Tag: health

Scary

My father is moving out of the intensive care unit into the intermediate care unit. His physical issues are stabilizing. That’s excellent news. Unfortunately, none of the physical problems that were uncovered when he got to the ER on Friday are the reason he went to the ER on Friday. The reason he went to the ER was his confused and disorientated mental state. Even more unfortunately, that situation is getting worse.

He keeps trying to get out of the bed because he keeps forgetting why he’s in the bed. He called home today and talked about everyone who has visited him, including a couple of cats. There is a global pandemic. The hospital does not allow visitors, period. They especially don’t allow cats.

I just want a diagnosis. I want root cause. At this point I’ll settle for a decent theory. I’m completely freaking out. I am trying to be the good Male Irish Immigrant Stereotype* and bottle it all up but I’m failing miserably. I am completely freaking out and constantly on the verge of falling apart. What the hell is going on?????

*I’m a great grandson of Irish immigrants via my paternal grandmother’s line, but the stereotype still applies. I have the red hair to prove it. I probably have the alcoholic gene too. See what I did there? That was a joke based on a stereotype. See how it all ties together? I told you I was coming unglued.

No News Doesn’t Feel Like Good News

Dad is still in the hospital. No new news. His hematologist said it looked like he had a heart attack. His cardiologist disagreed. He didn’t have a heart attack, but the anemia is putting added stress on his ticker. He’s still losing blood and they still don’t know where it’s going. He’s still confused and having false memories and they still don’t know where it’s coming from. He’s doing a great job of hiding it. The staff can have lucid conversations with him. He knows his name, he knows the year, all that. He also insists that his daughter is a nurse and that he needs to move to another room in the hospital and that the doctor told him he was having heart surgery and that he’s had visitors and that he was once kidnapped. None of that has happened.

On a personal note, the foot issue that I believe is plantar fasciitis started coming back on Thursday and is now back with a vengeance. My foot hurts like holy hell. Just a touch of icing on the shit cake. I’ve somehow managed to stick with my intermittent fasting bullshit through this. I will be clear to start stress eating again in 14 minutes. Bring it.

That Wasn’t Fun

Yesterday started okay. The company I work for paid out the annual bonus. A little less than last year, but given the circumstances it was very nice. I was happy.

That’s about when the first customer issue of the day started blowing up. It was something slightly similar to something that happened at another customer site a few weeks ago so I brought the guy who worked through that in to help me.

That’s when the texts started coming. My father was out of it mentally. He told my sister a story about how he was kidnapped once and if she came to the house the kidnappers would come for her too. WhatWhatWhat? My sister got there first. My brother’s kids were home with a possible covid exposure so he was stuck. I told my boss about our customer issue and asked my staff member to keep on it and headed to my parents house.

My sister called his doctor and they said go to the ER. I told her to call an ambulance rather than drive him herself. Not long after, dad made the same suggestion. The paramedics came, and an ambulance, and a fire engine. They were there within about two minutes of my sister placing the call. Thank you all.

Lisa followed the ambulance to the hospital where she, obviously, was not allowed in with him. She stayed in the parking lot and snuck into the building when the freezing cold got to her. I stayed with my mother. She can’t be left alone.

The ER found that my father was severely dehydrated (again, because he doesn’t drink water even when it’s basically thrown into his head) and severely anemic and the anemia is putting a strain onto his heart… they think. Something’s up with the heart and they think it’s related to his blood counts, but no one knows for sure yet. Why is he low on blood? We don’t know. They gave him a transfusion but last we heard his counts are dropping again. He’s bleeding somewhere and we don’t know where.

While all this was going on, the customer issue at work completely blew up all over the poor guy I left it with. I’m not sure yet if it would have blown up if I had been there, but regardless I stuck that guy with the problem and it turned out to be a mess and I feel terrible about it.

Dad was admitted, eventually. They put him into the ICU which just tickled us all so much (that’s sarcasm). I spent the night on the couch so that my mother wouldn’t be left alone. She had a very bad night as far as back pain and leg pain and everything pain is concerned. She takes a heavy duty pain medication but it seems to take forever to kick in. Once it did she was able to sleep, thank goodness.

Around the time we learned my father was going to be moved to the ICU my sister tried to start her car to run the heater for a few minutes and her battery was dead. How’s that for icing on the cake, eh? Her husband came and jump started the car and they both went home.

My sister relieved me around 9:00 this morning and I’m home now. Assuming my brother’s covid scare comes back negative (three of the four tests are confirmed negative, they are just waiting on one more) he will relieve her at some point today and stay the night, assuming dad isn’t discharged. Lisa can cover tomorrow night.

So how was your Friday?

