"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others." Ayn Rand

Saturday, January 31, 2009

I Hate Like Hell to dissapoint the Steeler fans....

Although I am not taking a position on tomorrow's Super Bowl, I had to pass along this video which may or may not change your mind about who you pick.

The experts in the video below have a record of 4 and 0, and 6 and 4.

This was on the news this morning, and may, in fact, change the Vegas odds.

Just Because It's Friday

How It's Made

I love the Discovery channel. I think it shows I'm getting to be an old lady...I love to learn about things, I watch programs I think of as "interesting". Did you know that Hitler designed the Volkswagon Beetle because Germany had just built the Autobahn and nobody had cars to drive on it? I can't remember how much the Beetles cost, but it was a figure that most german families could afford.

Learned that on the Discovery Channel.

I'm boring myself now.

So, it's 12:45 am, and I can't sleep. I'm watching "How It's Made", which is a pretty cool show. Well, tonight they are doing combination wrenches, deli meats, and golf carts.

The wrenches and the golf carts were pretty routine. The deli meats?

Theres a saying: Two things you never want to see made...legislation and sausage. Deli meats are kind of like sausage.

Eeew. I'm never going to eat bologna again.

The Beginning of the End

Hooray! The Frankenstein-thingy is history. AND it was a totally routine, boring, run-of-the-mill, go-just-as-it-was-supposed-to procedure.

The procedure itself took about 10 minutes; the rest of the stuff took hours. We waited for an OR for quite a while, and then the anesthesiologist took time to get the nerve block done.

But Dr. Cuomo said A+ on the way the wrist healed; now Richard just has a tremendous amount of work to do with physical therapy. He's got almost no ability to bend his fingers right now, but the doctor feels that with a lot of hard work, he can overcome this. I think that he thought he'd be much better than this right after the apparatus came off, and I know that he's horribly frustrated, but all good things will come in time. Actually, we don't know how it's going to feel; the nerve block was supposed to last up to 12 hours, and I think he's going to have a significant amount of pain just from having the apparatus removed. Physical therapy starts Monday.


I took a picture of us while we were waiting in the hospital today; I'm really liking the picture, even though we took it just to be silly.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Tommorrow We Let Her Go


I'm getting emotional. I really tried to concentrate on having a great couple of days with Miss Fina, and enjoying her as much as we could. And we accomplished that. Now, it's Friday night, and I've spent most of the afternoon and part of the evening trying to get lots of pictures with everyone.

I think I'm trying to capture just a little bit of her to keep with me.

Just Because It's Friday



Other than soba noodles, I think the Japanese people's best invention is their television entertainment.

Monday, January 19, 2009

The Hospital: Exigo

With so much time spent recuperating, you'd think I would have finished the hospital saga way before this. I have thought about writing about many other topics, but I've disciplined myself to not be allowed to write about anything else until I finish my story.

Cut to Saturday morning, PRMC ICU. Rules are rules in ICU, and they don't kid. Visit hours are enforced, and the nurses mean business. So the families wait in the waiting room.

One of the families in there was an older couple, and as time passed, we started talking. She told me her son was in ICU, on a ventilator. She didn't offer any more, and I didn't ask. After talking for awhile, she got a phone call, and being seated next to her, I heard her side of the conversation. She was talking about a fire, and how the baby was in Baltimore for an autopsy; her other grandson was in Johns Hopkins on a ventilator. My brain was sluggish, but I finally realized her son was the man I had read about in the news; he and his wife and two children had lived in a mobile home, and there had been a fire. The 18 month old boy had died in the fire, the five year old had burn and was on a ventilator, and the father had been burned and suffered smoke inhalation trying to save both boys. He couldn't save the baby. The trailer had burned to the ground; they lost everything.

I was so struck by this realization. I kept thinking to myself "how is she functioning?" I imagine exhaustion and repetition played a part in it; but then she said to the person on the phone that her son was despondent, and was asking his mother "how am I going to get through this". That was her breaking point; I had to go downstairs and outside to compose myself. I didn't want to make her feel worse.

