Well, it's not going to kill you

An exercise in futility

I still haven't gotten a flu shot.  I'm considered high risk because of Larry, he has no spleen.  It's been a real exercise in futility.  The last batch my doc's office received was shipped at the wrong temperature so it all had to be retested, apparently it didn't pass the test because no more flu shot clinics are scheduled.  Safeway's out, Costco's out in fact they told me they'd heard the next batch won't be arriving until December.  Monday morning I'm going to call the county to see if they know of anyplace that has any available.

I just have this nightmare vision of me getting sick, Larry's still in wheelchair and walker mode and who's going to take care of us?  Somehow I just can't see the dog and the cats teaming up to do the job.

And who says we need healthcare reform.  I wouldn't be in the least surprised if big pharma isn't behind this.  Remember last year when there was more than enough vaccine to go around?  Why not this year, especially when they knew long in advance that it was going to be a bad season?

Yes, it's been a long time

Things have been a bit crazy around here what with Larry, the wheelchair and the walker.  The almost evicted tenant that is unclear on the concept of her rent and her power bill being 2 different things and me trying to keep all the plates spinning - remember Ed Sullivan.  

Last Thursday I went to a luncheon honoring my former oncologist Dr. Fun otherwise know as Helen Collins MD.  I also went on Wednesday but I was the only one there.  Does that give you a small idea of what's going on in my brain?  I did have to leave halfway through the live auction because I couldn't take the chaos.  Good thing I didn't spring for a Catwalk ticket, I probably wouldn't have made it into the tent.

I Friday then had my usual appt with Dr. Sanity.  By then I was so tired all I could say was I'm so tired I don't know what to do with myself.  She sent me home 10 mins early because, while I had thoughts I was too tired to articulate them.  She sent me home with permission, nay orders to sleep the entire weekend.  I have to get up to take Larry's leg brace on and put it back on, otherwise SLEEP.  And sleep I did.

I feel much better today.  Woke up to tenant hell but at least I had the resources to deal with the raving lunatic.  I'm being cruel to her because I expect her to pay both her rent and electrical bill.

So all and all the Carey household is running fine.  We have out first big adventure out with wheelchair and walker because Larry has an appointment with his ophthalmomologist that (as you can imagine) has been canceled several times.

Wish us well, it's a practice run for the first of many doc appointments I'm sure.

Larry update and stunning picture

I went to visit bionic man tonight and he's doing incredibly well.  Happy, cheerful, funny, the man I fell in love with.  I can only imagine how much pain he's been in for all these years with his hip and now it's gone!  He's doing physical therapy twice in the morning.  Mostly learning to hop because he won't be able to put any weight on his left foot, because of the rebuilt knee for 3 months.  He's convinced he'll be out of the skilled therapy place next week.  I hate to burst his bubble put I'm not quite so convinced.

This is the stunning picture I found when I was looking for something else.  To me, no matter how you feel about God, this picture reflects how she is in us all.

We now return to our main story

When I had arrived the night before he told me surgery was scheduled the next day (Sat 9/5)  My sister Jan and I arrive at the hospital at 10 am to find out that surgery is scheduled for 1pm.  Ok it's a wait but not bad for Kaiser.  Jan and I head out to the cafeteria (NEVER, EVER eat in the cafeteria at Oakland Kaiser, just take my word for it)  We arrive back at Larry's room at 12:30 and he's gone.  A wonderful (one of the few) case managers sees us looking blank outside the door and he offers to take us down in the staff elevator and locate Larry.

The usual pre-op stuff is going on, the anesthesiologist asks if we eaten, yes, his reply was I hope not downstairs!  The surgeon, an amazing man comes and explains what he's planning to do which is remove the ball from the socket, clean it up,  clean up the socket, repair the socket, reinsert the ball and voila.  He's also going to try to do the knee at the same time depending on how the hip goes.  The hip does not cooperate with the plan.  The ball is riddled with arthritis and the socket is much more badly damaged than expected.  It could be repaired to an extent but Larry would need a hip replacement in a couple of years.  So total hip replacement it is.  The knee didn't get done.