Blue

I’ve got the COVID/coup blues tonight. I’m not sure what set it off, apart from the obvious, but I’m just feeling more depressed than usual.

Normally when I feel like this I play guitar and I feel better. It didn’t work tonight. I think I feel worse.

Removing Cheeto McClownshoes might help. A vaccine might help too.

I really hate COVID. I really hate trump.

Screw you guys, I’m going to bed. G’night everyone. Better day tomorrow.

CPAP Cleaner

I got a machine to sanitize the moving parts of my CPAP machine. It’s cool. It nukes the crap out of stuff with UV light for five minutes and then poof, disinfected. I’m still going to need to wash the dried up drool out of the mask though. Grody to the Max, man*.

*My spoiler free review of Wonder Woman 84 is as follows: I am so glad the 80’s are over and I have zero nostalgia for that time. None. Nil. Zip. Nada.

A Thanksgivmas Miracle

I kinda can’t believe it. After a full blown Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, a weekend and a Monday full of Christmas cookies, and turkey dinner leftovers like you wouldn’t believe last night….

I lost half a pound this week.

It’s a Thanksgivmas Miracle.

I’ll probably gain five pounds celebrating this moral victory, but for right now it’s totally worth it.

The Day After

I don’t know what I did, but my legs are freakin’ killing me today. I have a little bit of snow to clear, and lots of laundry, another day’s exercise, and some board games. I still have a few songs to finish from the great re-recording thing and I haven’t done diddly for December music.

Mostly I just want to hang out with the kids, but the college student is prepping for finals so she’s busy. That’s okay. She’s going to ace them all.

There’s a good chance I am going to fail on my intermittent fasting today. I don’t think I can make it to 1:00 PM. It’ll only be the second time I don’t make it to 16 hours in the last 88 days, but it’ll be close enough for faux Thanksgiving weekend.

HoHoHo.

Cautious Optimism

The United Kingdom has approved one of the Covid-19 vaccines (Pfizer’s? I think?). They are starting to work on actual distribution.

There is suddenly a very tiny pin prick of light at the end of this long, black coronavirus tunnel.

The United States isn’t there yet. I’m not sure what the FDA’s timeline is, or even if they have a timeline yet. I’m not sure what Pfizer and Moderna need to do to proceed. I’ve heard that first responders and elderly folks in homes will be the first Americans to receive the vaccine. I’m good with that. After that, I don’t know what the rumors are. I hope my step son and his immune deficiencies will be near the front of the line. My weight problem puts me at risk too, but I want him taken care of first.

It’s still going to take months for that tiny pin prick of light to grow into an opening big enough for us to walk through, and it is WAY too early to start making plans. Still, we have a high school graduation in the Spring. We are hoping to go back to Disney World in the Summer.

I’m spending my lunch break today listening to a podcast where two part time musicians are fantasizing about getting their bands back together in the Spring and what that’s going to be like. I don’t want to look that far ahead. I don’t want to get optimistic. I don’t want to start fantasizing. But… that first band practice is going to feel like a victory parade. We’re going to play like garbage and it’s going to be the most enjoyable rehearsal in the history of rehearsals. The first gig… when we can fill up a room with friends and family and music lovers and people from all walks of life… that is going to be a celebration like no other. That is going to be an amazing experience. I mean, yeah we’re just a silly cover band, but it’s going to be a wonderful thing.

Don’t get cocky, Robert. Cautious optimism is all you get for now. Maybe stop thinking about that tiny little point of light at the end of the tunnel. Try, at least.

Oops

We ate dinner tonight at around 7:00 PM. Jen worked while she ate so I sat with her in the office. As I ate the chicken and the quinoa I watched an episode of The Flash (Grod!) and messed with iCloud settings for GarageBand. We recently switched from individual iCloud accounts to a big giant family sized account and for some reason GarageBand was still looking to my individual while the stuff I uploaded today was in the family. I rebooted and it fixed things (have you tried turning it off and on again?). After that I started mixing the song I shared here a few minutes ago.

At about 8:30 I thought I should probably have a snack. My daily intermittent fast starts at 9:00 and the thought of having the usual 9pm to 1pm fast become 7pm to 1pm seemed like something to avoid.

Five seconds later my watched buzzed. It was 9:00 and time to start tonight’s fast.

I never stopped for the snack.

Oops.

I Forgot

I was up late last night because I’m dumb. It was coming up on 1:00 AM before I finally conked out.

I woke up about an hour and a half later and realized I wasn’t wearing my CPAP mask. Where the hell was it?

I forgot to put it on when I lay down for the night/morning. I’ve been doing this for a year and a half now, how the hell can I still be forgetting it after all this time? How is that possible? They say when you do something repeatedly for… is it three weeks or three months… it becomes routine. After 17 months, this should be pretty routine.