clickmom

medical

We met with a hospice doctor on Friday and I hate to beat a dead horse, but the profound difference of speaking with a male doctor versus a female doctor (with the glaring recent exception of that super nasty hospitalist that you know I totally had a long with HR about) is not lost on this female caregiver. I was pretty shocked at how many times the husband was unable to answer her questions and looked to me to fill in for him. But it was also kind of great since his confidence can often times outshine his confusion and I just don't think other doctors are truly understanding how little he is actually understanding. I do think this lady hospice doctor got it though!! And for that I am thankful.  Also, when I told her I was reluctant to speak about the husband in front of him she heard me in the most glorious way- because she acknowledged what I said and then immediately stoped expecting me to speak about him in front of him. She and I will have a private phone call this week. 

What does that even say about this society that I am sitting here tickled pink after 8 years of full time caregivering because I met a doctor who respectfully listened to me? It's not a great reflection of this country's attitudes towards women, is what it is. It's not like there aren't good male doctors out there, we are talking with the kidney specialist tomorrow. I might have a tiny little crush on him. He is fantastic, but he treats kidney related stuff and I was in need of a big picture doctor and now we are in a better place because we have the shitty one, who I don't like but he is valuable because he is super connected because he has been practicing forever, and we have this new one- who can guide me. But, I did the thing, which is I kept plugging away until I found someone with whom I can have a mutually respectful relationship and for that I am proud of myself, and also so incredibly grateful. She seemed like a great fit for us. It's all good.

On Tuesday I am going to the orthopedist to see if I can figure out why my left butt cheek is suddenly hurting. Are the staircase slips from October coming back to haunt me, and if so why? I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared. I am pretty freaking scared right now. I feel like my luck is going to run out. Is it lucky to have three discs that take turns slipping out of place? NO, but I have been able to handle that for more than 4 decades now. I do not want any more complications. I am actually afraid that he is going to take some images and find a bad surprise. Or maybe I'm just getting more anxious as time goes by. No shock about that. 

In keeping with the medical theme of this post, I am also taking the husband for a PET scan of his lungs on Tuesday. That is freaking terrifying also because nothing like a cancer scare ....... I keep telling myself that it can't possibly be cancer and that it must have something to do with all of the choking he does and then I remember that his brother died from cancer and I tell my thoughts to just shut up and wait for the test results. So, I am going to try to not think about it. Nothing I can do before we know anyways, right?

Speaking of test results, we are also waiting for some labs regarding a purulent (I could go on for hours about how much I love that word. Does it not look, sound, smell exactly like what it means? Such a perfect word) substance that oozed out from underneath a scab on the husband's toe while at wound care last week. So, I am holding my breath waiting to hear that this is not a bone infection. Can you imagine if I lost two family members to a toe bone infection? That would be so messed up.

Cloud cracks

I stood in the backyard watching the light swell and fade from behind the clouds.

And I smiled when the little cloud cracks passed by the moon.

Hello, old friend.

TISMF yesterday

Prepare yourself

I’m typing out a novel on the phone. Well. You know how there is always “something” with me? ALWAYS?? I can never be super fine, un- injured, not have some weird non contagious condition??

Something seems to be biting me. I’m so itchy. I have red welts on me. And Sweet pea seems itchy too. I bought a flea trap and haven’t caught anything so it’s not fleas. I did get bit by bed bugs once and it is not them either. (They’re worse than this) I thought maybe mites? So I got the clever idea to take my sweet puppy to the vet thinking it would be easier to find out what’s biting her and just assume it’s the same thing biting me but … the vet thinks sweet pea has allergies. Also, that mites bite either humans or dogs but not both. I asked her if she was good at knowing what different bites look like on humans and she said MAYBE and even though she wasn’t convincing I showed her some of my bitten areas and she thought my bites look like round worm. (Puking emoji and also NO). So, I sent photos of my bites to my shit doctor who told me to take Ze allergy medicine that makes me sleepy, so, again NO, and use a steroid cream. Even though I told him that the vet thought it might be round worm. (Also, I did an internet search for that and again, NO, marks on me are not round so….) Now, my shit doctor didn’t actually prescribe a steroid cream, but I happen have one from October when the quack urgent care doctor prescribed one for my infected bee stings that I had to get IV antibiotics for at the ER and my Fucking insurance company/the hospital thinks I’m paying $2.6k.