Jan had gone out earlier to get us some provisions in case we got hungry - we're mostly on the same wave length food wise salami sandwiches on sourdough and red whips.  We had been told the Piedmont Ave was only a block away but it could be another country.

We finally get to see Larry about 7pm.  He's telling me that he sees mice moving on the ceiling and he's in a pod in a warehouse and he could be alone or there could be dozens of other pods there.  Ok, this brings back to many memories of the last time he was in the hospital.  I ask him what his name is.  He smiles at me and replies Benjamin Franklin.  I said (rather sharply I gather) don't you start with me.  He immediately said my name is Larry Carey, I am in Kaiser Oakland Hospital and it's 2009.  Jan tells me later she's NEVER heard me talk to him like that.

By this time it's about 8 pm and I send Jan home after swearing an oath in blood that I would take a taxi to my hotel that is an entire block away.  I stayed with him until 11:30 more to reassure myself that he's really not in an altered state but also to help him touch the "ground" again. 

The next morning I call and he says he's really in a bad mood, he'd rather be alone.  I said great because I'm exhausted and I'm going back to bed.  I read a bit then slept until 5 pm. He's still not feeling social but I'm hungry so I wander over to Piedmont to get something to eat.  In the meantime he has found out that knee surgery is scheduled for the next day (9/8)  probably for sometime in the late afternoon.  Jan and I confer.  I plan to arrive at the hospital at 11 am.  Jan will leave work in Sunnyvale at 2:30.  Surgery starts out being scheduled at 6, then 7, then 7:30, he finally leaves for OR at 8 pm.  The surgeon says he's supposed to say this surgery will take 2 hours but he knows it will really take 3 to 3  1/2.  Again an outstanding anesthesiologist and OR nurse.   He happens to be from Jamaica and tells us we MUST go there because their are many, many Carey's in Jamaica.  Works for me!

I don't usually like to leave the hospital while Larry is in OR but Jan and I were starving at this point so we head back to Piedmont Ave for some food.  We get back and then begins the wait.  It was about the same time as the wait Sunday but seemed so much longer because it was dark and the hospital was quiet.  The surgeon finally comes to talk to us, I told him he looked as exhausted as I felt.  The knee went great so now we're in a holding pattern to get him stable and into rehab.  I'd had the good sense to talk to the charge nurse the first day I got there and made it clear I wanted him transferred some place closer to home, and I reminded the charge nurse EVERY DAY.

By Wednesday it's clear Larry is stable, fine and grumpy.  I decide it's time to go home. Thursday I get a call saying he's being moved but giving me no information.  Friday they called and said he's being transferred to Sebastopol ( about 40 minutes away)  YES!  Once again the Kaiser dance began.  Transport was coming at noon - great I'd be able to spend SOME time of our anniversary with him, transport was coming at 2, transport arrived at 2:30 which meant he didn't get to Apple Valley until almost 5.  I'd promised FWF that I would be there but it's about 1 1/2 hours from Sebastopol to Cloverdale.  So we talked on our anniversary - our 10th anniversary we just talked.  Well at least he's alive.  I was planning to see him yesterday but fear of the fires moving stopped me.  I FINALLY got to see him today.  He was sitting in the hallway when I came through the front doors and his face lit up like a Christmas tree.  Talk about having a boost to your ego!

We still don't know what the plan is except that he cannot put any weight on his left foot for 3 months.  At this point knowing he's safe, well and in a good nursing home let's me go with the flow.  Apple Valley is nice, clean, relatively current furnishing and the staff I've met are wonderful.  I cannot tell you how that eases my mind.

Thus ends the current installment of Larry and the flying Gator.  I'll keep you all posted.

When last we left our hero

He was in the ICU at Memorial Hospital, a hospital I've been in once before just for a few hours to get my port installed.  Amy is a Sutter Doc, Charlie is a Sutter Doc, most every doc I know is a Sutter Doc so we were is new territory here, although I did find out by listening to the person sharing the trauma bay with Larry that I could invoke Amy's name and get attention damn quick (that's what happens when your doc is the best FP doc in the county if not the state.  It's always amazing what happens when you mention Amy Shaw is your doc).  Unfortunately Larry is a Kaiser patient.

