Resilience

My favorite Blue Angel hostas can handle a deluge and have it disperse to small beads beautifully reflecting light, not entering the leaf to weaken it, pull it down, bend its supporting stem.  This morning after the storm, protected and unaffected by the water, I feel saturated to my core, my legs soggy, my insides limp.  Not from hours of tears that I cannot produce, but the emotion that causes them.

The phone calls yesterday were continuous, and with hospital delirium the worst anyone has experienced, extremely unnerving.  I actually hung up on her twice, she was threatening me and sounded like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  Really.  A half hour later she was crying asking for help because she is alone and doesn't know what's happening.  All during the night unable to handle the pain and afraid to sleep because of the visions.  Thank you medical profession for realizing that patients needing help to handle their own situational anxiety and prevent stress related damage, are not worth a few .5 Ativan a week.  Thank you for assuming that being responsible my entire life will create an addict on a minute dose during those extremely upsetting days, or allow me to get a few hours of rest.  Fifteen pills in 60 days, and I can't get a refill.  

She is not being transferred to the main campus on Euclid, they will release her with another damaging move back to a nursing home and make an appointment to see another doctor in a month.  She had this ambulance transport move five times in four days, five different buildings, five different rooms.  Two can bring on this type of delirium in elderly patients.  It doesn't matter how many times you ask, beg, demand, explain that she is there, treat the leg, END THIS, don't make her wait another month in agony.  If you can't, say so. How Carole at 82 has held up with this bedridden agony for almost four months is astonishing.  And those months have continued destroying tissue and nerves, probably resulting in amputation that would not have been necessary if treated before advancing.  Not to mention the enormous inflammation and stress on a very weak heart. I am at my end.

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Just had another call, spoke with the nurse.  Are you f-ing kidding me?  I faxed the leg testing that CLEVELAND ordered to be done here, full results and diagrams, they were in her chart.  Today they planned on pressure cuffing and pressing the probe on those damaged legs again!  I asked why the test results CC ordered here were not being used.  "What tests?"  Look at her c.h.a.r.t.  "OH!  Here they are."  Use them.  Do not do a third unbearably painful test that is not necessary!  And what is her pain med list?  I could not believe it.  100 mg Gaba at night.  She was a patient twice in two months getting 200 mg every six hours and 300 mg at night with 650 Tylenol between doses!  Who changed them?  No one.  They never checked her CC chart.  I CAN SEE THEM ONLINE!!!  She is crying and sobbing, unable to walk, you were told of the recent procedure and can see the necrosis, swelling, and assumed 100 mg was enough without checking her file?   They looked at the nursing home file of every two hour OXY load, stopped it abruptly, and subbed one 100 mg. Gaba.  I am typing this over and over until I can actually believe it.  I requested the doctor to call today.  That f word won't be held back much longer.  This isn't the first time.  I can see every test, result, admission and discharge, notes, and recommendations so why the hell can't the staff in charge of patients?  Technology!!  It's all there in one place under one patient number.  No one looks.  But my PA state would certainly know if I got a script for Ativan because sure, that's more important.   

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Unexpected

 Carole woke unable to speak, confused, delusional, and for the fourth time in three months needing blood.  Lower than ever, sent to ER.  My local hospital no longer has a gastro doctor (she was scoped there two months ago), and she would be sent to another hospital.  Where?  Another facility that is unfamiliar with her conditions? I can't tell you how many times I have recited the last six years and recent issues, completely baffled why it's necessary in this age of technology.  After all these months, we thought the unexpected had worn itself out, but it seems to be gaining strength while we're losing ours.  Tonight she was pathetic and frail, wanting me there all the time, not understanding why I can't be, asking what will happen, why is she alone, where are they taking her, will I come with her, and the fear and tears in those wild eyes can create guilt that tops stress. 

Missing the Clinic appointments tomorrow, the only hope for an end to this nightmare, and would need to wait another five weeks.  That's it.  SEND HER TO CLEVELAND G-DAMMIT.  ENOUGH!  Almost four months of agony while you people f around.  No openings.  Again.  So a satellite hospital in Cleveland is where she is headed at 11pm tonight.  She is panicked, unable to explain or comprehend, alone, no one to comfort her, explain the nightmare, the positional pain.  No hotels that I could stay at without requiring a car, I can't drive while adding eye drops every 15 minutes.  So Mark will have to stay with me and chauffer to and from since he is not permitted in the hospital, missing his golf league again and Nitzy will have to stop treatment.  I am so hoping this is only until a room opens on Euclid, she is familiar with the nurses and doctors there.

Tomorrow morning we will drive to the last facility and retrieve her belongings.  The last before her 40 minute ride to the ER, and almost two hour ride to the new hospital.  The transfer to and from vehicles and stretcher to bed and back are unbearably painful.  I hope to find out more tomorrow, will be difficult since she is unaware.  She is about to give up.  And I hope the two elderly women brought to the ER that were sneezing, do not test positive.

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What's in my Magma?