For the next few weeks, I thought of this family all the time. I told people about them, and I'd cry. I just kept wondering how they were doing, how they were coping. Actually, the story was in the news quite a bit here, and the people at the elementary school in Willards organized several fund raisers, and asked for donations of anything, as the family had nothing. Someone was letting them stay in a rental house rent free for three or four months, but they needed everything. I went into the attic and got as much as I could; I had clothes that would fit the mom, so they went, and some dishes that we were saving for the kids that went. I took a trip to Walmart, and got Spiderman and Batman pajamas and sweatshirts, an art set, and some Batman and Spiderman toys for the 5 year old. It seemed so insignificant, but it was something.


But I digress.


Ok, I got really far on this part last night, but I think I erased it. Poop. I was all the way up till the trip out of ICU!


Oh well. Back to Saturday morning...Diane came in early Saturday morning, and brought coffee and the beloved cheesecake. It was so good to see her, and to have her there with me. We sat, and we talked, and we looked at the Ikea catalog. We planned the rest of Richard's life. Finally, we got to go inside. I saw Richard and was immediately overjoyed at his appearance. He looked about a million percent better than he had a mere 10 hours ago. Diane burst into tears, because, in all actuality, he looked like crap. But he was sitting up, and he had eaten breakfast, and he was smiling. He was pressing the little happiness button for morphine, but he was better. (More on the morphine issue in a bit). Diane stayed for awhile, and I think she felt a little bit better for seeing him, and seeing that he was on his way back from the nightmare that had been the night before.
We stayed in ICU all day; we were cleared to move back upstairs in the late afternoon, but once again, had to wait until evening to to anywhere. But it gave us time to experience the wonder that is the ICU. It's a terrible/wonderful place. The sounds that we heard in there were awful sometimes, and amazing other times. When they call a code, people come running from everywhere; I guess each person has their job to do in the moment, and the others come just to be there if needed. But it happens so very fast, lights blink and you hear running feet. The nurses who care for the patients are very professional, almost to a fault; but they don't have time to be chatty. The only similarity I found between the ICU's I see on television, and the real ones were the glass fronted rooms, and the sliding doors. Everything else? Just television.


Late in the afternoon, we discovered a small pool of water under the bed...turns out the small pool was the morphine running onto the floor. It explained why Richard was not as comfortable as he should have been...damn. I would have put my diet coke bottle underneath the drip if I'd have known. It would have been a hell of a cocktail. :)


We moved upstairs early Saturday evening, back to the 5th floor, into a private room, which was nice. It was my old room, which was ironic. Or, one of my old rooms. We settled in, again, with the hope that tomorrow would be the day he'd come home. Or at least be one day closer.

Sunday came, and Dr. Gittleman (the GP) came by. He wanted to run some more tests, plus they had to do yet another 24 hour pee collection. Richard wasn't happy, but I wanted him to be where I thought he still needed to be. He couldn't walk, he couldn't get around; he could hardly get out of bed still. We still had the kidney issue, and we had the antibody issue. I thought we'd get answers before he came home; I hate loose ends.

We settled in for a day of football in the hospital. We awaited the physical therapists. We ate hospital food. We passed another day in the hospital.

Monday dawned, and a few hours after I arrived, they released Richard. Right in the middle of the 24 hour pee test. Before he could walk well. I wasn't happy...and I didn't want Richard to miscontrue my feelings. I wanted him home more than anything, but I didn't want him home before he was well. I wanted answers to all the unanswered questions that were raised since this happened.

In a flurry of activity, the physical therapists came around, and took Richard down the hall to teach him how to walk up and down stairs, how to navigate on his supercharged walker, how to get the hell out of the hospital.

Truth be told, I was scared that I wouldn't be able to take care of him.


