how to work my camera again. And the day I go outside onto my driveway in my motorized wheelchair, all by myself. I've done neither for a very long time.<br /><br />For two and a half years, since March 2009, I've been bedridden 99.9% of the time. These days I live in a hospital bed in what used to be my home office. All day, all night, day after day, week after week. I'm on oxygen 24/7, and sleep sitting up. I have an aide that comes in for a few hours four days a week to help me take a shower, and to change my bed and do light housekeeping and laundry. This costs the insurance company far less than another awful stretch in a nursing home would.<br /><br />On an average day I can walk around 20 feet at a stretch - not steadily, and not always; and I still fall sometimes, or pass out. That part is dangerous. Very. I bleed and bruise and peel skin off at the drop of a hat. There's a bedside commode to pee in; and although I can't put a meal together for myself, I can feed myself when someone brings my meal to my bed. There's an over-the-bed tray table on wheels, hospital style but smaller, that holds my laptop, pitcher of light iced tea, the daily stack of little pill cups, and a few pens and such. I fit my plates or bowls in when it's mealtime, and some nice person brings me good tasty diabetic food.<br /><br />That person is highly likely to be Walter. To our mutual joy, we have reconciled, something we both thought impossible. We are better partners than we've ever been, all these years since 1993. Understanding how his porphyria affects personalities and relationships played a big role there. Not to forget, of course --<br /><br />Cancer changes everything.<br /><br />We'll have an update on how he's doing with that pretty soon.<br /><br />Okay. There's so much more I want to say. I haven't even answered your comments yet. My stamina for posting is not what it was; and not making concessions for that fact has left me with a good handful of nearly-finished posts and emails, never sent. I'll try to keep talking, more as a sprinter than long-hauler, hoping it may help me keep on going on.<br /><br />Writing and posting this is one of the harder things I've done in my life. My God. I miss you all so much.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-60125117437975583902010-09-24T08:32:00.001-04:002010-09-24T08:32:57.943-04:00Walter Pulled Through<span style="font-size:85%;">Oh yes! He made it through surgery. He made it through post-op. Through a night in Cardiac ICU, CICU. Back upstairs to Telemetry, the heart unit. Slowly but surely they've pulled out this tube and that, let him take off his oxygen cannula here and there. Our bad hearts always complicate our other surgeries, so he's on a heart monitor.<br /> <br />He still gets a gazillion breathing treatments a day, and they put him back on IV fluids today. Hmmm. The chest tube is still in, draining and draining.<br /> <br />But they decided to transport him to his next stop, a Respite Care place.<br /> <br />And the first news on the tumor came back.<br /> <br />They got it very, very early. Stage 1A. Very small, almost too small to operate on him. Walter didn't know which kind it is - we hear there are several. But if it were the awful one, small cell, they'd be throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it. <br /> <br />Which they aren't. He won't have to do chemotherapy. He may have to do some radiation therapy, but not for very long.<br /> <br />It looks like this awful thing, lung cancer, might have a good outcome after all. Am I happy? Is he? Oh my goodness, YES!<br /> <br />You know what else? If we hadn't broken up, they would not have caught it so early. Perhaps not for a long, long time. It was only through an odd series of coincidences that they gave him a chest x-ray. And that he agreed to have it. See, he'd just had one three weeks before.<br /> <br />That x-ray showed nothing there at all.<br /> <br /> <br /></span>khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-52609553076073404892010-09-20T14:18:00.003-04:002010-09-23T01:40:06.296-04:00I'm Still Here<span style="font-size:100%;">I have been tremendously ill for a long, long time.<br /><br />Communication has been difficult - with anyone, in any way. I see your comments from time to time and feel it's been a one-way street. Yet you're endlessly patient with me. I see footprints from you checking back, wondering what was happening with me. That means a great deal to this blogger, living in a hospital for a year and a half, battling onslaught after onslaught that many a strapping healthy young person would not have survived.<br /><br />It's been another world, and a distant one. I've had to devote all my physical and mental resources to staying alive. But now it looks like I've turned a corner. I may, at last, be relatively safe. More on that another time, okay?<br /><br />I want to assure you all that I haven't had a stroke or anything as permanently devastating as that. Some permanent changes? Yes, of course. Mostly, though, of the type that will heal. The lack of communication from my end isn't due to that. It's just been the battle fatigue.<br /><br />Walter and I have split up. It was in the works for a long time. I've needed 24-hour caretaking for all that period of illness, and still do today. It's a terribly difficult job, caretaking someone who's seriously ill. Essentially, he burned out. He could never let himself rest. Going our separate ways has been very good for both of us.<br /><br />And are we friends again? You betcha. Groan or snicker all you want, we don't care ;- )<br /><br />Today, though, I'm back at the same hospital - but our roles are reversed. Today, Walter is the patient, and I'm the visitor. I'm getting a taste of what I was so certain of every time I've gone into another surgery - that it can be harder for those who wait than for the patient.<br /><br />Help us, please, with all the positive energies and prayers and good thoughts you can summon up.<br /><br />It looks like Walter has lung cancer. He's in surgery now, as I speak. The docs are removing the mass they discovered, together with surrounding tissue. He opted not to have a "lobectomy." That would remove about half a lung, and leave him totally and permanently disabled. His five-year survival expectancy would only increase by about 10%. It wasn't worth it to him.<br /><br />Perhaps you noticed I said --it <i>looks like</i> lung cancer.-- That's because, even with all the tremendous technology at hand, they weren't able to do the usual biopsy first.<br /><br />The mass that appeared in the cat scan was hiding behind a rib - nearly perfectly obscured. They couldn't get a clear image to guide the biopsy needle; and the straight needle they use couldn't get behind the rib to grab a piece of the mass anyway. So, while everyone is convinced it <i>is</i> lung cancer - and I believe it probably is - I don't forget there's a tiny chance it could just be an infection or something, We'll know in a few days, after Pathology has a chance to do the definitive analysis.<br /><br />So now that I've finally broken my silence, what do I do? Very first post back, I ask for your help. Sheesh.<br /><br />I'm not sure I really know what Walter's beliefs are. Maybe I'm wishing for those positive energies for myself instead. I keep thinking of Bane's prayer warriors...and a rare yellow rain lily, something with strong Bane associations in my mind, has been blooming in my front yard.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-10766406120714139592010-04-18T09:09:00.004-04:002010-04-18T09:29:31.675-04:00I'm OUT!.<br />I'm OUT! I'm OUT! I'mOUT!I'mOUT!I'mOUT!<br /><br />Yes indeed, everyone. You heard it straight from the horse's mouth. Oh, happy day!!!<br />**************************************************<br /><br />Well. It was true when I said it, anyway. And you, my faithful readers, gave me enough time to start a post instead of answering comments, which is one of my FAVORITE things to do. And therefore, ever so distracting.