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Sunday, March 22, 2009

My week. Both long and descriptive.

Alright, rather than tell this story over and over I decided to just blog the damn thing. This has been one hell of a week.

It began Friday March 13th.

Go figure.

John left the car's lights on. The battery ran outta juice. He has an emergency jumper box thingumabob so he tried that on Saturday morning. It didn't work. He had another battery, he hooked it to the charge box thingumabob and it wouldn't hold a charge either. Sunday, he finally called AAA. They sent some one out to give it a boost. The car wouldn't stay on. After switching batteries again and two more tries the battery finally held a charge and the car stayed in the on position.

The following Tuesday, while I was cleaning the tub, I tried to turn the hot water off and the handle came off in my hand. Water spurted everywhere and anyone who knows me knows how I feel about being wet. Argh! I ran to turn off the main water control for the house. Luckily I knew where it was. When John came home he started working to see if he could patch it til we could get a replacement part on the weekend.

While he was working on that I ran to the grocery store to pick up something I'd forgotten that we needed for dinner that night. I noticed that the car would wobble if I drove faster or slower than 40 mph. Great we have a bad tire. Lovely. Since finances are a bit tight at this time we had to wait til the weekend to get a new tire.

Now, Wednesday. John drove the car to work. I was worried about the tire but I also knew that he had AAA so if it popped he could call them. He emailed to let me know he'd arrived safely at work so I relaxed. Later that afternoon he emailed to tell me he was coming home an hour early because he "didn't feel good".

When he arrived home (it's an hour drive one way) he was having trouble balancing, and couldn't remember what he was trying to say. He complained that it his head hurt a lot. He went to bed. I woke him when dinner was ready and though he seemed to be walking and speaking better he still seemed off.

Thursday morning he woke up feeling much the same and called into to work to tell them he wouldn't be there. He went back to bed.

He had an eye appointment on Thursday afternoon for complications from his retinopathy so later that afternoon he went online to look for a general practice doctor near the eye doctor so he could visit after his appointment. He had no luck. He was getting nervous about what how he felt so we decided to visit the urgent care center in his eye doctor's building after his appointment.

Now, I had planned to drive him to said appointment but with the car tire problem I was extremely nervous to do it. I had also planned that Sam would let herself into the house after school and we'd be home a few minutes after. Trouble was, she had left without her door key and with the visit to urgent care, who knew what time we'd be home. I finally ended up calling my mom and asking her to get Sam after school and watch her and let me borrow her car to drive to the appointments.

Oh, did I mention that I was so worried and stressed out that I'd only eaten a few bites of dinner Wednesday and nothing since?

We went to the eye doctor. We went to urgent care. They suspected that he'd had a mini stroke on Wednesday and with his history of Deep vein thrombosis they wanted him in the ER and checked out. They called an ambulance and we were whisked across the street to the ER. *rolls eyes*

In the ER, or as they call it at Presby, the ED they took his vital signs, asked about his drug use, if he was abused at home or suicidal and sent us out to the waiting room.

Where we sat. Starving and worried until 8 PM.

Did you know that the smallest bill an ATM in the hospital will give is a 10? Did you also know that the largest bill a vending machine in the hospital will take is a 5? Are you further aware that people make HUGE amounts of noise rustling their chip packets while you're starving and no one has change for a 10?

But, back to the story. At 8, hungry, and fed up we left and came home.

Friday morning, John got up and went to work, sick and on a wobbly tire. I was a nervous wreak. After an hour he sent an email saying he was coming home. I continued to be a nervous wreak. An hour later he was home and seemed to feel much better. He had had a long talk with is boss, explaining the situation to him and his boss had sent him home. this relieved a lot of the 'oh am I going to lose my job' stress he was under.

We found a Doctor who was part of the Presby system, was relatively close and could see him on Friday, made an appointment and left to get the tire fixed. we wobbled to the tire repair place and that had a huge line that we didn't have time to wait in. We went to another tire place and they also had a line. Apparently Friday is repair your tires day. At a 3rd stop they were out of tires in our size.

Running out of time before the Dr appointment we went home and moved one of the back tires to the front and put the spare on the back. I'm glad I know how to change a tire, because it would have taken twice as long and John would have been straining too much if he did it all himself.

We checked the kid out of school early, swung through Wendy's drive through, because you guessed it, I hadn't eaten in a long while and drove to the new Dr's office.

Well not exactly, when we arrived, late, we discovered we were actually at the wrong place, but since they're affiliated and had an empty slot they saw us anyway.

Sam and I sat in the waiting room for 2 hours while they examined him. When he finally came out he said he had to go to the hospital to have some tests done. Flashing back to Thursday night's hours long wait we drove over to the hospital. (Thursday night we were at Presby main in Charlotte, Friday we were at Presby Huntersville) They were ready for him, we filled out some paperwork and they gave him an ultra sound of the arteries in his neck. He also needed an MRI but that wasn't scheduled until 9 PM so we left. I came home, packed a bag for the sprout and took her over to her biological dad's house, we grabbed some dinner, made a few phone calls, and headed back to Huntersville.

We were told to go to the ED when we came back as the front offices would be closed for the night and again I flashed back on the Thursday night ED visit from hell. Huntersville's ED was miles different. They had art on the walls, big windows that showed views of the actual outside, rather than the brick walls at Presby main and bright open spaces. We only had to wait a little while before being moved back to a radiology waiting room where we watched 'Failure to Launch' until they were ready for him. A half hour later we were on our way home.

Saturday morning, his new Dr. Dr Phillips called to say that he had in fact suffered a mini stroke. The ultrasound and MRI showed no permanent damage but she was still concerned as after suffering from a stroke you're 9 times more likely to have another and the next one could be bigger.

So that's where we are now. He has an appointment Monday morning with employ heath to evaluate his ability to go back to work and then we go see Dr. Phillips again. Right now he feels better, and we're both much less stressed. I'll post again or update this post Monday afternoon with the latest.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Rooster




There is a rooster in my neighborhood. I don't have any idea where he lives but he wanders the whole neighborhood.

One day a few weeks ago, I was outside and heard a really strange noise. I looked up to see the rooster on my roof. That was our introduction.

Since then he's been in our yard several times. He can be heard crowing at all hours of the day and night, but apparently he's camera shy because he wouldn't crow as long as the camera was rolling.

A few days ago I noticed him outside the kitchen window while I was cooking. I threw a handful of birdseed out at him. I figured he'd like it, it's safflowers and corn pieces. He ate it up, and now he's back there every evening waiting.

Sam says his name is Bob.