A fun day

Today was a fun day. I drove clear to Syracuse, Utah, & home without going to sleep. I was getting sleepy by the time I got to Smithfield on my way home, but that's a far cry from being sleepy by the time I get to Ogden on my way down.

Mother & I drove to Ogden to pick up my new hearing aid mold. It is clear, it fits & my hearing aid actually performed quite well today. Mother & I ate at Chuck-A-Rama in Ogden. We didn't like the chuck wagon menu today. After we ate, we drove out to Syracuse to visit my cousin Sheila Coburn. Her husband Nathan was home, so we got to visit with him too.

I didn't realize Syracuse was so far west. It was a lot farther than I thought it would be. I kept saying it was out in the boonies, it is quite a ways from the freeway. There are LOTS & LOTS of houses. Their house is beautiful. I love, LoVe, LOVE her kitchen. I took lots of pictures of it.

Sheila started blogging in October 2008. She has had 2008 and 2009 printed into a book. I was SOOO excited to see it. It's beautiful. I'm counting it toward my 144 books to read in 2010. It is #9 in the total & #2 in my memoir/biography challenge. After all, I have read it. I gave it 5 stars.

I started blogging in October 2008 also. I have very few pictures on my blog, but after seeing Sheila's book, I came home & am doing some research on printing mine.

When we went to leave, I couldn't find my keys. I had left them on the kitchen counter when I went in & saw her kitchen. She put them away, thinking they were hers.

This morning, on our way through Logan, we stopped at Dr. Otrusinik's office to have her protime taken. I turned off Main Street in Logan at 11:52 a.m. Dr. Otrusinik's office closes at noon & doesn't reopen until 1:30. We were going to be cutting it really close, so I told Mother she couldn't go potty before she had her protime taken. She walked in & there was an older lady sitting on the couch in the waiting room. The lady jumped up as Mother walked in. Mother had no clue who she was. I was right behind Mother & saw that it was Loretta Walborn. I said, "Mother, it's Loretta." They hugged each other. It's been a long time since we've seen Bob & Loretta. Bob was having a pacer check, I think. He sees Dr. Otrusinik also.

Disneyland

Well, my aunts, Luana & Onda, don't think it's a wise idea to take Mother with us on such a long trip. Luana told me that Mother doesn't want to go. Today the cardiologist, Dr. Otrusinik, voted with Luana & Onda.

I posted this as my status on Facebook tonight:

Now Mother's cardiologist says don't take her on such a long road trip. (Driving to Disneyland for the weekend.) I have no brothers or sisters to take care of her while I'm gone & I can't be in two places at once. Pray for us.

Mother & I discussed it at lunch after the echocardiogram & the pace maker check.  Dr. Otrusinik was appalled that we were even thinking about taking her. I suggested that perhaps we could call Dr. Broadbent & have the surgery to remove the squamous cell cancer lump from her arm postponed for a week. Mother didn't answer me.

Luana had said she'd check on Mother every day. But I don't want to leave her here alone & I want to go. So, I guess I'm being selfish.

Tonight when we got home & I was packing for Mother, it was time to take her meds & I wanted to put her meds in the bag so they wouldn't be forgotten. I asked her what we were going to do with the coumadin. She said, "Aren't you going to call & cancel the surgery?" I THOUGHT, "Oh, my h-e double toothpicks!!! Why didn't you say so at lunch? I could've called & cancelled then. Now, it's 6 o'clock & the office is CLOSED!!!" Instead, I calmly said, "Yes. I'll do that tomorrow." So, she decided not to take any coumadin tonight.

Last night we were in the ER until after midnight with a bloody nose & her INR level was only at 2.3 (low for her). Her nose oozed blood all day. One of the reasons Dr. Otrusinik thought we were being foolish. Besides the fact that Mother needs to be off the coumadin for 7 days before the surgery. No coumadin, sitting for 12 hours, she could throw a blood clot & die. He did suggest that if we do take her, which he strongly disapproved of, we stop every 2 hours & move around for a minimum, MINIMUM, of 5 minutes. Don-Mikel is going to love that.

I don't know if we're leaving at 3 or 2:30, about 5 hours from now. I told Mother not to get undressed & to sit in the chair until it's time to go. I think I'll do the same thing. Just gotta go pack. I paid a couple of bills & have got to grab the checkbook & we'll be good to go.

I'm feeling really discouraged. Don & Don-Mike gave Mother a (priesthood) blessing this morning, so I feel like it will be ok, but I told Don to take the consecrated oil, just in case we needed it. I remember Daddy would always take the consecrated oil when we went on vacation. I even have it on my list.

