The joys of disabilities

Extended family members don’t get it… I made some discoveries about that. When members of my household are disabled, they have certain needs. Leave them alone, for one. Don’t tell them they can’t have something they need around them for another. Don’t tell us how to take care of the problems. Why? Because we already know.

I have people in my household with both mental and physical disablities. When their doctors recommend the not even consider getting rid of one of their pets, or perhaps adding MORE pets to help them see outside themselves, AND they can afford to do this for themselves, I certainly am not going to bitch and complain that there are too many animals in my house. For one thing, most the time you only see a couple of the animals at one time. Very rarely are they all in one room.

 

I thought I had explained this to extended family. I guess I hadn’t explained it properly. Too late now. Damage is done, and I have a feeling I’ve estranged at least one extended family member. Probably more. It hurts. People do not have the right to tell me how to live, or that I should order my adult daughter what they can and cannot have in my house. They pay rent here, they are their own households, and as long as I don’t smell the animals, I really don’t care if they have them. My landlord doesn’t care either. And we’re going to be looking for a place of our own, away from town, and away from close neighbors when I get back from house-sitting for my son in Texas.

 

In fact, when we get our own place, we are planning on a hobby farm. We’ll be adding rabbits and chickens, a cinchilla, and goats and maybe other animals to our loving menagarie. Some of our animals are going to be certified as therapy and support/service animals for those that need them. My newest addition, Tourmaline (a pomeranian puppy) is going to be a registered therapy dog to go vising nursing homes and hospitals. One of our cats is going to be an emotional support animal, or psychiatric suppor animal. If the need arises later for an animal to help with physical needs, we’ll get another.

 

When is it too many? Well, since ALL our animals to date are spayed or neutered, and the caged ones are all the same sex, we aren’t adding to the surplus population of animals, we’re comfortable with what we have in the house so what concern is it to them? Besides, in a couple days, two big dogs and a small one are leaving for Texas. That definitely takes our total down a bit. And, one of the girls is looking for a house of her own, that will remove two more dogs and a bird… Our pet population is falling already. At least now it isn’t to death, like the last three that left us in the last year or two.

getting a grip

Okay, so I called the clinic when they didn’t call me by Friday morning. I still haven’t been told in the exact words that I’m diabetic but, my blood glucose and insulin levels were all way out of alignment! I have an appointment Monday morning to get the actual diagnosis. In the meantime, my family is doing some research on better food options. All the kids are very high risk for diabetes, as is Garry. For their sake, we’re changing the way we eat. Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to control things with food. We’re certainly going to give it a shot!
I’m thinking ahead to my time in Texas while house and dog sitting for our son’s fourth trip to Iraq. I’m going to get myself a copy of some diabetic cookbooks, which aren’t that different from regular cookbooks except that they use LESS sugar, fats and starches. Not many of the recipes I’ve seen actually use the artificial sweetners I’m so sensitive to or soy proteins which I am very, very allergic to. I am pleasantly surprised, so far.
I’ve talked to my cousin who gave me some encouragement. I hope he knows how much I needed to hear what he had to say.
As the time to get the diagnosis draws near, the family is quite upbeat, and actually excited that we are making good changes in our diets, and hopefully our entire lifestyle. Here’s to hoping things get better with time!
Yes, my mood has changed. Yesterday, and the days preceeding, I was scared, pensive, distraught and confused. Today, I’m able to say that I am confident I will get a grip on this situation and do well with it, and that my family will be able to avoid going through the same thing themselves!

Waiting

I hate waiting, no matter what I’m waiting for. What I hate waiting for MOST is medical test results! Knowing that something is wrong and not knowing what is one of the worst feelings in the world. Knowing what they suspect doesn’t help, if anything it makes it worse. They suspect I’m diabetic. I’m praying they are wrong, but if they aren’t we are already looking into diabetic cookbooks and stuff like that. I’m also trying to change my lifestyle to avoid problems in the future.