Lucy Beam.  As Friday approaches, my nerves are shattered, why would I engage in decision making?  Bad enough that this linen piece of whatever the hell was dipped green to tone the red, violet to drown the yellow, bleach to start over, and it just kept going.  I still don't like it, but since the sampler is tight with stitches, it will be just fine.

More thread than called for, I have almost double on the ring so I can choose as I go.

Seeing my cardio at 8am and will be scolded for not taking my meds.  My routine test numbers look fine, next up is the CT scan for the pulmonologist checking on the particles in the upper lung that he said are sometimes precursors to lung cancer.  Not thinking about that now, trying to gauge what dose of Ativan I will need Friday since I will be alone with Carole for these two critical talks.  She is inconsolable and the stupor from Oxy is making it worse.  She adores and trusts my reasonable and stable husband, but he isn't even allowed in the freaking building, banished again to a long hallway with no food or drink for most of the day, and a long walk across the street to the back of a huge parking garage for the nearest restroom on the third floor.  He's vaccinated, I'm not.  Make sense?

Sitting outside by myself, Petey left, Nitzy is in the house and a absolute challenge to administer eye drops three times a day.  It's an ulcer, medication to bridge the recess for healing, antibiotic, pain.  Back in two weeks and drops will be for at least another month.  Once healed, both eyes will require a steroid type medication which if given now, would destroy his eye.

Carole will be calling soon, sobbing and asking why this is happening, when will it stop, and I need to shore up for what should be the last such call today.  They start in the morning and continue until late evening.

Goodnight stitching buds.  Sleep well.

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Pete and I

 Hot weather has arrived, and after spending two and a half hours in a doc office with Carole, going for my own blood work after, all the while Mark is waiting in the parking lot, here I sit on mom's swing.  Nit and Missy were here too but once Petey tries to join, they leave.  

He got up and looked at me as if to ask "how long will it be before I'm a part of the brat pack".  Petey, I've been an outcast since grade school, nothing wrong with being a loner, but it does requires strength.  And when your family is reduced to a handful, you become more alone with each passing year until there is no one, just you.   

Lie down Pete.  You and I will enjoy the warm weather and bright color against a darkening sky.  

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Is it Sunday?

Realizing we're into June has not been accepted, so not being certain of the day goes along with that denial.  Very busy week.  Nitzy has not been himself and we finally have an appointment for which I need to get half of a Valium into him.  And since it's not until late afternoon, he will be howling all day wanting to go out.  Hoping sometime today we can grab him but the recent warming trend has him lounging on the deck.  Tuesday I have to meet Carole at the wound clinic, Thursday is my cardio visit, must be in Cleveland at 8am Friday.  No idea what to expect.  She can't even tell the time looking at the clock.  Oxy increases despite family objections had led to delusion and lack of coherence.  I've talked to several departments and I must say this facility is more open and informative for any concern.  The doctor feels pain control is more important at this point.  We are all fearing Friday's visits.  I may have to private pay for the ambulance service she has used for years.  Kind, gentle, and necessary on a two hour ride.  She missed an appt last week because the facility's contracted transport (new to her)  insisted on a wheelchair, even though she cannot drop her legs, so she refused.  Days before hey left her in one with legs elevated and she screamed and sobbed until someone came for her.  This is not the norm for her disease, most patients get relief by hanging legs off the bed, pain is unbearable at rest.  She is the opposite, no one knows why, and a stretcher is required.

Decided to continue unloading items I have no use for and finally put away the tablecloth pieces I hope to one day create into vintage small something or others.  That was a plan a few years ago to make some extra money and sell online, but we are going so deep into that pit that it's not worth the effort right now. 

The pillowcases and leftover small pieces that I love yielded this pale blue thread on white lovely.  Never really paid attention until it fell from the pile, and I saw the back.  

It's a pillow sham.  Sweet little one, I'm assuming for a baby?  Any other ideas why this is so small?  You always offer answers and guidance and I have no hankering to research.  Sweet isn't it?

I've been ordering items online, still entering stores but honestly, I am the only one with a mask.  Teens, twenties, thirties, and over, they cannot all be vaccinated.  Anyway, we've lost so many stores and almost everything I need is unavailable so this has moved from a precaution to a necessity.  My hair loss is massive and I ordered the gray Toppik.  Been using browns that I had before, but the darker fibers on my scalp (which you can easily see through very thin hair) look like the tiny droppings on a feral's skin from flea infestation.  Yes, the front section which is the worst, looks loaded with flea poop.  So I'm hoping the gray blends better.

Haven't looked for another project, but it seems whenever something lands on the floor, it gets my attention whether I have the energy to pick it up or let it lie.  This time, Lucy Beam's Family Sampler 1839 and Nash's Paisley.  I'll still look through the pile, the only kitted projects are quite large. 

Enjoy the weekend, stay safe.

Jackie, I cannot reply but there is no history listed with the Withrow sampler.

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Margret Withrow

 at age 14 in 1809

From Gigi R

 

Some threads a few shades darker

extended border

added leaves

But other than that .....

I was a good girl

Wonderful sampler

 not too large

not too complicated

no over one

very forgiving and adaptive 

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