CRAZY Day at the Office for Marilyn!!!
Well, I'm STARTING this before midnight, anyway. Hahaha. But there's NO WAY I'll get it done before 12:01...
So much to say. I'm literally FORCING MYSELF to sit here and blog tonight. Wow, it's HOT here in our office! We've been having really summer weather. We had some record of three days over 90' for this early in June. Crazy.
We do run the air conditioning. Don't get me wrong! But we try not to make it too cold downstairs, so then it gets hotter upstairs (I'm actually blogging at my computer in the office tonight, as it's MUCH FASTER to sit and touch type).
That's an interesting statement, coming from me! I used to think I was so SLOW typing! I had a hard time doing 60 words a minute, which used to be a minimum requirement, back in the day. But I'm pretty sure I'm much, much faster than that now. I wonder how that ever happened? I never took typing in school (summer school, but that was short and the teacher was pretty bad, frankly). So I learned a bunch of bad habits, I guess. I didn't know the correct way to hold my fingers and so on and so forth... Now I'm often having people at work remark on how FAST I type. It just shocks me! Hahaha. Who knew?
So, I'm probably going to REPEAT a bit of what I last blogged, because I've lost track of things. I hate it when I don't blog daily, because I like having the record of what's going on -- and it's an easy way to keep in touch with any number of my friends who actually want to know this boring day-to-day stuff. I feel sorry for the rest of you who probably have to force yourself to wade through all of it, though! Hahaha.
As I did report, Marilyn had her oral surgery last Thursday morning. Two teeth pulled, including her front tooth, plus one on the bottom. There were complications, and they had to take both teeth out in pieces, plus use a drill to finish getting them out. Then they did end up doing a bone graft on the front tooth. They had hoped this wouldn't be necessary... Much of our current concern is about that bone graft NOT FAILING. I don't know what would have to happen if it did fail. Start over from scratch? Or what?
Anyway, there's a temporary denture on top that replaces the missing front tooth (and goes across the roof of her mouth). As I think I reported (???) she bled a great deal the first day.
And she has been in pain and feeling sick (running a fever and so on). Marilyn has never been able to take heavy-duty pain meds, so she refused them when they were offered. (She seriously didn't want to vomit, because that would have made things worse for her.)
At work today I was telling people that she would say to me, "I have discomfort." Then I'd ask her to describe it, and she'd say things like she had throbbing and a deep ache. Well, in MY humble opinion, that's PAIN, not 'discomfort'!!! And I tried hard to get her to take ibuprofen frequently -- partly for the pain, but also for the swelling! But she's always a trooper and always going to play down her own pain. That's who Marilyn is. She's one of the toughest people I know!!!
Shopping for groceries has been interesting!
We had to find SOFT FOODS for her to eat. Most people would be on soft foods for a couple of days, tops. But because of the bone graft -- and how important it is for that to suceed -- she has to be on soft foods for a week (and who knows, maybe longer). (We'll find out more at her follow-up appointment this Thursday, hopefully! She's making a list of questions to ask.)
So we got mashed potatoes (she's now sick of them) and yogurt (she's sick of it) and Jello and pudding and tapioca and cottage cheese and ice cream. It's HARD coming up with a variety of soft foods, and she's sick of many of them, understandably.
We got Starbucks twice -- which she needs to drink WITHOUT A STRAW (even though she prefers to drink her Starbucks coffee with one). Sucking on a straw can mess up the blood clot that helps her wounds to heal. She really enjoyed having the coffee!
Tonight we went shopping again, and I suggested soft bread (with NO GRAINS OR NUTS) and tuna fish. That worked out really well! She picked out really soft hoagie rolls and I mixed the tuna with this yummy spread we bought. Nice dinner! The rolls were super soft! And tuna has protein and some nutritional value, which I can't really say for mashed potatoes (I guess the tiny bit of gravy she used had some).
It's been frustrating, being worried about sister Sue who has been in Good Sam hospital. Even if Marilyn had been up to going to see Sue, I wouldn't have wanted her to do that. I think it would have been seriously risky to expose her mouth wounds to the germs that are in any hospital. That's the last thing she would need right now. (Unfortunately, Marilyn saw this thing on Facebook today about a woman who had oral surgery on two teeth recently AND DIED from complications. That was the last thing either one of us needed just now... sigh...)
Marilyn isn't supposed to even be walking right now. (She probably shouldn't have walked over to Starbucks today, for example.) She's not supposed to do ANYTHING to raise her pulse (heart rate). This is, again, about not causing the bone graft to fail.
She was really disappointed to hear about this when she was told, because she's signed up for the Portland Marathon this fall, and really needs to be training this summer to get ready. She just ran recently and it went well, but she's worried about losing the fitness level...
Sister Sue got out of the hospital last night. I was waiting to hear from either Sue (who had said she would call me when she got home) or Candy (perhaps by text), but there was no word from either of them. So I took time today at work to phone Sue. She seemed to be in a bad mood. I'm sure she's still not feeling all that well. I'm not sure they should have sent her home.