<br /><br />Now I'm going to gross you out, or bore you - whatever - with more medical tales. It's become my life. I've lived at this hospital for more than a year now. And while the subject material may not be as fun as I've wished, it's what I've got, for telling tales of the present at least.<br /><br />I spent about two days at home. I slept most of them away. Then I woke up, bright and chipper.<br /><br />And that's all she wrote...<br /><br />until I woke up in the ER around 8 pm last night.<br /><br />Walter and Mom were with me. They told me a blood test showed infection. That when they brought me in, I was radiating heat, so hot they could feel it from a few feet away, A wonderful paramedic, sweet and kind - and extremely competent - was determined to set an IV. It became a challenge to him. It does to a lot of them, actually.<br /><br />See, I'm a very "hard stick." That means it's hard to find a vein that will accept an IV without "blowing,' infiltrating, where the needle comes out the other side of the vessel instead of sliding into the vein.<br /><br />Even if they succeed in setting an IV, the IV's aren't usually in strong enough veins. They have to hold up against these super-powerful antibiotics they pour into me to kill off the various resistant germs I get. The IV's don't usually last more than a couple of days.<br /><br />But that's another story.<br /><br />Last night, what we needed was an IV. Difficult, difficult. And our shining hero of a paramedic actually <i>did</i> it! They drew blood for tests, and then slammed me with Vancomycin - one of those super-antibiotics - and lo and behold, I came to.<br /><br />Understand, I was comatose through all the excitement. It happened that way last time too, grrr!!! I mean, <i> I</i> paid for the darn ticket. Then I don't even get to see the show. But everybody else <span style="font-style: italic;">did! </span>hmph!<br /><br />It appears my left arm is deeply infected for about a foot long area, with my elbow in the middle. Red, and hot. And - please forgive the indelicacy - same goes for my entire left breast. <b><i>Ouch!</i></b><br /><br />I'd hoped to have more time to post. Now, as long as I don't get the sleeps, I will.<br /><br />Be careful what you wish for...<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-62190330696721799352010-04-04T10:19:00.005-04:002010-04-04T11:01:37.386-04:00HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!!!.<br />I really like holidays.<br /><br />Since we live in this great American melting pot, or stew, or tossed salad - whatever - this can mean holidays of LOTS of different religions. Such a fine variety of holidays to choose from!<br /><br />But how to avoid stepping on one's toes, congratulating someone for the wrong day?<br /><br />It's easy. You don't need to try to remember who believes what. No no no! Get yourself a cheap calender with Important Days outlined in red, or bookmark same - just for ya know it's Special - and tell everyone you like:<br /><br />HAPPY HOLIDAY!!!<br /><br />See how easy? This way you have many other fine advantages, to-wit:<br /><br />You don't have to worry that you just said *Happy Easter* to, say, an Orthodox Jew. Plus, no one will question you closely about the nature of the holiday, for fear they'll look like a horse's patootie - which you just saved your ownself from doing, right? PLUS, it puts lots of people in a nice holiday mood. Want a great reason to pull the curtains, invite some friends (or not), and do a fine cook-fest?<br /><br />And if you've got some brave acquaintances in the bunch, you can drop the Horse's P. concerns and have all sorts of interesting discussions about the real date of the Chinese New Year and such. Not many supervisors are brave enough to jump in and cut that conversation short if you're swiping another 15 minutes of lunch hour.<br /><br />The point is, it's a holiday. A time to relax a bit and remember to enjoy ourselves. I think the world could use a bit more of that.<br /><br />Leaving religion behind for a bit - say, taking a brief vacation from it - Easter is special because it's springtime. I don't need to figure out if it's the correct historical date, or reconcile the usual mix of orthodoxy and paganism. Nope.<br /><br />Because even living in near-perpetual sunshine and warmth, we can feel the change down here too.<br /><br />Springtime.<br /><br />Full of joyousness, renewal, warm breezes, seeds sprouting, sap running, bunnies bounding and eggs hatching. Yeah. All o' that. It's just great.<br /><br />So whatever your beliefs, agendas, family situations and so forth, I hope you have a truly Happy Holiday today.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-7960653151489141792010-03-22T21:19:00.005-04:002010-03-22T21:58:20.439-04:00*Medical Alert.* My Excellent Dear Good Friends: I Am Dying..<br />But I REFUSE to go.<br /><br />Aw, c'mon, folks. A little silly overblown melodrama never killed anyone.<br /><br />Even when it hits so uncomfortably close to home.<br /><br />I'm back from the hospital once again. In the last year I've been admitted to B.General some 16 times, once to Holy Cross, and three times to nursing homes ("SNIF's"). I've come very close to dying at least three times. k dad calculated the actual amount of time I spent at the hospital, rather than at home, last year. He tells me I spent more time in the hospital.<br /><br />And just when it seemed like it was. . . well,not <i>over,</i> but slowing down at least. . .<br /><br />would somebody please play that music from Jaws or something? . . . well, you get the picture. . .<br /><br />yeah, speed demon<span style="font-weight: bold;">. U</span>p it goes again.<br /><br />Well. I'm going to break this post up into several, okay? I hope that'll help circumvent boredom, hunger, the need to pee when only half-way through. . .<br />* * *<br />I owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people for my complete lack of communication. You know who you are. I hope you'll understand - and forgive me! - once I can finally tell you how it all came down.<br /><br />Today is Monday, March 22, 2010. I had "exploratory" surgery on Wednesday, March 3, then major surgery on March 8. Quite major. After that, they sent me to ICU (Trauma Center/ICU) where one of my nurses from a "previous engagement!" happened to be assigned to me one night. Oh, we talked and talked and caught up with family news, and she insisted I'd saved her orchids with my Handy Dandy Orchid Tips.<br /><br />Family news. Yes. Long talks with many nurses about such, both ways. And in the pre-op waiting room was: k dad and k bro, both from Chicagoland; and k nephew, now living in Brooklyn, New York. Ah, my favorite nephew in the world! k sis was back in New Jersey, having to return to work after not one but two long and extended visits; k mom was in Chicagoland, busily working away to help pay for all those plane tickets; and finally, k niece was settling her (OUR) family in the new place they'd acquired since their house was under water and all workout attempts had failed, whereupon they moved out, cleaned up, and handed the keys back to the bank.<br /><br />That tiny pre-op waiting room was <i>crowded,</i> people. I hope and believe I had a tight hold on my emotions. But having all that family there, for no other reason than love and supportiveness, made it very hard indeed to just talk without bursting into tears. See, our family never behaved in any <i>classic</i> family manner. I'm not sure we ever really knew how. But we're learning. We're not throwing away our independence; we're just adding that all-important element called "interdependence".