But finally they kicked us out of PRMC; we took the big ride down in the elevator. We got him into the car, and I drove home like I had 144 dozen eggs in the car.


But once we got home, it all kind of fell into place. We moved downstairs for the immediate duration. I faced cleaning the bolts coming out of Richard's arm, and once I faced it, it wasn't so bad. After a few nights, I stopped being afraid to sleep next to him for fear of rolling over on his arm. We muddled through the first few days.

It was good to have him home.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

The Hospital...part 4

I left you with Richard entering the OR high on valium, and me in the waiting room breaking all the rules with my chicken salad sandwich and diet coke. I had a good book to read, and there was a television and lots of magazines that I hadn't seen before to keep my occupied for the short time that I'd be waiting for Richard. Plus, as always, a bevy of interesting people to peruse; a hospital, like an airport, has lots of people and lots of interesting stories.

I ate my sandwich and tried to read, but I couldn't concentrate on the book. I sent out a mass-message letting everyone know it had started, and that I would let them all know when I knew something. I stared at the tv, and started listening to all the conversations around me.

The group of people sitting to my right were all there in support of their aunt/sister/cousin/co-worker, who was in surgery to repair an ankle with a compound fracture. She had been getting ready for work early in the morning, and a man had broken in to her house. In her attempt to get away from him and out the window, she fell and severely broke her ankle. (The guy ran away when she fell.) This lady was in her 60's, and I couldn't believe how awful this story was; I could only imagine how frightened she must have been. Can you imagine?

The people to my left were odd; an older man and his daughter. His wife was in for kidney stones, and the daughter spoke to him like he was three years old. I first thought alzheimers or dementia, but as the conversation went on, I discovered that they were just strange. When the surgeon came out to let them know all had gone ok, he gave the husband the kidney stone in a test tube. They were very excited about it. It was bizarre.

A third group near me were waiting on their husband/father/brother. It was another large group of people; Dr. Chin (my Dr. Chin) came out, and he called them into the little private room within the waiting room. They all came out about fifteen minutes later crying. It was pancreatic cancer. I can only imagine how Dr. Chin delivered this news; he's a great surgeon, but has zero bedside manner. I felt so awful for these people, that they were having to deal with this blow in a public place, in front of all these people. It was like the lady who died in the ER, I just wished I could have been anywhere else in the room, just to not intrude on this awful time for them. They just cried and cried; I looked down and tried not to intrude on their grief.

Little by little, people's surgeries were ending, and their families were being called in from the waiting room. I looked up to see the hospital volunteer packing up her tote bag and taking her cardigan sweater and going home for the day. It was 5:00 pm. Diane contacted me, and asked what was going on. I was clueless; there was nobody to ask. No hospital personnel, no nurses, no volunteers. By six, it was just me and one other family still waiting. By this time, I was extremely nervous, wondering what was happening, why was it taking so long, is he ok. A bit panicky. It was at that moment I regretted not having anybody come and sit with me.

All of a sudden, the door opens, and out comes Dr. Cuomo, Dr. Internist and Dr. Anesthesiologist (their names escape me at the moment). They ask me to step outside into the hallway. Talk about moving through wet cement, running to get the answer and at the same time afraid to get the answer.

They said that there had been a problem. AFTER surgery. The surgery had gone really well, although the break had been worse than they expected; the bones were all broken and pushed up towards his elbow. Richard had been wheeled into the post-op anesthesia recovery room, and within minutes had stopped breathing. They immediately put a breathing tube into him, and got him breathing again. They believed it was a reaction to the pain medication that they had given him. He was ok now, thought, they said, and they said a nurse would be in in a few minutes to take me back. I was trying to process all of this, trying to remember everything they said, and I couldn't. I just wanted to get behind that door. I gathered up my things and waited, tearing up and trying to control it. I sent out a very generic message to everybody, not saying anything but that he was out of surgery. I didn't really understand what had happened myself yet, so I couldn't explain it to anybody else. After what seemed like hours, but was only minutes, she came and got me and took me back to Richard. You know how usually your imagination is usually worse then the actual picture? Not this time.

