Saturday Night, June 14, 2014

Haven't posted in a long time - although I've thought about it.  Because life has just seemed so "real"...one thing after another!

Because the holidays of November and December are so painful (I long for my children and grandchildren and cry my way through the holidays), I look forward to January as a healing month.  Unfortunately that was not the way it happened this year!  Having spent way too much $$ for Christmas, January was also to be "catch up time/take a breather" month.  We were knocked off our terre firma a bit much when K's disability check was not deposited in our account on the 15th.  A call to our local SS office revealed that he had been terminated as disabled ... they claimed he had been working for the past year earning over $1800 per month!

We made a trip to the local SS office, sat for 2 hours waiting our turn to speak to someone, and then received hateful treatment by the representative.  She claimed he had been working, that he had earned all this money, that they had sent letters to us in November telling us he would be cut off, etc., etc.  They handed us print outs of the letters we never received.  We asked for reconsideration because he certainly had not earned that kind of money -- and who would know better than the SS office?  They have records of his earnings!  I had all of his income records with me, along with our bank account information where his deposits are made.  They made copies of his W-2's but didn't want to see anything else.  In addition, we completed a form seeking appeal.  We left totally shocked at the way we had been treated, as well as the misinformation they were giving us.

We waited a couple of weeks, never heard from them, and began calling from time to time.  Each time we were assured it was being handled.  It wasn't.  A phone representative finally send our call to a main SS center in Kansas City.  I received a telephone call on Thursday of that week from a representative there who told me she had no idea why the FW office had done this to K, because her records showed he had worked two weeks out of the year full time, and the rest of the time intermittent part-time work (stadium).  She and I went over the records she had vs what I had and they were the same.  She advised that she had already been to her supervisor as soon as she saw the mess, and she had been instructed to expedite reinstatement.  Needless to say, expediting with the government takes a while.  It was March before we learned that K's disability had been reinstated, but that it would take 30 days or more before he would receive current and back pay funds.  Thankfully it finally came in April.

In late January I accompanied Betty Abdo, President of our chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, to Salado for the State forum.  That was the weekend of the 24th and 25th of January, and we drove there on icy roads but fortunately did not have an accident.  A business meeting, of course, and somehow I found myself on a State committee tasked with converting printable forms to online fillable forms.  That task has been ongoing since January but thankfully has now been declared completed and the forms have been provided to the masses for their use and discontent.

In February I transferred from the Mary Isham Keith chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution to the Six Flags Chapter.  MIK is a very large chapter, and therefore it is very hard to become involved in the workings of the chapter.  Transfer permitted me to become involved - probably more so than I need to be!  But it is more fun to be involved.  As of right now I am co-chair of the Constitution Day event which will occur in September - a big deal for the DAR, and Six Flags is the host for that event for our District this year.  I attended the planning meeting this past week.  In addition, I find myself in charge of producing the Yearbook for the chapter because the Regent's computer crashed, restoration could not be done (she thought she had it backed up, but alas, no), so everything is being recreated.  So, I'm working on the yearbook.  I had it about completed when I was told that it needs to be done in Publisher - a software I don't have, and a program I know ZERO about.  So I guess somehow I'll be coming up with that program and learning how it works.

On February 10 I had vascular surgery on my left leg...it was not done in the hospital but in the doc's office.  There was a screen set up over my chest across the table so I would not be able to see what was being done.  So I'm on this table, sans undies, with folks on the other side of the screen working on me.  The doc advises me that he is going to begin at the ankle and be injecting 20 numbing shots up the inside of my leg and into the groin area.  NOT a pleasant experience!  After that he advised he was going to start at the ankle with an incision and insert whatever (no idea what it looks like or is or what all entails because I could see nothing) to work upward through the large vein of the leg.  All of this was done because the valves in this vein of this leg were worn out and no longer pushed fluids back up out of the foot/lower leg.