Went to put some more clothes in my suitcase & noticed 2 cats on the bed. Don went in the bedroom & soon came out asking me to come look at something. There was Jae in his suitcase. I took a picture with my cell phone.

I heard Don say he is on his way to bed, guess I'd better go get my stuff off the bed & finish packing.

Pre-op appointment today

Today I was supposed to be able to sleep in, dream on! At 3:30 a.m., I woke up to Don kissing my hand. Nick was not feeling good & needed to know what to do for diarrhea. I woke up long enough to tell them where the anti-diarrheal pills were. Nick had woken his dad up. I told them where the pills were & for Nick to take 2. At 8:15, I woke up to Nick poking my hand. He wanted to know if he needed to take another anti-diarrheal pill. Yes, if he'd had another bout of diarrhea. He spent most of the day napping, while I had to run errands & go to the pre-op appointment in Logan for my gall bladder surgery on Monday.

I made it to the doctor's appt. a little bit late. Dr. Broadbent explained the procedure, they gave me the paperwork to take to Cache Valley Specialty Hospital (CVSH) for bloodwork & an EKG. Because a friend had told me that he'd done her gall bladder surgery & also repaired her herniated belly button, I asked him if he could do it for me. He wanted to look at my belly button. I told him it was a Dr. Orvid Cutler belly button, but it hadn't survived 2 pregnancies very well. He checked it & said he'd be glad to fix it. A couple of stitches & it would be as good as new. Kewl!! Thx Carolyn.

The hospital stay will be overnight. I have so many health problems Dr. B. wants to keep me overnight. He also put me first on the surgical schedule. I have to be at CVSH at 6:30 a.m. on Monday, which means a 5:45 wake up time.

Before we went over to CVSH, I took Mother to Cache Valley Cardiology, Dr. Otrusinik's office, for her pro-time. It was 4.9! Ack! It had risen from 2.7 in one week. We need to recheck in one week. Mother will have to go down with Don Tuesday morning when he picks me up. Unless Don-Mike has Tuesday or Wednesday off & can take her. Nick also has a dentist appt., Tuesday afternoon at 2 p.m. I told Don I was glad he'd taken both Monday & Tuesday off, because he could substitute for me on Tuesday.

That's the bad thing about having no siblings, there is no one to spell you. I had a Church member tell me on my mission, actually she told my companion & my comp told me that I take being an only child too seriously. I don't think I take it serious enough. I have some real guilt issues when it comes to Daddy & not being there for he & Mother when he was so sick.

I didn't start out life as an only child. I am the youngest of three. My sister, Wanda, was born in November of 1946. My brother, Eldon, was born in March of 1949 & I was born in August of 1950. Eldon & I are 16 months apart. Life would have been a lot different if he had lived. As it was, he was injured at birth. My mom was in the hospital, but the doctor hadn't made it yet. The baby's head was crowning & the nurse panicked & pushed my mother's legs together, crushing the baby's head. He lived for 12 days. Mother & Daddy did not get a picture of him. Mother's oldest brother was supposed to take a picture of him. If he did, Mother never got a picture. My parents didn't have a camera.

My mother was very sick when I was born, something to do with blood. They didn't expect her to live. She was in the hospital for weeks. She was never able to have another child. She had a couple of miscarriages. I have Rh negative blood & she has Rh positive blood. I think that played a role in the fact that she was not able to carry another pregnancy to term.

My sister Wanda died 10 days after her 24th birthday of the side effects of cortisone given to her for the treatment of lupus, systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE. In 1970, they said it was cancer. Daddy died on Grandma Porter's birthday, May 26, 1992.

So, there is just me. Mother, however, comes from a large family of 8, 3 boys & 5 girls. Most of her sisters & brothers have large families, although there are 2 sisters with 3 kids. Their kids are all living, grown, married & have pretty large families. So, Mother feels left out. It really irks me when people brag about their large posterity.

We have a full quorum of family almost every Sunday. I feel overwhelmed with no siblings and sons, not daughters, to help care for Mother. But my sons are a big help. Especially Don-Mike.

Don-Mike & Mother live in Aunt Vi's house, across town. Mother's sister Luana rents it out. Vi was Luana's sister-in-law. There is not room for 5 adults here. It is a small 2 bedroom home. Don & I slept in a camper out back for years. We decided it was time to build on to our house in 2007 & the camper had to be moved. Don-Mike & Nick were sharing a room & they needed their own space. Luana's rental came vacant at the perfect time. It's a cute 2 bedroom home. I think it is the only way Mother would have moved out of her house.

