Life Of Late - and Other Quibbles
So.
Hubby is 1 1/2 weeks out from having spent yet another week in the hospital with infections (this makes the fourth time this year - and as we enter month #6, he will have spent the equivalent of 1 complete 30-day month in hospital for this year, a new record.) He's back on IV antibiotics too - fourth go-around on that as well - and I've been doing it long enough now that it isn't a big deal anymore. Does that mean I'm feeling confident? Not really - but I'm not sure if my lack of apprehension might not be more a case of resignation than anything else. This time there's no second drug administered "push", and no PICC line with two ports to keep running. I've talked to the home health care nurses who come to establish the home IV schedule, each one of which has taught me something new about (1) the process - how to make it easier; and (2) IVs in general - including the issue of air in the line that gave me nightmares back when.
I'm still not thrilled; I still had/have no desire to be a nurse, never wanted to learn this much about how to do things. But this is my DH we're talking about here, and I'd be lost without him.
Speaking of which, we FINALLY have the authorization to see a vascular surgeon (a specialist, not a general surgeon who can/will do vascular work.) Would they let us see the guy near where we go for the fancy wound care? Of course not!!! This is, after all, an HMO we're talking about holding the power of life & death here - and the bean-counters (total idiots, all of them) rule the roost. No, rather than drive 100 miles to Santa Barbara, we have to drive 200 miles to Los Angeles to get to USC Medical.
Still... The wound care doctor is convinced that if the veins in DH's legs can be fixed, then the fluid won't build up, which then causes plasma leaks, which over time causes huge, gaping, UGLY wounds, which let in infections, which can and will kill him eventually. I wanna keep DH around, and I'd really like to see him no longer be utterly bed-ridden (to keep legs elevated, so gravity does the work the veins should be able to do on their own) and able to go back out to his wood shop. Frankly, DH is amazing; I think I'd be going bug-nuts if I were as trapped in the house/bed as he is, and yet he generally has an even temper and is in a relatively good mood. I'm lucky, I know.
O yeah - BTW, the same HMO is in charge of my care now too. And while it saw to it I now have the same GP as DH - and she's a fantastic doctor to have in my corner - I am now tripping over those same idiotic bean-counters. I am bone-on-bone osteoarthritis in both shoulders and both knees; and my GP referred me to a physical therapist and an orthopedist. When the authorization from the HMO came thru to the providers, however, they were directed ONLY to look at the knees. Sooooooo... a call to the GP office will hopefully get that cleared up before I see these other folks, if for no other reason than the shoulders are starting to have serious negative quality-of-life consequences for me. And I would prefer a better pain killer than Tramadol; but then again, I only use the prescription stuff when I'm in tears and unable to sleep. Thank the Universe for acetaminophen!!
To compound the fun, my car - a 2000 Ford Windstar that has 180K on it and is still on the original engine and transmission - has decided to start to give me grief. First was a coolant reclamation tank springing a leak, dumping coolant out as I drove, and so having the engine so hot it shut itself down while driving home - managed to get onto the freeway exit before it died utterly, and had to be towed to the fix-it shop two weeks ago. I was in tears because there was NO FRICKIN' WAY I could climb into the cab of the tow truck - so the guy called and got permission for me to ride in my van instead. (After all, just the day before, I'd seen my doctor and started hearing the words "joint replacement surgery" and "cortisone shots" to address pain issues!!!)
Then, they found my brakes were at 5% - so had to have THOSE done yesterday (not a great idea to be driving 100 - 200 miles with brakes literally ready to fail, right?) While they did that, they found out that one of the CV joints on my front axle had crud wrapped around it (something probably flew up from underneath from driving down the freeway) that was tearing the boot, which would cause loss of lubricant and bigger problems - and again, I didn't want my axle falling apart on me on the freeway in LA going 80 mph (which you sometimes end up doing just to not be an obstacle, ya know?) Sooooooooo... Needless to say, between the coolant issue, the brake job, and now axle repair, we're down nearly $1k that we really were hard-pressed to afford.
Oh - and we also know that the van also has (1) a broken engine mount - not a desperate problem, but one that will need to be addressed eventually; and (2) a leaky manifold, which will need to be fixed because it won't "smog" (pass a CA smog test) without it. However, comma, it will take months to rebuild the desperately tiny resources that got spent in the last 3 weeks. Hopefully the manifold - next on the list, granted that nothing else goes wrong - can wait until then.
I'm tired, I'm stressed, and I just generally want to climb into a hole and pull the hole in after me. I have a friend visiting from Moscow (Russia) that will be going home on Tuesday that I have yet to have had a chance to just hang with. I play music for the temple on Sunday. And the rest of it just seems to keep mounting up and catching me off-balance.
Can I resign as a grown-up human? Huh? Please? All I want to do lately is crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after me and vegetate for a day or three. Instead, I'll just smile and keep on going.
*Sigh*