I thought the headache, upset stomach, vomiting, and sudden tiredness were because I had eaten some canned chili. That often has soy protein in it. The chili hadn’t affected me the day before in my "chili, chips and cheese" so I didn’t expect a reaction Sunday. About 3PM, before I even finished the chips, I started feeling ill. I layed down on the couch hoping the headache and nausea would go away again. I got up a couple times to do different things, like let the dogs out or get a drink of coffee or water and around five I think it was, I ate ONE of those bite size Twix bars. Then I layed back down. I didn’t eat dinner. I couldn’t. By that time I was really sick. Thing is, if it had been soy protein causing the reaction, by six in the evening, it should have been letting up. It didn’t and for some reason, I felt worse, and worse. I noticed I was missing huge sections of "V" the program they were running all day on Sci Fi channel. I’m guessing I slept during those times. At 9:30 in the evening I tried to get up to feed my cats and my son’s dogs. Tessa was laying in front of the sofa and The last thing I remember is landing  on her. I know I did becuase her hip bone pressed into me. I don’t know what happened after that. Elisa tells me I was totally unresponsive for several minutes and kept moving in and out of consciousness. I know I woke up one time because I was getting sick. That was not a pleasant way to wake up! What happened next sort of makes me mad. Elisa told me later that my husband said I should just go to bed. But the fact I had been unconscious, not just sleeping, had Elisa concerned and she insisted that he take me to the ER. I wonder how shocked he was to find out there really was something wrong? I’m not at all happy with how he’s been reacting to all of this, like it is nothing at all. I’m hoping we can work through this.

Here it is, five whole days later and I’m still tired, I still have that headache, and no answers. I hope to have some answers today so we can start doing something about this unpleasant feeling I have all over.

They didn’t give up

Friday evening one of my daughters was complaining about some pretty serious stomach pain. She hurting bad enough where the insommniac actually went to bed before 2 AM, which is unheard of! She wasn’t active much on Saturday and spent most the day crying in pain and vommitting. About the time she said she was ready to get help, we realized the Walk-In or Urgent Care clinics had closed. By about 9:30 that night, she was ready to go to the Emergency Room. Knowing how Emergency Rooms can work, I grabbed a project to work on and away we went.

During the check in process, the attending Nurse asked if there was any chance she was pregnant. In spite of her very severe pain at this time, she actually came back with a very funny comment… "Only if you can get pregnant by yourself". The nurse looked at her real funny for a moment, but apparently accepted that as a "NO". During the intake interview, she was hit with another severe wave of pain. There had been several ambulances, and police escorted patients brought in, so even though they wanted to, we had to wait in the waiting room. You KNOW an emergency room is busy when you get to the waiting room and a person with a two inch gash on his forehead is sitting there with a cloth pressed up against it. He was taken back as soon as they had a space. What surprised me was there were at least two other people waiting. One group turned out to be waiting for someone that was being sent to emergency surgery. The other was a young woman that really looked sick. I expected the young woman would be next, but we were called instead.

My daughter was set up with an IV in case they needed it. No solutions were attached, it was just put there to make giving of medicines easier. Being that this daughter is on State Aid, I assume it was because they aren’t supposed to use IVs unless absolutely necessary. There was also the matter of her bad reaction to the one they had given her when she had a severe migraine a few months ago. The doctor came in, looked her over, asked some questions, checked her stomach and ordered tests. This was around 10PM… The nurses were excellent. They wanted to do something for my daughter, but they couldn’t until the tests came back. Somehow a mis-communication prevented the lab person from showing up right away. I heard them scold her when she arrived talking about patients in a lot of pain shouldn’t be left like that because lab didn’t show up. When she arrived in our room, she was quite appologetic, but for some reason she actually had not gottne the initial communication. Knowing how computers sometimes DON’T send messages when you think they did, I give this young woman the beneit of the doubt. The lab work was finally done… I think they took four different tubes of blood from her! Some of the blood tests came back fast, but apparently some of the tests almost got lost. The nurse that was the primary one taking care of my daughter kept calling them and coming in to tell us that there was a delay. My daughter lay there in excruciating pain, but she understood the need for accuracy in treatment. What if it turned out to be appenicitis? A pain klller certainly wouldn’t be a lot of help there! As soon as the tests came back, I thought we’d be seeing the doctor again. About that time a young person with a bloodied head and scrapes and wounds all over him was wheeled in. I think the Dr had his hands full at the moment, so the nurse brought the news that the white bloodcell count and something else were way up. Next on the list was to X-ray the abdomen in hopes of finidng a simple blockage causing the problem. X-ray confirmed this was NOT the problem. Another nurse broght Annette an interesting red drink with a contrast added to it for the CT Scan they now wanted to do. We were going to be there for a long while for sure! It was already about 3 AM or later at this point. It was a two hour process to get the drink finished. The tests came around about 5:30. I went home to get my daughter some fresh clothes about 4:30, since she had gotten sick al over part of what she had on.