After surgery I was told that I could not sit down, had to walk/stand for 20 minutes, could not sit at home, had to be up on my legs.  We did the walking, went to the car, stopped for food, and I spent the rest of the afternoon evening walking through the house, standing beside the sofa doing dance steps, and finally going to bed for the night.  That's when the discomfort/pain, moaning/screaming began.  I continued the walking/moving the following day and throughout the weekend and then returned for ultra sound check on Monday.  I was told the leg would be painful for an extended time, that it would take a while to recover, but I could stop getting up during every commercial.  The doc wanted to go ahead and schedule surgery for the right leg -- I smiled and left...no way.

I never got better...just started going down hill healthwise...felt sick, weak, cold, chilled, couldn't get over it.  I continued to try to move forward - even went on a quilting retreat but was just not well.  In March I celebrated my 66th birthday (no cards, no phone calls, no visits from those who matter the most to me).  My health continued to go down, and I found myself more and more curled into a ball covered with a blanket unable to go about my business.  During the night of Thursday, March 13, when I turned over it felt as though I had pulled something in the groin area of my right side - the area where my transplanted kidney resides.  I didn't think too much about it except the pain continued to get worse through Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  And my abdomen was as big as a basketball and hard.  On Monday I called my transplant doc and went for an ultrasound of the area.  I knew I had an appointment with the doc on Wednesday, so was trying to hold out 'til then instead of spending $$ going to the ER.  But I was no longer able to endure the pain, was doubled over, went to bed, tried to get comfortable, but just couldn't.  K gave me two choices - he could drive me to the ER or he could call an ambulance.  I let him drive me.

The ER staff started me on morphine and dilauded for pain...nothing touched it.  The on-call transplant doc was able to look at the ultrasound results made earlier on Monday and yes, there was fluid and infection in the area.  I was admitted to the hospital but by this time I was pretty much out of it.  I was so sick, I didn't see any way I would make it out of that place.  I was out of it, and as of today I don't remember the first 4-5 days of that hospital stay.  I nearly died so they say.  Tests were apparently done on Tuesday...lots of blood work, lots of antibiotics started, lots of fluid.  Dr. F. had to go out of town on Wednesday but left instructions for a procedure to be done to drain the site so cultures could be grown.  None of that happened while he was gone, just pain meds.  He was not a happy camper when he returned on Thursday.  It didn't take long for me to be sent for a couple of things...first, a CT with contrast - a no no for transplant kidney patients.  There was no choice.  Usually the transplanted kidney is dies after that.  Then I was sent for another procedure - first a big syringe with a big long needle inserted to draw off fluid to see what it was -- massive infection.  Sent to lab for culture growth.  Then they knocked me out and an incision was made to drain the area and insert a drain that could be attended to by the nursing staff.  Tests indicated the transplanted kidney was affected.

I was placed under the care of an infectious disease doc (Youree), and cultures indicated my bad luck -- an intestinal bacteria (fecal) had somehow entered my system and went to the weakest point...the transplanted kidney and abdominal cavity.  That info allowed determination of correct antibiotic to use to combat the infection.  I was placed on a 42 day regimen of IV antibiotics through a PICC line placed in my right arm across to the heart area.  Once I finally began to improve (a few days), I was discharged home to continue the IV antibiotics, reporting to Youree's infusion clinic every 7 days.

Cause of the infection?  Most likely occurred as a result of the vascular surgery done in February.  Who knows for sure.

I was doing fine on the antibiotics...had reached the final week of infusions.  The last day was to be Thursday, May 1.  On Monday, April 28, K got Subway sandwiches for us for lunch.  I ate about 1:30 or so, and about 5:30 became violently ill...nausea, vomiting, pain in the abdominal area, cramps, the whole shabang.  Again, K took me to ER, I kept throwing up.  I was admitted to the hospital, tests were run, and thankfully it was not a return of the original infection...instead it was food poisoning.  But because of my already weak condition, I had to stay in the hospital that week.  The antibiotics were increased, but I was declared finished with the IV meds on Thursday and the PICC line removed.  I was discharged home late Thursday.

Did I lose weight with the ordeal?  Yes...approximately 20 lbs.  Was it worth it?  Not hardly.

I'll blog about other spring events in another post.  It's been a busy/frustrating year thus far.  And it is going to be a sad one as well.