Behind a maze of tubes and wires, behind an oxygen mask and a breathing tube in him, was my Richard. Looking tiny, and so very sick. There was no color to his face; what's the first thing you want to do when you see someone? You want to hug them, and hold them. Poor thing, there was nowhere to hug...everything had tubes and needles and wires going to contraptions on the wall. He was going in and out of consciousness; I told him I was there, and he was ok, it was all over. He was very agitated and confused; but he was also pumped full of drugs, and couldn't form words. Everything came out garbled and there was no volume to his voice due to the breathing tube. There were nurses everywhere, and a monitor that I soon learned to monitor myself. I finally understood Richard's confusion; he was asking if he had been in a car accident, or did he have a heart attack? I tried to explain to him that it had been his surgery, and that there had been a problem, but all was ok now. He went back to sleep, and woke up again, and we went through it again. This happened several times; I later learned from him that he would fall asleep and dream that we had left the hospital, but had gotten into an accident on the way home. He looked at me and said "I don't want to die"; this was the proverbial "straw" that made me lose control over my emotions, and the tears came.

When he would fall asleep, he would gradually stop breathing; I watched the nurse for a few minutes, and then I took over. When his respiration would fall below 6 per minute, an alarm would go off, and I'd shake him to wake him up. It kept happening, and due to the what had happened, they were going to put him in ICU, which in itself is scary. We waited in post-op for what seemed like hours, and finally transportation came to take him upstairs. While waiting, I got to watch the operations of the post op anesthesia unit, and I tell you, those nurses work their tails off. I don't think I could do it. There was this one man right across from Richard, and he woke up from anesthesia, and he was phycially fighting the nurse, who was trying to take his blood pressure. They were wrestling back and forth, and he said "I'll bite your boob!" I turned around because I was so surprised; she laughed and told me that people say the strangest things coming out of anesthesia; you never know what's going to happen. Once again, nurses, the unsung heroes.

I texted Diane at some point during this, I think it was when I went out to use the bathroom. She wanted to come down right away, with Katie. I told her to stay home, to come in the morning. There was nothing that anybody could do at that moment, and it was just going to be a long night. She said she'd be there first thing in the morning.

We got up to ICU, and it didn't resemble the ICU's I'd seen on television; it was very quiet, and the two nurses assigned to Richard were all over him, doing everything that was necessary; they let me stay for about a half hour until they threw me out. The ICU has very strict, very enforced rules. I told them that I would be waiting in the waiting room. They presented me with all the stuff from the old room, including the two gift baskets.

There was nobody in the waiting room; I decided that I would take all the stuff home, shower, change, and get back to the hospital. I packed up everything (there was a lot of stuff!) plus the two heavy fruit baskets, and went downstairs. As Murphys Law was in effect, I couldn't get to the front of the hospital; the exit was locked. I had to come out by the emergency room. It was cold, and I was planning to walk around. The security guard saw me and took pity on me; he picked me up and drove me around. I've never appreciated a warm car so much!

Got in the car and started the drive home. Of course, the waterworks started. I really couldn't believe everything that had happened. This was a simple wrist surgery, for pete's sake! I kept saying to myself "did this really happen?" There was a strange unrealistic quality to all of it.

Got home, let the dog out, showered, changed and went back. Nothing else happened that night; just a long night in the waiting room. They really don't make it comfortable for families that want to wait there. There's nothing to stretch out on, and it was cold. When I got back there, there were two other families on vigil, and we all spent the night in the same room, not really talking, respecting each others privacy and worry. I went out for coffee for all once, and another man did the same a few hours later. I know I could have left the hospital and slept at home, but I had promised I'd be right down the hall. Not because I felt like he was in any more danger...it was just that I felt better being close. And because I had promised.