When he was transferred up to ICU I had to wait while the got him settled.  I was pretending to read a magazine when I glanced up and discovered my beloved Dr. Sanity standing in the doorway!  I walked out of the waiting room, said I can't believe you're here, she hugged me and I fell apart.  We made a couple of circles around the floor so she could calm me down.  She asked me if I'd eaten, I actually had to stop and think!  Umm, no.  So she drags me down to the cafe, makes me order food and sits to make sure I eat.  I'm still in awe that she's there "It's on my way home and I decided I couldn't wait for your phone call"  God bless Dr. Sanity.

Of course being a Kaiser patient means that Kaiser doesn't want to be paying Memorial any more $$ than is absolutely necessary.  By Friday morning we'd discovered that the trauma surgeon at Memorial couldn't get Larry on the schedule until Monday, major bummer.  There are 3, yes only 3, surgeons in Northern California that can preform the surgery that Larry needed.  The one at Memorial and 2 at Kaiser but not our local Kaiser.  Kaiser in Oakland, 80 fricking something miles away.  Over our vehement objections he was transferred to Kaiser Oakland Friday afternoon because if we'd refused the transfer we would have been liable for the bill at Memorial,  the most overpriced hospital in Sonoma County.  Because it was the holiday weekend he was worried about me getting in an accident so we agreed I wouldn't come over until Tuesday.  We'd just talk on the phone which was how we handled things when I used to go on business trips, not ideal but it works.

I talked to him Saturday only to discover that he was having surgery the next day.  Wait I'm not ready!  I still have to deal with the Aryan Brotherhood visitor of one of the tenants who's threatening another tenants Mexican heritage children, another tenant who's convinced she's going to be raped and murdered and a third who is hitting on the 17 year old son of her neighbor going so far as to try and climb in the kid's bedroom window.  I'd discovered all this lovely information when I'd come home from the hospital the night before when I ended up spending 2 1/2 hours on the phone with tenants.  After all this talking I was really scared.  I'm here alone, the cats are not very good guard animals and I possibly have nutcases with guns on the property.

I called my friends Rob and Erin to see if they could come spend the night.  Thankfully they could.  The next day Rob helped me with a notice and went with me to distribute them.  YEA, only one tenant was home and at 5 pm she was already wasted so no conversation was necessary.  Being a landlord SUCKS!

I map quested directions to the hospital.  Apparently Map Quest is not aware that there was a major earthquake here in 1989 and the freeways in the East Bay were severely effected.  So I tried to follow the directions.  After driving around Oakland and Berkeley for an hour I did what I should have done in the first place, call the hospital for directions.  Half an hour later I was still driving by this time it's close to 11 pm and I am going to see Larry if it's the last thing I do.  I called the hospital again, sobbing this time, talk to the floor nurse, explain what's happened and she assures me I will still be able to see him even though visiting hours end at 8 (WTF visiting hours over at 8 pm?) just go in through Emergency.  I arrived and found his room.  I cannot tell what a relief it was just to touch his cheek.  I didn't stay long because of the late hour, he had not yet heard what time his surgery was scheduled so we agreed I'd be at the hospital at 10 am.  My sister Jan came up to be with me during his surgery.  I think it's the longest time the 2 of us had time to sit together and talk since Marissa was born : )

My friend Rob had been very lucky and secured me a room at a very sweet hotel just a block down the street from the hospital.  Lots of visiting nurses and docs stay there, it's family owned, they live on the premises and $45 a night - IN OAKLAND!

I'm going to stop this entry now because it's getting a bit long but I will post the rest of the adventure tonight.

The day Larry tried to make the Gator fly

This is a Gator It was not entirely successful.  It did in fact fly but only because it was totally out of control.  He landed sideways across the drive way and flew down the hill, hit a redwood tree and was tossed out.  Fortunately there was a wire fence that stopped him from rolling to the bottom of the hill.