<br /><br />And you know what else? Friends and family are<i> not</i> allowed anywhere<i> near</i> those little pre-op waiting rooms. But the hospital personnel, who had every right to ask - to<i> demand</i> - that my family leave? They didn't. Doctors, nurse-practitioners, nurses, PCA's. Nobody.<br /><br />C'mon. How often is family even allowed a kiss at the door leading in to the operating area?<br /><br />Never.<br /><b>*</b><b>*</b><b> * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>* * * * *</b><b>*</b><b><br /><br /></b>khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-29212602947224896272010-02-09T00:36:00.009-05:002010-04-06T01:09:50.087-04:00The stars look very different, today...<span style="font-size:100%;">.<br />Some of you may remember, in past posts, me talking about the sense of connectedness I had with the earth and all my friends during these times of debilitating illness. Attached back to earth I was, by an imaginary cord like spiderweb or silk. You know how silks are said to be stronger, yet more elastic, than steel that's been spun out into a thread like that silk is? Fragile as it also was, that thread kept me connected to ground, to home, to the people of my life. It held my will to live.<br /><br />And every time I got bad sick again, the illness would be worse than the time before, and that thread tying me to home would have to stretch farther and farther. And it always did; it stretched to hold me fast but it never broke. It always held me, connected me, attached me, safe.<br /><br />Wondering, though - I mean, who wouldn't? - if one day - Surely, <i>surely</i>, some day it would stretch too far and have to snap. Wouldn't it? And what would happen then? Would I keep drifting off farther away into outer space, spinning and floating and all <i>*can't breathe but that's okay really, it'll-all-be-over-quicker-<wbr>that-way...*</i><br /><br />And this time that strong and fragile silk snapped.<br /><br />And I made it back anyway.<br /><br />I<i> think...</i><br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />So yes, </span><span style="font-size:100%;">I'm at home now. I spent most of the last year in the hospital or nursing homes - some 12 or 15 hospital admissions alone, I'll have to go back and tot 'em up to know for sure. The insurance company appears to be contemplating their ever-rising bills and considering treatment alternatives. (Let's hope they aren't getting skittish on us, huh?) They took me off IV, back on oral super-antibiotics, and made up a sort of hospital room at home. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"> House-call doctors and everything!<br /><br />The last time they did that they nearly killed me. I wouldn't like that </span><span style="font-size:100%;">treatment alternative</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> one bit, although it certainly would be cheaper, especially in the long run. heh! But their dastardly schemes haven't worked not even <i>once,</i> so I agreed to give it another try, and so far so good. I am alive.<br /><br />The last admission with any drama attached was November 13, 2009 - yup, Friday the 13th - through Thanksgiving Day. I woke up in a Level 1 Trauma Center/ICU, across the room from the helipad. I couldn't talk, or put a coherent sentence together in my mind the way we call "thinking;" couldn't write and had to *x* my name on some papers. All can be symptoms of a stroke; but I <i>knew</i> that wasn't it, it wasn't what happened to me.<br /><br />But what <i>did?</i><br /></span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><br />Next to my space-age triple-computerized ICU bed stood a great bear of a man created from an ex-20 year Marine midstate Louisiana Cajun, a military haircut, brilliant intelligence, and 260 pounds of solid muscle - a nice safe-feeling thing, considering the maybe 1800 cops and shot-up (ex-) fugitives and pissed-off (presumably innocent) (presumably unarmed) bystanders roaming about. This was one of the two - yes, only two - nurses I had in the 3 or 4 days I spent up there.<br /><br />Luckily, we communicated <i>extremely</i> well without talking. </span><span style="font-size:100%;">He saw my great frustration in trying to string 2 - 3 words together in a way that made sense; he waited just a bit - checking, assessing, you know? - then told me, "ssshhhhhh, quiet, you don't need to talk just now..."<br /><br />He was very direct. Forthright. Didn't feed me platitudes or try to placate me. Notice how he didn't say "You're going to be juuust <i>fiiine</i>!" to try to make me feel better? Because how can anyone really know? And ordinary practical realities aside, I was now in a 24-bed ICU with a 50% survival rate.<br /><br />That's it. What ICU is all about. Half the beds they wheeled back out the door had dead people in them. I mean, come <i>on...</i> Okay.<i> </i>Every one's different. But me, I really appreciated his style; I always would have anyway, but it was exactly what I needed just then..<br /><br />Later I learned I'd been in full-blown sepsis from a type of mycobacteria - rare enough to cause quite a stir in the Trauma Center - and pneumonia. The nurse was feeding my IV from a huge bag of dopamine, and doing all sorts of other exotic things with my oxygen and lung or breathing measurements and such. When they brought me in, my blood pressure was in the 70's over 30's.<br /><br />Yeah. Dead level.<br /><br />Hmmm. Enough on that episode for now.<br /><br />Well. Enough on this post for now, too. Writing is exhausting me and I'm still so very, very tired; but I had to check in, I just <i>had</i> to, gathering up all my great strength, oh <i>huge </i>it is, I bet it's almost as big as a new-born kitten's by now. I've missed everyone so much, and your comments and emails kept me attached here in their own way after all, so hugs and kisses to each and every one.<br /><br />And maybe an extra one or two out of my real and powerful gratitude to the still-anonymous Mystery Person who decided, for mysterious reasons of their own, to send me this beautiful - and<i> working</i> - Mystery Computer I'm typing on. Perhaps they were indulging a hope it would kick a post out of me? <i> --ah, vanity...<br /></i><br />Hah!<br /><br />It was probably just Bane.<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;">.<br /><br /></span>khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-49050469691688026942009-12-04T17:36:00.000-05:002009-12-04T17:38:15.364-05:00grrrrrrrRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!.<br />Or maybe I should say, AAAUUUGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!<br /><br />Because once again, I'm <i>trapped</i> in the Big Downtown Hospital. As an inmate. InPATIENT, 'scuse me.<br /><br />I'm trying out the Brief Update mode now, trying to keep you faithful folks from worrying about me. Especially...especially because - ah, reality intrudes - there <i>is</i> reason to worry, now; precarious health, no money, and no internet service at home, and we don't know why.<br /><br />I did make it through the Thanksgiving weekend at home. Nearly 100% of it. Around 11pm, I started bleeding again, another coumadin bleed. It was coming from my mouth - we hoped, as opposed to some other internal origin - and after a slow but steady run of some 14 hours, I finally gave up and went back to the ER.<br /><br />Where, after some treatment, and then some heart pain, they decided to admit me.<br /><br />For the last time. I won't be going back. It's time to find a new place to go.<br /><br />But!!! BUT!!!<br /><br />Ready for the silver lining? 'Cause you<i> know</i> I almost <i>can't</i> write a *gggrrr!!!* post without one.<br /><br />WELL!!! I'm slowly but surely getting <i>Unadmitted!</i> As we speak, Transport is allegedly on their way up, to take me down, and out, to where Walter will put me in our car, and we can go home.<br /><br />Home.<br /><br />Home again.