%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
  My blog was filled up. I'm too lazy to clean it out. So I started a new one. |
| Two months ago yesterday, my younger brother passed away. I developed extremely bad headaches that lasted three weeks, not for the first time. I've had muscle tension in my neck for decades, and the headaches come and go. This last time was just more intense than usual. I'm only allowed acetaminophen because of drug interactions. It took one too many every day (fewer than the maximum for normal people) and my blood got too thin. Then a virus hit me over a week ago. I coughed incessantly and had a wee bit of laryngitis. My choir is very small, so the director asked me to stand with them and pretend to sing. I managed not to cough until we sat down. That was Sunday. The coughing was making my chest hurt. I got up Wednesday with red eyes, one of them glued. I knew I had an appointment on Friday because of the thin blood (clotting/bleeding risk). By then both eyes were glued and sore. You couldn't tell I'd ever had whites in my eyes. He said it was a virus, since both eyes were the same. He prescribed a pill for coughing. He wrote a script for antibiotic eye drops, but told me not to fill it for a day or two to see if they cleared up on their own. I filled it Sunday. By then I looked like I had two black eyes, the bruising going almost up to my eyebrow and down my cheek in a crooked circle. No one hit me honest. Meantime, on Saturday afternoon, while I'm coughing, eyes hurting and itching and burning, I started having midsection problems. I thought it would pass, so I ignored it. It got worse. I couldn't get comfortable. When I was sitting on the staircase crying and moaning, I realized I need a hospital. I was wearing Mom jeans and an old white T-shirt that had 2001 United Way stamped on the back. I wanted to check clothes, but knew I didn't have the ability. I had told my father I was having back pain, so now I told him I needed to go to the hospital. I wanted to call 911. He insisted he could take me. He's 90. I'm going to have to learn to say "No" to him and stick to it. He kept looking at his bills. I screamed, "I have to go now." I paced the floor, while he slowly got ready. We went outside finally, but his car would not start! I couldn't shut up, I was groaning so hard. I felt ashamed of my own sounds, but I hurt so badly. We switched to my car which is harder for him to get in. He stopped to pump air into the front tire. I yelled, "Let me call 0-1-1, they'll take me faster." He ignored me. I even offered to call a cab for us. He got in, I backed the seat up for his longer legs. Next, we hear a sound. He says, "What's that?" About the same time, I moaned, "Dad, you're ruining my car." The driveway at the end next to the house is wide enough for four vehicles, but it narrows quickly. He had squeezed his old pick up in between his car and mine. He started turning my car to the right before he had backed out all the way. I'm thinking we look like fools who can't handle an emergency in a situation comedy. He can't even back the car out of the driveway, am I safe to ride with him to the hospital? He pulled forward, then backed out properly and tried again. I examined it the next day, not as bad as I expected, but still ugly. We make it out of the subdivision, and I decided I was ready to die, he was on his own. Two miles later we were on a four lane divided highway, and I started dry heaving. I think this had an adverse affect on his emotional state. He drove like a race car drove. Mind that he's not accustomed to driving my car, and I usually drive him in his, but I was in no shape for driving. We're approaching a red light with no sign of slowing, I stop moaning to yell, "Red light, red light." "I see it," he says in his annoyed voice. I stopped trying. At the hospital, I had to guide him past all the possible entrances, which he started to take. I pointed to the huge "Emergency" signs, and said "Keep straight, keep straight". He's never had a collision or gotten a ticket after almost 90 years of driving, so I know he knows how to read traffic signs. I still had to tell him to turn right into the emergency lot. Despite my pointing to the left, he pulled into the "Do Not Enter" sign lane and went up to the Ambulance door. He didn't stop when he got to the sidewalk, but got both wheels up on the curb! "Dad". I don't know what I was going to say, but I shut up. "Let me out here. You back up and take the car over there, pointing once more to the right place to be, and then meet me inside." There was a guard at the door who didn't say anything, so I didn't say anything to him. I went inside the door over from the ambulance entrance and acted like nothing had happened. I did a very small amount of paperwork and gave her my id. When I was done, I saw him ambling in and told her he was with me, but I was going to the bath room I was miserable and hurting. My eyes hurt and were oozing. I had dry heaves again in the waiting room with all those people. They give you a barf bag. I was so embarrassed but couldn't control it. I couldn't sit still, I hovered in the corner until it was my turn. I took Dad with me which took us ages to get to the room. Someone offed him a wheelchair, but that's beneath his dignity. I was glad to have survived my journey there. If I had called the Rescue Squad, I would have gotten there more quickly, with less stress, and probably would have had an IV going by the time I got there. And they do take patients brought in that way first. I confirmed my beliefs that my father can no longer drive. Just for the record it was not appendicitis like they first thought. I have a kidney stone and was sent home to pass it over the next five to seven days. I've been promised it is a very painful experience, but I have new drugs t to deal with nausea and pain, and to help pass it through. It's too small to blast, so it has to go the old fashioned way. But the saga is not over. After six hours in ER, most of which my dad slept through, we walked outside. I demanded the car keys when we got through the door. I was no longer in pain, some discomfort but no pain. I was full of holes and bruises from IV's that wouldn't thread and blood tests gone awry. We reached the car, and I started backing out. "What's that sound?" I stopped and got out. The front tire was flat. backed into an empty spot further down, my dad flipping out that I was driving on the rim. I called a cab. That whole procedure of calling a cab at night and not going inside to get someone with an air pump upset my dad. I told him employees, even night watchmen, were not allowed to help out like that because of liability. Then when I paid the cab with a credit card, his mind was blown. I assured him I included the tip. He was hungry and made himself breakfast. I felt sick at the thought of eating. Before I went to bed, I took a Tylenol. My back pain stopped and hasn't come back. Sunday he somehow got his car started. I had left the prescriptions in the car, so I had to go back and get them to go to the drugstore. We went to Advance Auto, me driving, so he could have his battery checked, and it was fine. I was coughing and my eyes were red and oozing. I wore a mask to hold in my germs and keep out pollen. After trying many unsuccessful things with him, finally picking up my drugs, I had to say to him, "I am not taking you home to get your tools. You are 90 years old and you are not changing a tire! I'm too sick to help you and do all that driving back and forth. We're going to a tire place." So I spent a couple of hours in a car place with an antsy old man. They repaired the tire at no charge. I only paid for towing. Today my eyelids and skin under my eyes are still red, but the ooze is thinner and not as bountiful. You still can't see the whites of my eyes. I coughed all night, but it's better this afternoon. I haven't passed a stone yet, but occasionally feel a twinge of nausea. I don't want to start the special meds until I need them. What if they were wrong about the next 5 days prediction? I'm glad I have no where to go. I have no energy. I'm sitting here, hoping the eye bug will go away soon. I hope when the redness disappears from my skin, I won't continue looking ten years older overnight. I'd like to stop going through so many tissues and coughing so much at night. I want to pass a kidney stone and get it over with, but am praying it's not as bad as everyone tells me, from the nurses to the pharmacy clerk. I have to keep my resolve to make that old man, who has been the backbone of his family and had everyone leaning on him for so long, realize that he can no longer do all the things he used to do without making him feel helpless and useless. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