I was going through chemo at the time & it would have been impossible for me to climb in & out of that camper. I couldn't sleep in there during the day anyway, because it was too hot.

Sorry I went off on a tangent. It sounds like a pity party, but it isn't really. It's "just the facts ma'am," as Sgt. Joe Friday of Dragnet would say.

I am very grateful for my husband & our sons. I am also very grateful to have children as the doctor told me that I would never be able to carry a pregnancy to term. We got 2 out of 6. Heavenly Father definitely knew what He was doing when He stopped at 2. I have 2 very determined sons. They beat the odds of getting here & are persistent. Sometimes not as determined & persistent as I want them to be in some areas, but we'll save that for another post.

As for me, I haven't discovered what my purpose here on earth is.

Run, run ...

I had a Little Gingerbread Man day today. The Gingerbread Syndrome is where a day is jam packed with things to do. One of those days when you put a whole week's running into as short of a space of time as you can.

I had to work today. It was a normal Tuesday morning with a twist. The day after a Monday holiday is a pure adrenalin rush. Trying to finish pages that have been left specifically to absorb the holiday weekend's repercussions. Well, this weekend, there weren't any. No accidents, no late breaking news. We had saved 2 pages for sports, only needed 1 and a half pages & even then they weren't "full" pages to fill. So, a couple of fillers went in from Fish & Game. On the page saved for obits, three births that came in over the weekend, a missionary return that just arrived this morning & the Preston School District's announcement that President Obama's address will be taped & shared in the Preston High School library at 6 p.m. Thursday night for any parents & children wishing to view it, were inserted.

In the high school library, no less. I told Don I'm going just to see what subversiveness the president of the United States would share with our school children. I probably won't need to go early either because they're holding it in the high school library, which isn't as small as the old one, but isn't very large either. It reminds me of Nazi Germany, withholding stuff from school children, or shall I say brainwashing the school children. What does this teach our children???

Nick came in at 11 a.m. to talk to me. He couldn't have come at a worse time. Deadline for the paper is at 11 a.m. & I still had 2 pages to go. It's not my deadline either, it's Courtney's deadline & she still had to work on them after I let them go.

I left work at 12:15, with the work baskets uncleared. I had to go over to Mother's, get something to eat & be to DUP by 1. I had not called Nick back, so I called him. He wanted to talk to me. I came home to talk to him. I told him I had to be to DUP by 1, pick up Mother at 2:30 & she had to be to her doctor's appt. in Logan by 3 p.m. I also told him that I'd call the guy he's been trying to get hold of later.

I left the house at 12:55. There was no time to go over to Mother's & get the flag (she's the parliamentarian for DUP) or get either of us anything to eat. I went right to DUP & was a few minutes late. Then I remembered I needed the minutes from May to read. I went out to the car to get them & couldn't find the binder, grrr.

I left right at 2:30, got over to Mother's & she was ready, including the portable oxygen tank. I was pulling out of the driveway when I remembered I hadn't grabbed the inhaler, the discharge notes from Logan Regional Emergency Room from Thursday, Sept. 3, or the 2 new scrips. I went back in, grabbed those & we took off again, 10 minutes late. We had 20 minutes to get to Logan for her 3 o'clock appt. Obviously, we did not make it.

I have detailed Mother's doctor's appt. on her Caring Bridges site. After the doctor's appt, we went to Juniper Take Out for something to eat. Don called to say he was home while we were still sitting at the table. Mother loves shopping at the Dollar Tree in Smithfield, so we stopped there.

Nick called when we were in Whitney, angry because I had told him I'd come home after DUP to call the guy for him. I don't remember telling him when I'd do it, I said later. I distinctly remember telling him my schedule.

We got home & I gave Mother her steroid pill & her antibiotic, gave her an inhaler treatment, found the orange roll Beth Gunnell had sent home from DUP & put the salad, also from DUP, in a covered bowl in the fridge. I cleaned her bi-pap mask, & filled the humidifier for the bi-pap with water.

From there, I went to the grocery store & shopped for supper & got some soda pop. Something I had been yelled at by Nick between work & DUP for not having any. I gave him $5 & told him to go buy his own. He didn't.

I came home, fixed supper & just now remembered I forgot to put my skirt & jacket in the dryer. I thought of it when I went out to the freezer to exchange the 2 cup container of chicken for the 1 cup container. I had called Don & asked him to get a container of chicken with a purple lid out of the freezer. He got a blue lidded container out. It was still frozen, so I just exchanged them, but didn't take time to throw the clothes into the dryer.