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-91315620481957041922009-11-28T12:22:00.004-05:002009-11-28T14:46:27.143-05:00Yes. I'm home again, oh Joy and Happiness..<br />I am SO glad, SO so glad! Home. Home. Home.<br /><br />I spent the last two weeks in the Icky Place [the hospital], <span style="font-style: italic;">again. </span> Before that I had two weeks at home, but in some ways it was like the Icky Place: IV drip antibiotics, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Lovenox</span> belly shots, nurses coming, no getting out of bed except for any doctor appointment I could get to without canceling due to illness...Too sick, way too sick. Too sick to have been discharged once again, *dear* <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Broward</span> General, in the first place - home <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">IV's</span> or no.<br /><br />Where am I? Oh - Two weeks in the Icky Place, after two weeks at home. Before that? Another couple weeks in the Icky Place, until early November I think. I love Halloween, but for years running I keep missing it for various and sundry silly reasons. This year it was because I was in the Icky Place again.<br /><br />I'm working on a big-ass <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ol</span>' post about these more recent adventures. I've decided to stop trying to make any kind of predictions about events in my life any more, especially about <span style="font-style: italic;">timing,</span> so I don't even want to say *I'll post it soon.* I can, though. say this: it'll be way too long to read anyway; I <span style="font-style: italic;">am</span> near the end at least; and, I'll post it as soon as I can.<br /><br />Walter reminds me to let you all know it was <i>me,</i> not him, behind the complete lack of updates since the last post. Apparently the last time he posted such, I went haywire on him. I have absolutely no recollection of this incident. I'm a little distressed to hear it and immediately apologize. He said it happened during a bad sick spell, yes, but I <i>sounded</i> totally lucid, so he didn't put it down to the illnesses or drugs, like he does when I'm <i>not</i> lucid. <br /><br />I told him, --That happened a few other times, the nurses told me, getting noticeably mad and being verbal about it, even during apparently *lucid* times. But they said they could tell right away it wasn't really *me* in there at the time, lucid or no. So please understand, while I did mean the *please don't post without asking first* part, I most certainly did <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> see any reason or justification for *yelling* at you. How could you know not to post an update when I never said so? Usually I <i>want</i> you to do updates so people don't worry, I can't <i>stand</i> it when my readers worry.--<br /><br />This time, Some Things changed since my own last post. The last six or eight weeks of bad illness instilled those changes - some permanent, some not - and I do remember I'd just wanted to explain a bit about how it all took place, before early updates went out. That's all. I was working hard on the Big-Ass *Most Recent Adventures* Post, and was surely way too optimistic about when I'd finish it. Way way too sick to think like that, when those Some Things have clearly changed.<br /><br />So - I want to apologize to all you readers, too. I doubt it will happen again, where I neither *update* personally nor ask Walter or Nancy to do it. It was indeed a very serious bout; but I'm home now, discharged in the early afternoon on Thanksgiving Day. <br /><br />Home. How really, very, sweet it is.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-55347870492302785602009-11-28T12:01:00.000-05:002009-11-28T12:02:37.795-05:00HAPPY BLACK FRIDAY EVERYONE!!!.<br />Okay. A belated *Happy Black Friday!* too. But it still counts! Um, because it's still Thanksgiving Weekend, and the *Madness Continues,* as no doubt some ad campaign somewhere is hollering out.<br /><br />Me, I don't begrudge anyone their Retail Therapy, no no no. It's just that it doesn't usually work that way for me, so on the Really Big Shopping days I call it a spectator sport and stay home.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-90596152420494402182009-11-28T11:52:00.000-05:002009-11-28T11:53:45.543-05:00*HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!!!.<br />Okay. A belated *Happy Thanksgiving!!!* But it still counts, because it's still Thanksgiving Weekend. Plus, some folks that miss the Actual Day are now just sort of moving it to Saturday or so forth. Wisely, yes?<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-9870895511194949352009-09-25T16:46:00.006-04:002009-09-25T17:01:21.712-04:00I'm alive. And I'm home. And I'm maybe, maybe, safe..<br />I'm alive. I'm home. HOME.<br /><br />And I dare to think this: I may, even, be safe.<br /><br />Safe. Staying at home now.<br /><br />After almost 5 months *away,* 4 or 5 admissions to the hospital, and 2 into the step-down nursing homes.<br /><br />ach. Quiet. Don't want to jinx it...<br /><br />I have so much to tell you all. Right now it's 3:10 pm and there are calls to make before 5 pm, you know how that goes. But I'll be back soon, probably before most of you even read this.<br /><br />Bear with me. Just 2 days ago I lost the use of my Left Hand Swearing Finger. (A finger that, of course, I treasure.) The tendon, which was already in that contracture state, decided to blow completely. Now I can move the finger up and down at the place it attaches to the hand, but I can't bend it. (And yeah, it hurts.)<br /><br />Then I ended up back in the ER, with coumadin (warfarin) issues. a<span style="font-style: italic;">GAIN.</span> argh!<br /><br />Last night a cut on my leg started an uncontrollable bleed. The doofus insurance company hadn't arranged for a visiting nurse to come do the blood tests to adjust the warfarin. I noticed my blood was looking sort of...watery, so I stopped the warfarin, pending the Invisible Blood Test conducted by the Invisible Visiting Nurse.<br /><br />And for the ER, I brought in a rather spectacular bloody bandage to show how much it seeped overnight.<br /><br />Which was a good idea. Because, of course, it stopped bleeding once I got to the ER.<br /><br />I told them it was just like when the fridge is on the fritz and the appliance guy finally shows up, usually 2 hours late, and the fridge has decided to work for now. So Mr. Appliance Fixer comes out from behind the fridge - grinning of course, grinning fit to beat the band - and says: --Seems to be doing fine now, ma'm-- and hands you a ridiculous bill that should be <i>actionable, </i>Lord above.<br /><br />Doc said go <i>back</i> on the warfarin, put heavy pressure on it if it bleeds again, and ride it out.<br /><br />Yuuu'ho-kay Doc.<br /><br />Plus there seems to be a lizard trapped in my Special Electric Air Mattress, which I pretty much live on, 24/7. Poor thing, jumping around inside, looking for a way out. Hitting its little head on my legs here and there, <i>bop! bop! bop bop!</i> And how in the world did it get in there in the first place?<br /><br />But - BUT!!!!! - the electric bill is PAID!!!!!, YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! We have lights again! And we can keep the three kinds of insulin cold and run my oxygen machine and crank up my hospital bed at the foot <i>(elevate elevate elevate)</i> and at the head (<i>head should be upright when patient enters or leaves the bed)</i> and I can charge my camera battery too, if I can find the charger.<br /><br />And since I'm on the internet again, FINALLY, I can try to find that dermatologist I scheduled an appointment with because my ID doc is very concerned about these infections all over my right arm. (They're the ones that let me escape the most recent nursing home by getting admitted to the real hospital again. heh heh heh!) She - get this - this doc who can diagnose a new infection from 10 feet away, with her eyes closed and both hands tied behind her back - she sees some that <i>she can't identify.