Anyways, after the vet I raced home, got the husband fed breakfast, pulled some clean clothes onto him, and took him to wound care. They were running late. It was annoying. But everything seems fine down there regarding his wound. The hole in his foot is down to 3mm. Aaaarrrgghhhh!! That bitch needs to FUCKING HEAL ALREADY!!

So, the snow wasn’t that bad on the way back and I stopped at TJoes for some supplies, came back, fed him some lunch food, then I sat with him for a bit until he decided he was too tired to stay awake and now I am kind of doing this weird thing that I drive myself insane with which is where I am afraid to move and make noise because I don’t want to wake him up- so I’m sitting here in front of the TV being quiet except I don’t want to be sitting here in front of the television so I am about to bundle up and shovel the driveway because this isn’t enough snow for me to get the snowblower out. That would be embarrassing. I wish I had a toy snowblower for wimpy snowfalls like we had today.

And this is me just realizing that no one actually asked!

Hahahahahahaha

Also, I’m wearing pink socks today and I just saw my ankle out of the corner of my eye and completely freaked out for a second thinking my ankle was a weird pig pink like color. Hahaha. I thought I had to call 911!

Hahahahahahaha again

Fuck. He fucking woke up at 8 o’clock! So, I bet wrong this time, making myself the dinner food that he despises (cauliflower gnocchi with red pepper pesto) and then he only wanted pie (which I can’t say I blame him… the pie was delicious) so I made him eat some eggs first and then I gave him a piece of coffee cake because he had already had a piece of pie yesterday and two would have been too much. But then I ask myself… what are we doing here? Are we letting him have what he wants because we can’t hold back the flood waters of his disease anymore or are we insisting he feign taking care of himself? 6 days until we meet with the hospice doctor. I need an instruction manual.

I am the blue box

https://clickmom.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c1b4353ef02c8d3a8e978200d-pi

 

TISMF

So. I never actually ended up leaving the house today and somehow I feel like I have been through the wringer. The first thing on the calendar was an appointment with the heart failure specialist. I was dreading getting there and back because this foul rain and wind storm was probably going to roll in while he was with the doctor and I was pre-stressing how I was going to get him (in his wheelchair) into the car when this terrible lot is completely open and doesn’t have enough handicapped spots when at the last second I got through to the doctor’s secretary and switched to a phone call instead of going to the office. Then we just huddled around the fireplace waiting, spoke to the doctor who coughed and hacked the entire time. He had no new tricks up his sleeve in regards to the water around his lungs and we just have to take a day by day wait and see approach. I AM TERRORIZED. In the end I said to doctor no tricks cough-a-lot “sounds like a good thing we didn’t do this in person” and he said he had had this cough for THREE STRAIGHT MONTHS. Good lord.

Then the husband, who had rose at dawn, went to bed in the middle of the day even though he had PT coming in 2 hours, then the HVAC guy showed up so I showed him around the basement and said he fixed it, but it was like one of those “he jiggled something” explanations and then he did some maintenance stuff. While he cleaned and replaced a cap and a plug I texted the PT and told her the situation. She phoned me when she would have come over and told her he wouldn’t get up, I feel awful when he does that! It’s so rude. She told me it happens to her all of the time. Men are like that. Ha! .…. When the HVAC left the air was blowing but I told him it didn’t feel warm. He said something about it needing to cycle through and it’ll get warmer with each cycle…. I dunno.

So I did some dishes and didn’t really notice the temps because my hands were in hot water but then it had been 2 hours after the HVAC guy left and I looked at the room temperature on the thing or on the wall and the temp had fallen two degrees since the HVAC guy left. I called the HVAC place but it was 5:30 and they were already closed for the day. This doesn’t really feel like an emergency because I’m fine. We have have space heaters. I’ll just call them in the morning.

So, I woke the husband up and he said he wasn’t getting out of bed and he’d see me in the morning. And then, feeling self destructive while also in desperate need of soothing, I cooked the delicious cherry blintzes I saw were in the freezer downstairs. Now I’m just lying on the couch with Jeopardy on in the background feeling like I have had quite the day even though I never even left the house.

sloth

Am I depressed? Or is my sloth like behavior a legit response to my life circumstances?