Yesterday Candy was pretty upset about needing to leave work to go to the hospital. It was clear she was disappointed that Marilyn wasn't able to help out. I know Sue counts on Marilyn to help her, but I think it was absolutely necessary for Marilyn to focus on her own health for the first time in three years. She's spent a TON OF TIME on both Sue and me, after all. And she really needed this taken care of.
When Candy got to the hospital, they hooked Sue BACK UP to the IV! Seeing as Candy was there to take Sue home, I'm sure that was frustrating. But Sue is terribly anemic, so they were giving her iron again.
Marilyn immediately said Sue must have internal bleeding when she heard about the anemia. Now that's what the doctors were (finally) saying, too, according to Candy. About time. They wanted to do a colonoscopy on Sue (like they did on me when I was anemic), which makes sense. What I don't get is why they didn't keep her there and do it while she was at the hospital! Doesn't that make sense? Apparently not.
But Candy had told me she was supposed to go in TODAY about that. I guess Candy had to work, so Tammy (Sue's daughter-in-law) was going to take her. But Sue didn't want to go with Tammy, so she cancelled it. I only know what Sue told me on the phone, but I believe this is correct. I personally think Sue should have gone in, because we ALL want to know what's wrong with her -- and we're ALL worried! And the sooner they know, the sooner they can do something to help her. But what do I know?
She has an appointment with Dr. Young on Thursday -- the day Marilyn goes for her follow-up appointment for the oral surgery. Sue said maybe her friend Tammy might take her. I think that would be nice, if she could. The last I heard Tammy wasn't working, so she should have the free time. I don't know about transportation or any of that, though...
I did ask Sue to keep us updated about what's going on with her. Hopefully she doesn't think we don't care, because that's NOT TRUE. The timing has been difficult. And, yeah, we had to go to work today, whether we wanted to or not. (If it were up to me, Marilyn would have taken this week off. I get why she couldn't, but that doesn't mean I like it... sigh...)
I'm still not quite back to my normal sleep patterns. I know it's ridiculous, but I can't stop worrying about Marilyn during the middle of the night, so I get up and check on her a lot. Or just sit up with her. I was awake at 4:00 a.m. again last night. Thankfully I did get a bunch of sleep, though, and was fine at work today.
Anyway, after Marilyn's surgery, the two of us have been mostly lying around and watching TV, playing on our iPads and reading. We've barely moved around, to be honest. I know why that's true for Marilyn, but there's no excuse for me being that lazy. I guess I felt it was okay because I wanted to be there with her, and I was tired out from festival, anyway.
Getting back in the office today was hard. Marilyn had Executive first thing this morning (early) and really, really wanted to be there. But I thought we'd do a short day -- which I think she was planning on, originally. But good grief! All the DRAMA at work today! She kept saying, "I can't even be gone for three days." And she's right about that, clearly. So we didn't get home until 5:00 -- but Lord knows it could have easily been later! Hahaha.
We did leave the office around 4:00. But we stopped at Freddies -- partly so I could deposit my check (finally) at the bank.
Today was the first staff meeting in ages. And it moved into a meeting about the Pinnacle Award submissions. We all had a lot of ideas about that. The big deal? It looks like we're going to try for Best Festival in the World again this year (maybe). This will require MARILYN to do the work, because she's always the driving force behind it. I think we could win with all that went on this year. And she has a brilliant idea of how to enter. She's so creative! So I guess we'll see how that goes...
Marilyn spent some time today arranging for our trip to New York (in August) to attend the US Open, which was Marilyn's gift from the festival for her 40th anniversary. It's all complicated, setting up travel and so on.
I wonder if Sue will be better by then? She was going to take care of the cats for us. Not sure what we'll we do if she's not able to, but it's already on my mind after today... Right now I'm just worried about Sue being OKAY, period. So I'm not really counting on her with the cats. It doesn't seem very important compared to her HEALTH, after all! Still, somebody will have to mind the cats...
Speaking of the cats, Henry might be in remission from his illness! Anyway, he's doing really well right now. We haven't given him his daily pill for several days. We both think the weather has something to do with it. He lies in the window and soaks up the sun and heat and it really seems to help him. He's always bad in the winter, anyway...
Gosh, I have to say that both cats have been all over me!!! Marilyn has been nervous about having them near her (with her facial and neck swelling and poor sensitive mouth). Anyway, they want a lot of attention from me. That's always true after the festival, because we've been gone so much. I'm doing my best, but you should hear Henry yowl at me for MORE attention! He actually wakes me up when I'm sleeping!!!
I'd sure like to get to spend some time with June. It's been ages since we really talked. And Adeena, too, now that she's done with school (hurray for her!). I guess we'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks...
I STILL want to blog about parade day. I'm going to do that for sure! It was a very important day for us, after all!
Well, more work tomorrow. I need to head to bed soon! I guess this is good enough for today.
One of these days I'll start actually READING the blogs of my friends again! And I'll try being more active at Facebook and Instagram, too. Just not today. Hahaha.
Love you all!