<br /><br />Eeeeeek!<br /></i><br />So it should be interesting, at least.<br /><br />Okay. I better go. I shall, I will, be back; there's so much to tell you all. Even lizards in air mattresses and <b>The. Best. Readers. In. The. World.</b> sometimes must wait a bit for more good news.<br /><br />Well...I hope it's good news, anyway. At least it will be to Lizard and Friends, if we can free him.<br /><br />And me? Yes. I LOVE to be alive.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-28011846339738994952009-08-13T23:49:00.003-04:002009-08-14T00:06:22.400-04:00Okay. I'll Keep on Talking Even if I Don't Have Much to Say..<br />Right now both my hands are in painful ruins, and the voice software is ever so close - but not usable yet. It makes it hard to communicate. This post took bits and pieces of about 12 hours. Not easy ones, to tell the truth.<br /><br />But I had a bad night last night. So. Why would that count any differently just now? Because it would have been way worse without the comments and emails I got before I tried to sleep. Add in the sense of reconnection with the readers who haven't checked in yet. Mona. <i>I</i> owe <i>you</i> a glad debt of gratitude.<br /><br />You folks are a significant part of what's been keeping me going not just since March, but through some pretty rough times the last few years. For whatever reason, however it works, I don't seem to care any more. It does work, and that's enough for me.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Awww</span>, <i>mush!</i> Enough.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">heh</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">heh</span>! LL. Half-Korean/all-Southern motorcycle mamas are not the only tough ladies around. Which, ah, needn't necessarily preclude me requesting a bit of advice here and there. In my humble opinion.<br /><br />My Pops. I've been worrying about you worrying about me since this whole long episode started. <br /><br />I'm so sick I can't even review much of previous posts or comments. But you figured that out, plus that it really does take physical strength to heal and to write, and helped me out once again. That's just a part of why you're such a great Pops.<br /><br />As to the potential malpractice (??!)...in this case I, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">mmm</span>, left out that the goof was ours this time. Mistakes are almost always made, on both sides, right? To me, it's when they happen like what that jerk nurse did at Imperial Point that a line gets crossed.<br /><br />I miss you too, all of you, heard from already and those to come. I hope to keep up posting, even little bits, but that means I'll have to stop a lot. A new bag of antibiotics has been hung off my IV pole, and I need to baby my IV site so carefully, it's time to quit for the night.<br /><br />I'll be back. <br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-12380597907805455442009-08-12T17:08:00.004-04:002009-08-12T18:25:10.003-04:00We're Here. We're Alive..<br />Walter and myself have both been trying to let you know how and why we're here and alive - not just those bare facts.<br /><br />But - forgive us - some bare-facting<span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span> will have to do for a start.<br /><br />I'm still in the hospital, the big one. I've been discharged and readmitted at least three times. After Walter and I recovered from the Chest Cold from Hell, I came here because I was coughing up small amounts of blood again, had bad lung and chest pain, and felt generally terrible.<br /><br />So. Lung issue. Turned out to be pneumonia. Got isolated and treated and sent home. Survived.<br /><br />After I'd spent a luscious day or two at home, Walter woke up from a sound sleep one morning just because my lungs were rattling so loudly the noise got him. We returned to the hospital, but this time under the admittance of my primary.<br /><br />Far more serious this round: double (meaning both lungs) MRSA<span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span> pneumonia. Fluid in left and right pleural cavities. 500 cc's <span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span> had already been removed from the right pleural cavity, and it was rebuilding all over the place.<br /><br />Combined with all that general ill health, another heavy outbreak of maybe-MRSA <span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span>lymph node infections, and some other stuff, I almost didn't survive that bout. Meaning my parents, Walter, other docs should be notified, legal papers or verbal permissions signed or heard, all 'o that dreary ickiness...<br /><br />I'm not trying to be a drama queen here. But it was an interesting experience. Certainly, it was unpleasant. Extremely. And frightening - though mildly! - in a way I'd never experienced fear before. Somehow I think we may be better off having a chance to approach death very closely once, just that one time, before it actually happens, before life is irretrievably lost. <br /><br />Well, it went on and on. Cardiac catheters were prescribed to investigate why severe pulmonary hypertension had been discovered. Aaauuuggghhh!!! Turned out I need a triple bypass! But the Triple Bypass Doc on the cardiac team refused to do the surgery because I wouldn't survive it; I'd get an infection and die. <span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span> Stents? Yeah, they might keep me going another year or two. He seemed to find them an uninteresting endeavor, though. He was, after all, a Bypass Man.<br /><br />A nice Miscellaneous Stents in General man came by the next day. He felt HIS Stents could last a good 10 years. Besides, who could ever really predict lifespans anyway? We all looked at each other - me, Walter, Mom - and said, -Yes. A 90%, 70%, and another something-blocked vessel resulted in 2 stents in one vessel, one in another - and Stents Man was all done, and happy with his work.<br /><br />More? Septicemia. Yup, good old-fashioned blood poisoning. A huge outbreak of what looked like <span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span>MRSA infection, maybe coupled with other germs, through the entire right arm; another from the left abdomen through the entire left leg all the way to the left foot, with fevers that cooked bedclothes and required Cooling Blankets that were forgotten; urinary tract infection (yeah. Ouch.) and a neglect of testing and misapplication of coumadin, or something, resulting in waking up in huge pools of watery blood - I mean like 2 x 3 feet pools - that had leaked from tiny cuts, as small as little papercuts, in my arms throughout the night.<br /><br />It's been quite a trip. Please excuse this rat-a-tat writing style, okay? Communicating verbally isn't going well for me lately either, although rumor has it that's temporary and common and goes away pretty quick.<br /><br />So I don't <span style="background: yellow none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;" class="goog-spellcheck-word"></span>know how much of what's happened I could actually get across to you. But I do hope this much did:<br /><br />I survived it. All of it. And with all due respect to the Powers that Be...I intend to keep on doing so.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-48507813917201826752009-07-23T11:52:00.002-04:002009-07-24T02:53:30.247-04:00I am still alive. ***Warning! Medical Alert!*** Some of this post may gross you out if you're sensitive. Careful!.<br />I am still alive.<br /><br />And I intend to stay that way.<br /><br />I'm also vitally ill. Very weak. Except for two days, I've been in the hospital since Walter''s post. Turned out I didn't need a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">pitt</span> stop. Or even a tune-up. Nope. Did need a complete overhaul from head to toe, though.