Yesterday, on the way to the wedding, I was looking at my navy blue flowered skirt & commented that there was enough cat hair on the hem to knit a new cat. I looked a little further & found a big smear of dried cat poop on the hem of my skirt. I considered how I could get it off & decided to leave it. But, after fingering the cat poop, I didn't want to shake hands with anyone at the wedding either, know what I mean? Once we got to the wedding chapel, I hurried in & washed my hands, but there were no paper towels or hand dryer to dry my hands on. I had to dry them on my skirt.

When we got home last night, I just took my skirt & jacket & threw them in the washer, thinking I would put them in the dryer this morning. Well, it didn't happen. I hope I remember in the morning.

Moving in May, 5/13

Today was Mother's 6 month clinic visit with Dr. Otrusinik at the Regional Medical Arts Building in Logan. He was quite pleased. Everything checked out. We updated the prescription record in her chart. He wants to do an ultrasound in 6 months, giving her more time to use the CPAP, to check on the pulmonary hypertension. She hardly used it the first 3 months, but with the new CPAP mask she uses it a lot more.

Because I knew I wouldn't get my 15 minute walk in, I was going to park out by the street, but I knew Mother needed to get her walk in too. So, I parked in handicapped parking & then instead of taking the elevator, I took the stairs. OMG, by the time I got to the third floor I was dying. I was so out of breath. By the time I got in to the doctor's waiting room, she was already in the examining room. Less than 10 minutes later, we were out again.

We walked to the car & Mother only had to stop once to rest. She likes that section of handicapped parking better. I'll have to try & remember to park there again.

We checked at Cache Valley Oxygen for a CPAP pillow. OMG, they are $57!!! We also scoped out a step stool for Mother to get into Don-Mike's pickup, a grab bar for the shower. It is a suction cup-type that has a lever to hold it in place on the tile for $27.95. There is also a handle, $29.95, that has the same type of suction cup to attach to the tub for help in & out. So, no drilling of holes in the tile. And, as Mother pointed out, we could take it with us when she comes home.

We went to lunch at Juniper Take Out. I suggested that now it is nice weather, Mother & I could walk out on the sidewalk. She agreed, which really surprised me.

She wanted to stop at Dollar Tree in Smithfield. Unbenownst to either Don or I, we were just a few cars apart. When I pulled into the 3-second lane to make the left hand turn, I could see Don's car. We were on the phone with each other :) He turned around & came back. By the time I chased Mother all over that store, I got my 15 minutes in. When I finally caught up to her I was puffing & said, "My gosh Mother, for an old lady you can sure move fast." Just a few months ago, she could never have done that.

And, of course, I walked down to feed the dog.

Moving in May, 5/3

I did it again today. I took a walk for 15 minutes. Today was worse than Friday. Today was what I expected Friday to be. I walked right after dinner though & had a serious pain in my abdomen. It wasn't a stitch, it was right up there where the ulcer/gall bladder pain comes & go. I had to rest several times.

I also walked down & fed the dog before I went over to Mother's so that I wouldn't have to feed him in the dark.

We had a serious thunderstorm. Lightning & thunder & then a deluge. I told Mother I hoped it didn't blow the birds nest out from under the eaves. Speaking of birds, there was a live bird flying around in our house today. I had my hearing aid turned off & was working on one of my online communities, adding a forum for food storage, & missed the whole thing. We're wondering how it got in. There's a couple of ways that come to mind. A cat brought it in & it wasn't dead or it got in through the hole in Nick's bedroom. I thought that had been sealed up, but Don wasn't sure.

I'm grateful for friends that have similar health problems today. I realized that I didn't have any lexapro & hadn't taken it yesterday. That explains the bad headache & shakiness. I called Kim & asked her if either she or Shari takes lexapro. It seemed like one of them did. Kim does & luckily she had some extra. I ran over to get one & she gave me 2. She takes the same dosage I do, whew!

Tonight I was filling Mother's pill boxes & she didn't have any coumadin. She was wondering who she could borrow a pill from & remembered that both Arlene Wanner & Gwen Fish take coumadin. I told her to call Arlene & see if she could borrow a pill. Arlene takes 5 mg pills of warfarin, which is generic for coumadin. The doctor doesn't want Mother taking the generic because her protime is so hard to keep stable. I figured 5 mg of warfarin was better than nothing. Mother was supposed to take 6 mg this evening.

So, tomorrow I need to get 3 scrips for me & 2 for Mother. I need metformin, lexapro & lisinopril, my blood pressure pill. Mother needs coumadin & cardizem. I remember we took those bottles down on Tuesday when Mother had her protime because there were no refills left. Becky, Dr. Otrusinik's nurse, said she'd call them in to Preston Drug. I immediately spaced it, sigh.