I went home. My daughter’s dog was so cute! she came running up to me to be picked up, then back to the door to look at me like "Make her come in!".  My husband was up when I got there. He’d been having trouble breathing so he was up for a while. I updated him on progress, got the clean clothes and went back to the hospital. I was getting really tired by this time and wondered how I was going to get home when the time comes.

I grabbed a cup of coffee when I got back to the ER. I needed some help staying awake at this point. While the waiting room had been quiet on and off over the course of the night, it looked like it was quite crowded again. I found out most of the people there were waiting for others. That was good for the team in the Emergency room. They had a rough, long night as it was!

I went back to the room and within minutes after I got there,they wheeled my daughter out to get the CT scan done. When she came back she was hurting, but at least we knew we woule soon have answers.

About 45 minutes later a nurse came in with an injection. "We have an answer then?" "yes, finally!" Looking at my daughter she said, "you have a large ovarian cyst." The shot was for pain, and one was for her continued nausia! We would soon be going home. We didn’t see the doctor again. He was busy with the new batch of serious injuries. The nurse that had been with us all along was so relieved we had an answer. She gave us information about what to expect, and what to do next. Today I’ll be calling a doctor to see if there is something more we can do. Apparenlty this cyst is causing some infection. That needs to be addressed yet.

She will get better now, we hope. I never want to see anyone go through that kind of abdominal pain again! It’s unbearable for them, and hard to watch too!!

Hopeful treatments

Today I had the first of a set of two epidurals. The worst part was when the Dr. was pressing on my spine to find the spot he needed.  Hopefully this treatment will eliminate more of the pain I’ve been having. I was starting to fall a lot from weakness in the legs from the pain. This is different from the usual knee giving out thing, it was coming from my hips.

Next week I start a serious of three injections in my left knee to avoid having to have it replaced soon. I’m hoping all these treatments will help. I really don’t want to have the left knee replaced while I’m still having issues with the right one.

So, today, since I can’t do any bending or lifting, I think I’ll sit and knit and play games on the computer. AAHHHHH A day off until I have to take a daughter to an appointment today.

A little less pain please!!

Sunday afternoon I was sorting through my large stash of fabric for a project I need to finish by Friday for my Dressmaking and Design course. Sometime over the course of the day of dragging five yard and more batches of fabric, I pulled something in my right shoulder. I didn’t think much of it, I’d done that sort of strain before, so I kept working. As I was pinning a skirt I noticed the right arm was getting harder and harder to move. I ignored it other than taking some Tylenol equivalent and went on with my work. Unfortunately, within a couple hours, my arm finished the work for me… The pain was getting stronger, and it was starting to hurt to breath. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how hurting my shoulder would hurt my breathing.

Monday came, and after a rather rough night, I did manage to get up, and take Miranda to the doctor and take care of Keiko Coco Nut, though I did ask Garry to drive for that one since I was barely able to move my arm by that time and I wanted to hold my cat for her final trip to the vet.

Garry went to work and the rest of us settled into our nightly routine, until I tried to go to bed halfway early because the pain was totally draining me. I screamed when I tried to lay down. Worse yet, I couldn’t get back up! I called for someone to get me a heating pad and set it up. I tried to sleep with that on my arm, but the thing made me too hot! At least the muscles had relaxed and as long as I lay on that arm (strange isn’t it?) I could at least doze.

When Garry got home this morning I told him I was going to attempt to make an appointment. I managed to snag an early one, at 9:30  so he got back up and drove me there.

It turns out I had managed to "impinge" a nerve right at the collarbone/shoulder joint. I was put on Prednisone and went home. I took the medication as soon as I got homje and here it is, about three hours later and I can almost, *almost* get my coffee cup to my mouth without wanting to scream or dropping the cup. That is already a vast improvement over this morning. I had no idea steroids could work that fast! I’m hoping the medication will help with a few other difficulties I’ve been having. The pain in my legs and back is really becomming a problem! I go back to the Orthopedic on Thursday and am supposed to bring this pinched nerve to her attention. If there isn’t more improvement, I could end up with a cortisone injection or something. I’d rather not, but at least I’m already at ortho if I need them!

I might get a chance to do some sewing today after all, which is good considering I only have until Friday to finish this project and get the pictures developed and sent in!