<br /><br />I was admitted exactly a month ago with pneumonia and fluid in the right lung, coughing small bits of blood again; a minor fungal infection and thrush in the throat; and a heart rate around 150. The pneumonia later turned out to be from my colonized CA <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">MRSA</span>, which - yes - is a very serious thing indeed.<br /><br />It moved to the other lung: double <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">MRSA</span> pneumonia. The docs drew 500 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">CC's</span> of fluid out of my right lung cavity.<br /><br />Oh my! Have you ever heard of The Worst Procedures You Never Want to Have Done To You? like a bone marrow biopsy, or a chest tube, like you see on Trauma Center?<br /><br />Draining the fluid in my lungs, a simple procedure that usually takes less than five minutes, took 20. The doc and 2 nurses were great. It wasn't their fault. It's just that despite the cutest little ultrasound machine you ever saw, they couldn't find the path into the pocket of fluid that would let it drain. So the long huge needle poked into my back was gently but purposefully moved about, searching, searching, while this here so-called Experienced Pain Patient lost all dignity, squeezing a nurse's two fingers with all my strength and still sometimes having to scream out loud...<br /><br />They finally pierced the pocket of fluid. The excellent doc had said it might be jello and hard to tap; or liquid, easy. The bottle waiting under my back to receive the fluid was 1500 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">CC's</span>. I filled it just over half way; they called it 500 <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">CC's</span>. Mom and Walter say that's about a pint, one and a third cans of Coke.<br /><br />I didn't have my camera. Frustration! But I held this bottle, a heavy utilitarian laboratory thing, in my hand. The fluid was warm and a little foamy. Odd to think it had just come from my body...The doc had a place on a report form where he was supposed to name the color of the fluid. One of the nurses rolled her eyes at me and grinned, whispered --This is his way of having fun at work.-- He thought and thought and then his face cleared and he said: --Apple cider! That's exactly the color of apple cider-- and looked quite satisfied with his report.<br /><br />That was a little partial vignette from my month of life in this hospital. I'll have to see how much more I can tell, because I'm very weak. Probably a long overview will have to do for now: bear with me.<br /><br />I've been admitted to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Broward</span> General three times, sent home once and nearly died, sent to an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">SNF</span> (nursing home) without IV antibiotics and again almost died. There have been other close calls. But I am determined to stay alive, and if all powers that be agree, so I will.<br /><br />The timing of various infections and other incidents is a bit cluttered in my mind. Sorry. Sometimes I swim in and out of consciousness. Walter says I spent about ten days either intermittently babbling, or perfectly coherent until I digressed onto something else coherent but senseless, like what my dead pet cats are fond of eating these days.<br /><br />Double <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">MRSA</span> pneumonia. Fluid in the right plural cavity. Tachycardia. The first admitting doc was some idiot I didn't know. My ID doc and my primary were both on vacation. Under protest from me and Walter, I was released and sent home. We both felt I wasn't well enough, but the fever and tachycardia were under control, my lungs were getting better; they basically had no reason to keep me that the insurance company would pay for.<br /><br />Have any of us<i> not</i> realized that insurance companies have seized almost total control of the most important decisions of our lives?<br /><br />We were ordered home, so home we went. Encamped in the hospital bed where I'd lived for the past few months, I slept. When morning came, Walter woke up from the noise my lungs made as they rattled when I tried to breathe. Sick, sick bad.<br /><br />Okay. Back to the hospital. But this time, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">strategize</span>.<br /><br />Water called my primary - the young and exceedingly competent Dr. D. - and my pulmonary (lung) doctor, the great Dr. S. We 'd have much more trust, much better understanding and communication, if my own docs who knew me were on the case. My primary was just back from vacation and booked to the hilt for appointments - could we see if Dr. S could squeeze me in?<br /><br />Yes. But not till 3:00.<br /><br />Both docs were near or on the premises of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Broward</span> General, where I'd been and needed to return.<br /><br />Only a primary could be an admitting doc. Dr. S is a specialist. But they know each other and know my history.<br /><br />I waited through that day of terrible sickness, trying to balance competing needs, trying to hide from Walter how my life-force was draining away. Oh, sick, sick. Scared and sad about maybe seeing the end? Despairing? Sure. All that. I didn't feel ready, didn't feel it was time. Not time. That's sad, to die before your time is due.<br /><br />Time finally came to go to the doctor. During the last ten minutes or so of the drive, my face changed and Walter fully realized that I knew too, no hiding it any more...Later he told me my face went dead white, and my chipmunk cheeks looked gray and sunken somehow; and he hid from me what he saw and understood.<br /><br />How silly we can be sometimes. Here we were, both knowing the real danger of death was close by. We weren't hiding that. We were hiding from each other that we<i> knew </i>it.<br /><br />The doctor visit was funny and poignant and scary. I'll try to tell you why later. Dr S had a resident with him who I'd met before, and liked and respected. He walked us - Walter pushing me in a companion chair - through the ER, past Triage, past Admitting; past sick people waiting for help stacked in gurneys and wheelchairs along the hallway on what may have been the busiest day in that hospital's ER in its history.<br /><br />Was it wrong? No. Triage had already been performed. Inability to breathe takes precedence over a broken arm. It's why I instantly, gladly, yield my place when the shoe's on the other foot.<br /><br />Now? Such a lot of work; it's just exhausting. All my days are filled with <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">xrays</span> and ultrasounds; breathing treatments; blood glucose tests and three types of insulin shots; blood draws, from this most difficult *stick.*<br /><br />Such new developments, such new discoveries of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">pre</span>-existing *Issues!* Fluid was rebuilding in both lungs, <i>no,</i> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">eeewwwww</span>!!! A huge and serious <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">MRSA</span> infection ate my entire right arm. Then another one encased my left leg and side from the foot to the middle of the abdomen. A lung doc found I had pulmonary hypertension. ME? High blood pressure in my <i>lungs </i>when my <i>body's</i> blood pressure was so nicely low?!! grump! A *double* cardiac <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">catheterization</span>, to check out the pressures between the heart and lungs, was scheduled.