Oh How I Love The Health Care System

Well, someone didn't get the memo, but the ENT I saw this morning doesn't do surgeries and procedures on Monday, he only see patients. He does his procedures and surgeries on Fridays. So, now I have to wait until Friday about mid-day to have the tubes put in and that's up in the air right now. That also means that if anything goes wrong, I'm left hanging 'cuz it's the weekend.

I feel angry, frustrated, flat out discouraged.

This Too Shall Pass?

Tomorrow's the big day, my ear surgery. I'm actually looking forward to it: 1. to get it over with and 2. so I can hear again. I hear almost nothing now.

I wonder what it will be like? Will there be pain afterward? During? I guess I'll be able to hear again right away - what will that be like after a week of almost silence? Will I tolerate the drops and meds involved? Lord, I hope so. I'm so tired of medication reactions. What will the doc be like? I've never met him and I hate having someone performing procedures on me when I haven't even met them. Will I be able to drive myself home? No one told me anything about prep or post procedure so this should be interesting.

I sure hope I feel better after this thing. I've been sleeping a lot again. There must be a lot going on in my brain that we're obviously unaware of. I would just like some time to heal and gain some strength back before having to face anything else.

We had our first long rainy day today and it was kind of nice. Have been feeling the itch to dig in the dirt something fierce but have no place to take advantage of it. Need an assistant to help with that kind of stuff. The old arms don't work as well or as long as they once did. Slow loss. Have had to get used to slow loss. Periods of grief and letting go.....periods of hope and strength....periods of wondering what's coming next....periods of just plain tiredness. The spirit sure can endure a lot...it gets weary but it keeps on keepin' on. This too shall pass. I hope so.

Hearing Loss

Well, it looks like I'll have tubes put into my ears early Monday. I haven't been able to hear much of anything for about a week due to a double ear infection. I'm terrified of another procedure: they're never simple where I'm concerned and on some level I really don't want to do it. The thing is, if we wait for the antibiotics to work, if they do, we weaken our arsenal of antibiotics and since I don't have a lot of choices where antibiotics are concerned, it needs to be done.

It's been interesting, this hearing loss experience. At first I was irritated. When I couldn't hear my mother's voice anymore I panicked. Once I was reassured I wouldn't lose my hearing permanently, things got better. Now, it's actually been kind of peaceful. Although I miss out on the small "hello, how are you" conversations, I also don't have to bother with all the background noise we put up with every day. It's like a constant onslaught to our nervous systems, and I enjoy not having that: it's been quite peaceful. What I really miss are the birds and squirrels, the lawn mowers and people raking....in other words the sounds of the warm seasons. Sometimes I miss the sound of my Yorkie and sometimes not! :-) She can be quite demanding and bossy at times. Be assured though, if it's important, she'll get my attention one way or another. She's also been my door bell when people enter the apartment and she lets me know when my phone rings. It's been interesting, for some reason the tone and volume on my phone are just right so I can hear on there just fine. It's quite curious.

I hope everything goes okay. Sure wish I had a few minutes to talk to my PCP. The visit went so fast and now I have concerns and fears I sure wish I could discuss with him before the procedure. I hate weekends when it comes to things like this. Maybe I'll get lucky and run into him beforehand. I dearly hope so.

Hold Hands And Stick Together

A friend of mine on the quilting newsgroup I belong to, my dear Miz. Polly, reminded me of a book I adore and haven't read in years. It's entitled, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things by Robert Fulghum. I don't know for sure what copyright stuff applies here but I'm going to share some of his wonderful essays here in my blog and if I am doing unlawful things, well it surely is not my intent so please kindly let me know. In the meantime, please enjoy these wonderfully witty and often wise insights. I do, so very much.

"Each spring, for many years, I have set myself the task of writing a personal statement of belief: a Credo. When I was younger the statement ran for many pages, trying to cover every base, with no loose ends. It sounded like a Supreme Court brief, as if words could resolve all conflicts about the meaning of existence.

The Credo has grown shorter in recent years--sometimes cynical, sometimes comical, sometimes bland--but I keep working at it. Recently I set out to get the statement of belief down to one page in simple terms, understanding the naive idealism that implied.