One of our tenants and a friend noticed smoke (live in the forest, smoke REALLY gets your attention) and went to check it out.  She found the Gator still running thus the smoke.   They also discovered Larry.  He'd been done there for about an hour before they discovered him.  That was a very good thing because I'm used to him running around the property all  day so I wouldn't have gone looking for him until  about 6 pm. 

They called 911 and then came and got me.  The paramedics and firefighters arrived, got his neck safely contained, got him on a backboard, up the hill to the ambulance and across to our neighbors property which was the only place the helicopter had to land and flew him off to the local trauma center.

There it was determined that he broke his left hip, pulled the ball from the socket The femoral head is the ball, the acetabulum is the socket, and had a partial fracture of the left knee.  The trauma surgeon put a pin (really used a drill and shot a bolt, I was told I could stay but when they showed up with an actual drill I decided to leave the room.  On one hand I was fascinated on the other they were doing it to my husband) through his knee and added weights to it in the hopes it would pull the ball back into the socket.  He was then sent to ICU.  As it happens one of my cousins is a nurse in that very ICU.  By a twist of fate Sue was working a half day the next day.  She spent time talking to Larry and discovered I wouldn't arrive until after she left.  Incredibly wonderful person that she is, she waited 1 1/2 hours after her shift was over just so she could talk to me and assure me Larry was doing fine, explain what the coming processes would be and told me to call if I had any questions.  She's so adorable she said "I've been a nurse for 23 years (wait how in the hell did THAT happen) if I can't answer your medical questions by now I can find some one who can."

I'm fast running out of steam and this could get REALLY long so I'll finish it up tomorrow - sorry to leave you hanging but the ultimate result is that he'll eventually be ok.

Stabiity

Can sometimes be greatly over rated.  Like when your husband spent 4 days in the hospital last weekend with a terrible infection, you actually screamed at an evicted tenant (which Dr. Sanity assures me they deserved and I should not feel bad about it, but I do anyway), you did your budget for Sept and realized you will have $13.33 left at the end of the month.   

When someone as good and powerful as Ted Kennedy, the champion of healthcare reform dies and you figure there goes healthcare reform right down the toilet.

When you go look at the damage the evicted tenant did to their rental unit that was pristine when they moved in and now not only reeks of smoke (cigarette and other), but also looks as if a barnyard full of animals lived there.  When you simply have no idea how you're going to pay for all the repairs that need to get done which include replacing the front and back doors because the sheriff had to kick them both in to get inside to arrest said tenants.  Ripping up the wood flooring said tenant put down with out bothering to measure to see if he had enough flooring, he didn't the moron and replacing the brand new carpet that had been installed just before they moved in because he tore it up to put down the wood floor.

Paying said tenant to move off the property so we would have to go through the court eviction process that takes approximately 90 days (God only know if the unit would have been standing in 90 days).

Dr. Sanity assures me that I am strong and I can take it all and as usual she's probably correct but I have to question her sanity today.

Besides that it is totally fricking HOT here today which does not put me in the best of moods at the best of times.

So much for my tale of woo for today.  Sometimes it just all piles up at the same time and I lose the ground beneath my feet for a couple of days.

And yes Eliza I know I did the cardinal sin of mixing tenses but just pretend your not a literature genius.

The tao of hospital elevators

I speak of it because Larry is in the hospital again - for those of you who only know us through my blog Larry has been at death's door more times than I care to count, in more hospitals than I care to count.  He was diagnosed with colon cancer that spread to his liver in 1994.  MANY surgeries and near death experiences later he's (mostly fine).  Except his kidneys have decided it's their turn to get attention.  I forced him to the hospital yesterday (Friday) when I woke up and found him in a trance like state.  He kept saying "I'm fine", I said I'm calling your doctor's office.  After talking to the nurse she said take him to the emergency room they can do more for him than we can here.

So with some coaxing and finally "don't give me grief, you're not fine, get in the car" we headed of to Kaiser.  When we arrived after repeated "I'm fines" while I explained to the intact nurse what I'd observed over the last couple of days it turned  out he didn't know where he was or what year it was.  Several tests and hours later he was admitted.