<br /><br />Then...a positive blood culture came back from the lab. CA <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">MRSA</span>, and another antibiotic-resistant bacteria, had both infected my bloodstream. Usually that signals the beginning of septicemia. Blood poisoning. Death.<br /><br />Whereupon they finally gave me one of those super-secret super-powerful antibiotics they hold in reserve for people like me - and all the infections began to turn around.<br /><br />Yesterday I finally had the cardiac catheter. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">Hmmm</span>...just realized I've no idea what they discovered about the pulmonary hypertension. Because one of the cardiac docs came to my room, once I was conscious, to say that he'd have done a triple bypass on me right then and there, except I would not have survived it. I wouldn't if he did it later either. He would not crack my chest like Walter's, not now, not ever, although I really needed it, because I would not survive the surgery. Did I understand?<br /><br />Uh, okay. So where does that leave us? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Stents</span> and such? Yes, he thought they might keep me going for a while longer anyway.<br /><br />My mother's here now, and Walter, and we've all learned that to talk to any of the huge multitude of docs now enveloping me, we must sit patiently in this hospital room and they will come to us. Sometimes we have no idea who they are. Even after they leave.<br /><br />Today, Thursday, a much less upset cardiologist came by. We all immediately respected, liked, and trusted him. He firmly believes he can go right back in through the femoral artery, just like yesterday's cardiac <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">cath</span>, and find and use the right type of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">stent</span> or angioplasty to get me better, not just as a stop-gap, but to hold open the three badly blocked vessels for years to come.<br /><br />Yes. From all of us.<br /><br />They scheduled the surgery immediately - for today - but just as my preliminary preps were done, they found my potassium was low. So tomorrow's the big day. And this time we'll try hard to post the results right away.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_21">Ach</span>. For such a long post, such a small sample of this odd month's life. So much else has been happening. Please understand how sorry I am for not posting better updates. I know you already forgive me, but I also feel your concern and worry. Perhaps I'll never stop being surprised at how strongly I feel it, and how much it means to me. How strong it keeps me, to know that you care.<br /><br />Know this: I made it through some terrible situations this month. Your hopes and best wishes and prayers, and my family's, and my other friends', all gave me more strength to endure than I would have, could have, summoned up on my own.<br /><br />I am still alive.<br /><br />And I intend to stay that way.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-14851454225759809262009-06-26T10:22:00.005-04:002009-06-26T19:19:25.797-04:00THE PITT STOPK was admitted in a hospital on a 24th of June with various infections, and with fluid in her lungs. She is feeling a little better now but how long Her hospital stay will be is for now uncertain. Unfortunately her laptop is broken so her favorite pastime of blogging from a hospital bed is impossible. On the other hand She has Her camera so I'm sure She'll entertain us with Her pictures.<br /><br />For now I'll try to keep You posted on Her progress. I hope You all forgive for my imperfect English.<br /><br />Walterkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-47633769191062232862009-06-21T15:05:00.002-04:002009-06-21T15:08:02.186-04:00Wha-- huh?!? Wait a sec. Happy FATHER'S Day! ha! memorial day, my dyin' a**!! some doofus sittin' around here not knowing whut the heck day it is, lor.<br />WELL. A revelation? Nah. The holidays are a great way of remembering where one's sitting on the calendar at any given point of time. That ain't news.<br /><br />So Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there! Enjoy your time of BBQ'g - or having someone else feed you; of visiting with family - or simply sleeping the day away in quiet; of going out fishing - or setting some of those offspring to work sweeping out the garage. Hey. Payback time, right? You gave them life and an upbringing. They can give you a little broom time in return.<br /><br />Families can be the most wonderful, and the most terrible, influences in our lives. They can kill us, or they can save us. And for many of us, over our lifetimes we experience both states of being.<br /><br />So I'm going to add in the extra-firm wish that you fathers celebrating today are the happy beneficiaries of good relationships with reasonably deserving kids. That sentimental Norman Rockwell approach to life is not for me. Sorry, guys. I just never trusted it. I like reality, and that other approach is too easily used as a vehicle for denial.<br /><br />No! What we want here, IMO, is a REAL and sweet relationship with said kids. So that's what I'm wishing for you dads today. The real-for-real good stuff. YUM!<br /><br />heh!<br /><br />Enjoy.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-76660389629646371412009-05-24T03:29:00.002-04:002009-05-24T03:35:21.962-04:00Happy Memorial Day Weekend!.<br />Up North, back in Days of Horrible Cold, I lived in Chicagoland from age seven to 22. After making a great escape to Florida and warmth, moving all over this state, spending four years in New Orleans and Shreveport and one year back in Chicago, I came home to Florida for good.<br /><br />Which doesn't mean I've forgotten, for one single second, those Days of Horrible Cold. Folks, the last couple of winters, you've finally seen some of the snow-and-ice brutality we had for three winters in a row in the late 1970's. I can out-Snow Story 99.9% of anyone reading here. I worked outside in that stuff.<br /><br />Ah, but springtime...Spring is my favorite time of year, and always has been, since those early childhood days in sunny Southern California.<br /><br />Moving up North? Well. ksis was four, k seven, kbro almost nine. Hopefully, all of us have finally forgiven the p'rental units for the great travesty of kidnapping us three innocent offsprings, tearing us away from sunshine and mountains, warmth and deserts, ocean and beaches and those round hills of golden grass, and people who at least <i>acted</i> friendly and considerate and welcoming...<br /><br />then plunking us into an atmosphere of icy coldness in every sense of the words; into relentless gray from skies to trees to buildings to land; flat flat flat everywhere you turn; a few cornfields and cattle, a couple windmills, areas of wilderness, yes and a beautiful little spring-fed lake, a polluted river...that was about all.<br /><br />Except for springtime. In spring there were days that were not gray.<br /><br />kmom reminded me not long ago of a day in my first fall up north. It was us kids' first experience of cold, of snow, of ice. The birds had disappeared, it seems; and I wondered where they'd gone. Naturally, I asked my mom, who Knows Many Things, and tried hard to teach us kids in the same positive, intelligent, bright manner that guides her own life.<br /><br />She explained:<br /><br />--They all flew south for the winter!<br /><br />and to her shock I burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.<br /><br />Oh, my poor mother! We gave my parents no peace about this move they made way back in 1965. They're still there, in that beautiful spacious house, where I saw the <i>third</i> huge generation of 17-year cicadas emerging in droves when I visited two years ago.<br /><br />My friend Sylvia, from Brazil, had a sister who moved to Denver. I asked Sylvia how she felt about this Denver business. She told me: --I'm a tropical girl.<br /><br />Me too.