The inspiration for brevity came to me at a gasoline station. I managed to fill an old car's tank with super-deluxe high-octane go-juice. My old hoopy couldn't handle it and got the willies -- kept sputtering out at intersections and belching going downhill. I understood. My mind and my spirit get like that from time to time. Too much high-content information, and I get the existential willies--keep sputtering out at intersections where life choices must be made and I either know too much or not enough. The examined life is no picnic.

I realized then that I already know most of what's necessary to live a meaningful life - that it isn't all that complicated. I know it. And have known it for a long, long time. Living it -- well, that's another matter, yes? Here's my Credo:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sand pile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life--learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup--they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick and Jane books and the first word you learned--the biggest word of all--LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about three 0'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are--when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."

Thanks Miz. Polly and yes, I promise to hold hands and stick together.

Well, as far as I know I beat the UTI infection and now am suffering from an upper respiratory (sinus/ear) infection. Tried a new med for the arthritis in between and got sick from it so stopped taking it. Feelin' pretty lousy tonight.

It was a beautiful spring day today, breezy, but warm. There's a disc (Frisbee) golf course in the park behind our apartment building and it's been very busy now that the weather is warming up. There are golfers of all ages and it's fun to watch.

My friend Star got her new wheelchair today. Not all that she needed but hopefully she won't have as much pain when we cruise around town. She was hoping it would be faster than mine but we tried it tonight and it isn't! She's not happy! I told her there is a chance he (the wheelchair man) could calibrate it higher next time he came out so maybe there was still a chance she could kick my butt yet!!! Now if we could both just start feeling better so we could get out there and burn up the trails!!!!!

I started doing some writing for my brother's e-magazine and am enjoying it. I do love to write: some days are better than others, mind you, but love it I do.

I've been contemplating moving mom someplace where she can have more help because I don't think I can handle it much more. It's a tough thing to think about but if my health does not improve, something's going to have to change. Plus, she's facing having to quit smoking after 71 years because our building is going non-smoking the beginning of next Jan. She says she'd rather live on the streets than quit. I'm exhausted right now and the idea of facing any of it is overwhelming. I know that partly it's the infection talking, but......tough decisions....one day at a time.

Well, Star was misdiagnosed in the ER. Her kidneys had not failed completely, she was dehydrated. They told her to limit her intake of fluids that night until she saw her PCP the next afternoon (this we were informed after I had to call the ER for her because they failed to send her discharge instructions home with her!!!) when what she actually needed was to drink more!!! Her kidney function levels had actually dropped (which is good!) and I wondered about that, plus her weight had gone down (it should have been rising due to fluid build-up) and I wondered about that. She saw her PCP the next afternoon and he told her she was fine and just needed to drink more.



To say I am angry and frustrated is an understatement!!! Just a couple of weeks earlier she had a UTI and her PCP wasn't there so she saw his back-up. He gave her an antibiotic that sent her to Abbott/NW Hospital in Minneapolis because above mentioned kidney function levels went sky high (meaning her kidneys were failing and needing dialysis)! He gave her an antibiotic that hurts the kidneys! Her primary diagnoses are congestive heart failure and renal failure - what the hell was he thinking? It seems like everytime she has to be seen by someone besides her PCP they screw her up somehow and these "little" emergencies are wearing me (and her) out!!!!



When you're a regular, (meaning you see your doctor more than you see your family!) I understand that your doc and you get to know each other very well and not all of that information gets into the record, it can't, and it's all that extra info that makes a doc/patient relationship work. Unfortunately, not knowing that information can also be dangerous to we the patient as well. There have been times when I know I would have been in deep trouble had I not been conscious when visiting the ER/Clinic/Hosp. - meds that I can't tolerate (which are numerous!) and meds that had been changed but hadn't gotten into the records yet, etc.



Like my doc told me once, it is called a "practice," or the medical "arts," and a former doc told me that, at least in Rheumatology anyway, it is an educated guessing game and that each patient responds differently. I know we all have bad days and docs are people too, but man oh man when it's your life or your best friend's life........!!!!!!!!!!