First I need to say FUCK MY HUSBAND'S SHITTY PIECE OF SHIT DOCTOR. Today, I called his secretary to tell her that the husband 1. is still having brief bouts of severe diarrhea and 2. has lost 5 pounds since returning from the hospital (3 weeks tomorrow) and is terrifyingly emaciated which frightens me because now he looks so much like his brother in his last days before dying of pancreatic cancer. Recalling that the  jury is still out on the husband's lung nodules... and if this is cancer I am just going to buy him all of the desserts and everything on the kiddie menu and let him go to the next place we go to with a big smile on his face because practically the only thing that makes him happy these days is seeing a plate of the junkiest of foods coming towards him. But this POS "doctor" starts telling me the husband needs to be on the mediterranean diet, get exercise and a consistent sleep schedule. 

 

what

the 

ever

loving 

fuck

is

this

dude

talking 

about????

 

Attention ATTENTION! Please listen up in the back row! I don't want to say this more than a thousand more times 

THE HUSBAND IS IN THIS CONDITION BECAUSE FOR THE PAST TWO AND HALF DECADES HE HAS CHOSEN TO IGNORE THE FACT THAT HE HAS DIABETES. HE EATS WHATEVER HE WANTS (kiddie menu) HE SLEEPS WHENEVER HE FEELS LIKE IT (day/night night/day, in the day not the night... he is unpredictable) AND ASIDE FROM A BRIEF COMPETITIVE MOMENT WHEN I WAS IN THE SHORT PERIOD OF TIME WHEN I WAS BECOMING A SUPER ATHLETE (hahaha those days are gooooone) HE HAS NEVER VOLUNTARILY EXERCISED A SINGLE DAY IN HIS ADULT LIFE. 

This stupid ass MoFu "doctor" tells me that I should serve him fish for dinner and not keep any sweets in the house. We have this conversation on speaker phone so the husband can hear how the doctor is with me and on the slim chance that he wants to see the husband (He says not to bring him into the office because they ran all of the tests they could possibly run when he was in the hospital and it is too soon to rerun any) and as soon as I get off of the phone the husband asks me what kind of cookies we have in the house.

Anyways, I can not get a thing accomplished beyond the barest of necessities and its getting pretty old. I want to feel like an alive person again. When he is awake I stare at my phone because I watch over him, staying nearby,  he can still watch every single episode of NCIS ever on repeat and I can't take it anymore and when he is sleeping I stare at my phone because I don't want to wake him up. I really need to vacuum and I can't even figure out a good time. I am frozen  stuck and I do not like it. I have run out of things to chit chat with him about. I feel like a caged animal about to lose my mind. My bedroom is caving in on me because I can't even find time to get up there during the day to do some cleaning. I wanna cry. I want to curl up in the fetal position and have someone else care for me for a few days or weeks or years. I want to run away from home. I want to hide. I want to scream. I want to wake up tomorrow in someone else's carefree life. I am an empty vessel. I'm done. I have nothing left to give.

By the way, I have vivid childhood memories of being in the central park zoo with my grandmother watching the gigantic gorillas and lions in their tiny little torture cages, except somehow humans had not figured out how incredibly cruel it is to cage an animal like that yet, and today I feel like I can sympathize with them.

I am feeling a bit sad about not having a presence in the photo world. I hung out with this kind of nutty woman for a few years during the pandemic. I believe I was instrumental in helping her talk about her work, I gave her a lot of advice (graduate school snob- check) and lately she has gotten a lot of press. I suspect she enters her work into every single contest she finds, which is great and all, and also she befriended some people in the photo world who have sway, and to be quite honest, I am a wee bit jealous that her work is getting attention. I believe I could also be there in the limelight if I was doing the grunt work of marketing but I do not have it in me on a good day, and in these days of stress (and terror, because I am not exaggerating when I tell you this whole caretaker to a sick/dying/demented husband is fucking terrorizing) I can't manage to re-edit, resize and rewrite my artist statement over and over again to fit the bill for every fucking pay to play photo contest that comes across my computer screen. Also, the whole photo contest thing is just beyond weird and truth is while I would love an audience I don't really want to engage with that world. I'd rather be a recluse who has shows in big galleries and publishes sell out books but no one really seems to know who I am.

 

Okay, this sloth climbed out of the tree long enough to take her weekly dump and now it's time to climb up on the tree again. It's time for dinner, which I have not made because the husband is sleeping so I just ate some bread and cheese. Maybe I'll find some carrots to finish off strong.