<br /><br />We made it through that first winter, and the ones that followed. Spring came. And over the years, Memorial Day came to represent the dividing line between winter and real spring, the kind of spring that was safe, that stayed. Sometimes Memorial Day was cold or rainy. But there was no snow or ice any more.<br /><br />In springtime the birds come back.<br /><br />An outing! Family time. We'd set out from the Far North suburbs and have a Memorial Day picnic with relatives in a Chicago park. Corn on the cob! Hot dogs, watermelon. Aged, distant relatives of my mother's, Esther, Ed, others, who'd all passed away by a few years after we'd met them. People in my family rarely die, and Ed's funeral was the only one I attended until my own adulthood. All four of my grandparents lived halfway to forever; but until we left the Southwest, it seemed only my father had other relatives besides his parents. This largish bunch of kmom's uncles and second cousins was a little bewildering.<br /><br />A day off school! Civic duty time. As a Brownie, then Girl Scout, then playing the flute in the school band, I walked along in our tiny small-town Memorial Day parades. I never liked parades until I moved to New Orleans, and the arthritis made certain types of walking painful, so these were more endured than enjoyed.<br /><br />My child's mind really didn't understand what all this was about, anyway. Our thin groups walking - I can't say anyone actually *marched* - various Boy and Girl Scouts and a little school band, maybe a 4H Club group I never saw or even knew existed elsewhere during the year...A straggly bunch of old men in odd pointy blue hats with <span style="font-size:130%;">VFW</span> on them - over the years these were joined by young men, and sometimes there was a complete divide between the old and *new* veterans, they'd walk in two separate groups, seeming completely unaware of the others' existence.<br /><br />We'd end up at a small country cemetery with bare spots in the grass paths, old headstones leaning, fine ones upright and almost glowing in that clear, young springtime light. One of the old vets in a <span style="font-size:130%;">VFW</span> hat would make a speech about war and democracy and safety and remembering those who gave everything for us. Sometimes his voice quavered with age. Sometimes there'd be a gun salute, shattering the quiet air in the small country cemetery with sound and gunpowder smoke and shock waves reverberating.<br /><br />Death is a part of life. How many times have we heard this? And death feeds life, it's that ancient cycle. We all die, one way or another.<br /><br />But there's a difference, an added dimension, when someone dies in the course of working to save others. Whatever <i>your </i>beliefs about war, this is a nearly universal truth: those who enter it voluntarily believe they are there to protect the lives of others. Of us, here at home. And those who enter war involuntarily, or become part of the collateral damage accompanying all wars, make yet another sacrifice.<br /><br />What they all did was this: they gave their lives to help preserve ours. To give us time to reach spring and see that sun shine again.<br /><br />I tried to find out why Memorial Day is held at the end of May. Its history is shrouded in murk. Apparently it just sort of happened that way. A series of groups and towns independently arrived at the same time of year to honor their war dead.<br /><br />Springtime.<br /><br />Which makes perfect sense to me.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com69tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-46257128869729478192009-05-15T18:54:00.000-04:002009-05-15T18:55:53.576-04:00Bone Marrow Biopsy: Check..<br />It's done.<br /><br />It went well. Not fun, of course; but not as bad as the horrible rumors one seems to hear about this procedure. How much of that was due to the great skill of this particular doctor is a matter of speculation. <br /><br />He's a treat. Calm, funny, kind, open and interested in all that goes on around him. When I have bad medical experiences, health care workers like this go a very long way toward redeeming their professions.<br /><br />Oh, it's <i>done.</i><br /><br />The follow-up visit is in two weeks.<br /><br />Now I will rest.<br /><br />And after that...perhaps I shall play.<br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11967806.post-22833713114980431192009-05-15T09:36:00.000-04:002009-05-15T09:37:25.787-04:00These Dreams I Have.<br />I really do have the most bizarre dreams.<br /><br />I always did. But what I have now are antibiotic dreams. Apparently I'm not the only one who has this happen. They are truly weird.<br /><br />Walter rarely remembers his dreams, so of course he stoutly insists he doesn't have any at all. HA! I listen to the man muttering in his sleep. Dreaming. He's probably REALLY lucky I can't even figure out which language it's in, much less understand what he's saying. ;-)<br /><br />The dreams often contain these oddly inoffensive scenes of great and bloody violence. I mean, just awful stuff. Yet they can troop about my brain while leaving no sense of nightmare behind.<br /><br />Last night was a combination of science fiction, roast beef, feeding my baby reindeer, and Spudnik.<br /><br />You read that right. Not Sputnik.<br /><br />Somehow, in my dream, I made that old joke out of it. For you young whippersnappers, this was the Soviet Union's space program in 1957, the one that beat us into orbit.<br /><br />The roast beef episode was in some sort of boarding house or hostel run by an old man. I wanted it roasted low and slow, and was perfectly willing to do all the cooking myself, if only he'd be sure the oven was clean. This was late at night, like much of the dream, with an eerie silent spacey quality to it all. He seemed a bit grumpy that I wanted to cook at 2 am. (I've gotten that a lot throughout my life.)<br /><br />Cut to outdoors, where another nighttime scene contained some visitors from outer space, with a number of folks rappelling down a rocky cliffy hill. In Florida. Next to a highway overpass. South Florida is notoriously flat.<br /><br />The baby reindeer? It was SO CUTE! It was big and gangly, all legs like they are, and it twitched its tail most fetchingly. Someone from a biology program was trying to supply its special milk formula, but because of funding cuts, the milk was spoiled. Icky, nasty. Poor baby reindeer!<br /><br />This took place in a vacant apartment. My old friend Sylvia was in the background sometimes, cleaning some apartments for customers.<br /><br />We finally got the little baby reindeer to eat. We got some fresh cream and mixed it with mashed potatoes, which it liked.<br /><br />Spuds.<br /><br />Spudnik.<br /><br />The baby reindeer would nuzzle and nurse on the bottle, tugging hard, twitching its tail happily.<br /><br />I woke up laughing to myself.<br /><br />Until Walter handed me some very difficult news: We have no cream.<br /><br />No cream? No coffee. Can't drink it that way, me.<br /><br />On this day of all days.<br /><br />OMG.<br /><br />He stopped smoking 3 days ago, and is having it very rough. I remember, and always will, how incredibly sickening it was for me to quit. He says he can't get to the grocery store for cream. I know this means he's in a hard place. We really can't afford it right now anyway. I don't even have the money for today's doctor copay: we spent $6.19 yesterday on insulin, and $15 for Dr. S. All gone.<br /><br />And yes: If anyone can help with a $15 donation, it would be greatly appreciated. If not, we WILL get by. I know we'll find it some way. We always do.<br /><br />But if a person ever looked to dreams for portents, I've figured this one out.<br /><br />That cute damn baby Russian reindeer was EATING MY CREAM!<br /><br />.khttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06430423256832961746noreply@blogger.com0