Coming Up Home Care

This is where a person would normally say something profound about the fork in the road.  Sorry, I’ve got nothing.

My November, Days Four and Five

Theres a reason why I did not commit or swear on a stack of holy books to post every single day of this month.  Because I know me and my procrastinating ways.

Yesterday I went to see W in his hospital bed.  He is doing well, all things considered, and in good spirits, which is half the battle after surgery.  He is coping well with the pain and doing everything he is told.  I delivered his phone to him, and the newspaper and his bathrobe.  He seriously is one of the most out going people I have ever known.  He engages everyone in conversation and learns more about a person’s life in five minutes than I would be able to figure out in a week.  I rarely remember someone’s name.  But I think he knows everybody on his floor.  So of course they all know him.

He has a room to himself and many attentive people taking care of him. He really likes the hospital food.  I wonder if that says something about my cooking….

He looked tired when I left, so I decided to leave him to his other visitors today, but I will be there to pick him up when he is discharged tomorrow morning.

And then I suppose the real fun begins when I get to play home care nurse.  Fun times.  We will muddle through.

 

Rainy Tuesday

From somewhere on Facebook; mom-isms made in to inspirational posters.

Today is Tuesday and today it rained.  My dad used to answer our pestering-kid questions wanting to know WHEN something was going to happen by telling us “a week from the next rainy Tuesday”.  This answer always made me sigh and roll my eyes and stop asking, but it also made me promise myself that I would keep track of the days of the week and note when it rained and thus be way ahead of the game.  Of course I never did, and if that Tuesday from the last rainy one ever did roll around I would have long forgotten what the question was anyway.  Which was no doubt his intent.

So that’s what I was thinking about this morning when I got up early and went out in the rain and off to the lab for my 8:15 a.m. appointment with the doctors requisition slip for fasting blood work stuffed in my bag.  I had eaten nothing since about 7:00 p.m. the day before.  Unfortunately I had also had almost nothing to drink.  Perhaps somewhere in the back of my little pea sized dehydrated brain I got the prep rules for this mixed up with those for surgery where you can’t even have water.  And because it was earlier than I usually take my meds and I would probably be home in about twenty minutes, I did not take my diuretic.  And I had no coffee.  And the last thing I did before leaving the house was use the bathroom, because mom always made us do that when we were going somewhere, whether we needed to or not.  Obviously my parents were both very influential people.

Can you see where this is going?  I swear there were no check marks at all in the little urinalysis box on that paper, but after I happily gave up three vials of blood the nurse handed me the dreaded styrofoam cup with my name on it.  Saying I didn’t think I’d be able to do it just got me that mom look.  So I asked for some water and headed off to the bathroom.

I was in there for a good twenty minutes.  I drank enough water to drown a horse, until it made me gag.  Then I started to sweat because it was damned hot in that tiny room with my hoodie on, but why take it off when I’m going straight home, right?  Who the hell ever thought peeing in a cup was a good idea?  I couldn’t do it.  I came out with the empty cup in my hand and told them I was going to sit in the waiting room for a bit.  They said they were wondering what happened to my sample, and would I like some water?  Double gag.

Alternately reading emails on my phone and watching the clock from 9:00 to 9:30 with still no urge whatsoever to urinate, I felt like a complete failure.  Asked to do ONE SIMPLE THING and unable to get it done.  Not knowing if giving up was an option.  Would they let me come back later?  Would I have to get another requisition?  What would happen if I smashed the damned cup and told them all they were ridiculous?  I was definitely not living in the moment, and fervently wishing to be somewhere else.

Finally after another fifteen or so minutes of extreme discomfort from all that water and embarrassment for being there so long and senseless frustration with myself I had some small degree of success.  I wonder if that might have been the most minute urine sample ever submitted for testing, but opted not to stick around to find out.

I drove home in the pouring rain, took my medication, drank two cups of coffee and then headed off to the pharmacy to fill my prescriptions and do some shopping and pick up the mail and guess what?  Could not wait to rush back into my house to use the bathroom.

The moral of this story is to always be prepared for whatever is happening being the opposite of what you thought you wanted to happen and have faith that everything will work out exactly right a week from the next rainy Tuesday.  And this Tuesday, even though it is indeed a rainy one,  doesn’t count because the rule is it has to be the NEXT one.

Glad I got that all sorted out.  And you wonder why I don’t like to leave home.

Someone From High School

When was the last time you saw someone from high school?

Ahh, yes, high school.  I remember it well.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Was there ever another bewildered teenager with such a curious combination of colossal conceit and pitiful self-loathing?

Probably, right?  But if you lived it perhaps you know how hard it is to get over yourself and the whole high school experience.  It was all just so…..HIGH SCHOOL.

The last time I saw someone I went to high school with my sister had to point out the fact to me since I didn’t recognize her. Quite possibly there have been lots of other chance encounters of fellow students and I’ve been blissfully oblivious.  There’s really no one I’ve kept in touch with from that time in my life, except for one person who found me on facebook, and sporadic Christmas cards from someone else, and of course those rare chance encounters where somebody has to give me a hard nudge with her elbow to make me pay attention and figure out where I’ve seen that guy before.

We had gone to the hospital in my home town to visit my dad following his stroke.  A little dark-haired nurse came in and fussed over him for a bit and my sister said a few things to her.  Then she said to me, do you remember Cathy P, who used to be Cathy C.?  And suddenly the face was familiar – the cute little cheerleader years later in a nurse’s uniform!  No doubt what flashed through her mind might have been – huh – the prom queen gone to fat and wrinkles!  But we smiled and said hello and how are you and it’s been so long, and it’s so nice to see you again….all the right things, whether sincere or not really makes no difference.

Later my sister told me that Cathy had married her high school sweetheart.  And that he had died a few years ago, and she had been completely devastated for a long time. He was the love of her life and she said after he was gone that even if she’d known of this eventual outcome she loved him so much she would do it all over again. Hearing this put everything in a completely different perspective for me.  We are not who we were in high school.  People become wives and mothers and widows and dedicated nurses who fuss over our sick fathers.  Our lives may be vaguely shaped by those school years but in the big picture they’re just a short little spurt of growing up time preparing us for whatever comes next.

We give it such excessive and boundless importance while we’re living it – the relationships and the friendships and the angst ridden search for who we are and how we want to be regarded.  And then we graduate and go off in a myriad of different directions on various divergent and dissimilar paths and what people think of us becomes nothing at all compared to how we feel about ourselves.

So, old high school people from my past, if we should happen to meet and look each other in the face and have no clue whatsoever why we look familiar to each other for some obscure reason – I hope you have had a wonderful life.  I hope you have known joy and contentment and love.  I hope that whatever pain and sadness you’ve had in your life has made you stronger and that you are at peace with the world.  That’s really what I mean when I’m saying hello, how are you, nice to see you again.