Which brings me back to my original subject the tao of hospital elevators.  I've been in Kaiser Santa Rosa which is slow but since it's only 5 floors you can deal with it.  I've been in UCSF where you quickly learn it doesn't matter if your going up or down, just get in the elevator because they are SO DAMN SLOW, you'll eventually end up on the floor you were heading for.  Kaiser San Francisco elevators dump you into empty virtually unmarked hallways ( or at least they did in 1994) you need a compass to figure out where you're going.  Kaiser Oakland elevators seem to deify gravity.  I think they were previously used for anti-gravity testing.  And last but not least Wilson Hospital in Lihue, HI.  They're very confusing.  The one that's easy to find is staff only.  The patient elevator is around a few corners, opens up into virtually empty but beautifully decorated space and leaves you wondering how far is it to the beach!

Healthcare hysteria

As you can imagine health care is a very big issue in my world.  It always has been as I was "blessed" with being allergic to almost everything at a very young age - except food, thank God for that - but just about everything else on God's green earth makes me itch or sneeze or break out in a rash.  I decided long ago that if my allergy wanted to be here it was going to have to live the life I wanted, like it or not.  This does makes me a slave to the pharmaceutical industry which gets more out of control each day but fortunately courtesy of American Express screwing up my life years and admitting it I have very good but damn expensive medical and drug coverage (yes I'm pretty sure that qualifies as a a run-on sentence).

But back to the basic issue - healthcare. Mine is fairly reasonable and covered most of my biopsy, surgeries, chemo, radiation and doctors visits.  For a little view into history this is how it was 3 years ago tomorrow.  The memories are as fresh as the day they happened.  You would think they would fade over time but no.  Everything I go back to my archives it's like reliving the entire process.  Side tracked again sorry.

So healthcare today  is the insurance companies basically have all the control and they hang over your doctor's shoulder telling him/her how to practice medicine. And mental health care, let's not even go there.  I cannot tell you how many times Amy has had to put in a special request to get a certain drug approved because it didn't meet their formulary.  And then there was in infamous out-of-network refusal to pay for emergency surgery in Hawaii because I didn't contact them first.  Hello, emergency, chance of dying, contacting my insurance company was not on the top of anyone's list especially mine.  It was a 16 month battle to get them to pay.  What Larry should have chartered an air ambulance and flown me back home?  I'd have been dead by then.

So then why are people like Sarah Palin, let's face it not the brightest bulb and why is she still around anyway, are ranting that Obama's plan will order her parents and disabled son killed, unclear on the concept of a living will.  Why does some woman at a town hall meeting call and say she understands that once health care reform passes a government employee will be visiting the home of every elderly person in America asking them how they want to die?  Because they are ignorant, stupid, uninformed and believe everything Rush Limbaugh to Americans for Prosperity and all it's evil little off shoots tell them to believe.  I mean why bother to do any sort of research when you have all these wingnuts to do it for you.  Based on their beliefs I figure Larry and I would be put out on some ice flow.

I have a book in my never ending pile of books to read by the name of Idiot America: How Stupidity became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.  It some how seems quite appropriate based on what's happening today.

There you have it my rant for the day.

Batshit crazy

Seriously. What is up with the Republican party and their wing nut idea that a new health care plan is just a plot to kill old people?

Who put what in their Kool-Aid?  When these rumors starting floating around, i.e. the woman in a town hall meeting telling Obama that she heard there was a clause in the bill that government people were going to knock on every senior citizens door and ask them how they wanted to die, I thought it was kind of funny.

When Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck were ranting, raving and generally making fools of themselves it was funny.  But now actual members of Congress for example Virginia Foxx, R, N.C.  are standing on the floor of Congress and announcing that the whole idea of health care reform is to kill off old people it's ceased to be funny.There's a big difference between a living will, which is a good thing to have by the way and everyone should, and deciding how old people are going to die.

Someone needs to slap these people upside the head and say get a grip.