a year, a busy day, a boob squishing

Wednesday, the 13th was a year since my sister’s death. I was awake in the wee hours right about the time her heart stopped. Hard to believe it’s been a year already. Robin brought me these pretty lilies.

I made a key lime pie last weekend. 

Well, just a regular lime pie since I didn’t use key lime juice. I’m going to make a chocolate fudge pecan pie next week. Mary Moon has inspired me so I dug out my Aunt Mimi’s recipe.

As usual I’m out of pocket on Thursdays since I have to leave early to get to Share then take the cardboard to the recycling container and then lunch and walk the dog and feed the outdoor kitties and then get ready for yoga and then go to yoga. No time for reading or writing blogs and Friday was busy too. 

Thursday was a madhouse at SHARE, not just with food orders but clothing, diapers, housewares, blankets, whatever they need that we have to give, and sorting through and putting away the donations that come in. Every year Jan orders turkeys from the food bank to give out the Thursday before Thanksgiving and two of the churches made up and delivered bags with other stuff with which to make a Thanksgiving meal (don’t know exactly what because I had not one minute to look and see what was in them). The turkeys and bags are first come first serve for those that are eligible for the full service food order which people can only get once every three months. When I got there at 9 the little area where people wait to be interviewed was already packed. Last I heard the sign-in list had 45 names. I have no idea how many food orders we filled because I never left my station except to get stuff from the back storeroom if there was no one not busy to get it for me. We started with 32 turkeys and at some point Jan left to buy more though I’m not sure how many, over a dozen certainly, and we still ran out before the last few food orders. Word must have gone out that we were giving away free turkeys because we had a number of people pull up to the back where we load cars asking for the free turkey. Nope, sorry, doesn’t work that way, you have to qualify at the front. Anyway, the ladies up front usually lock the door at 12:30 to give us enough time to be done with everyone by 1 pm when we officially close. And so they did yesterday but there were still enough people waiting that we didn’t fill the last few food orders until 1:30 and Jan and Patti helped with those. And then I flew out of there.

My PC doctor had ordered a mammogram and an ultrasound on my left boob because I’ve had a persistent sore spot there. Isn’t sore every day but when it is it’s always in the same spot. She did a hands on exam. Do you feel anything I asked, maybe she replied. She didn’t seemed all that concerned, relieved my fears of cancer saying cancer doesn’t cause pain (well until it’s so far advanced you’re dying and why it’s called the silent killer) but she ordered the tests to check things out. The imaging center is in Sugar Land about 30 minutes away with clear traffic and still have to find a parking spot and they always want you there early so I had made the appointment for 2:30 Thursday afternoon thinking I would have plenty of time after SHARE closed to get there. I did get there in time and after a half hour or so after I checked in, a tech came out to tell us in the waiting room that their entire computer system had gone down and they didn’t know when it would come back up but they were working on it and there was nothing they could do until it came back up. I waited about 40 minutes and then left, they would call me to reschedule when the system came back online. I hadn’t been home long when they called to reschedule and fortunately they could get me in at 1:30 Friday. I’m happy to say both tests were clean, no evidence of cancer or anything else I should worry about, so yay!, but the doctor who came in to talk to me had no real explanation for the sore spot. Could be hormones even this far after menopause or transferred pain. I have had a lot of tinkering done this year. And I notice it less as time goes on. 

I used the bathroom there in the waiting room before I left and this sign was on the inside of the door.

Who sticks their hand down the toilet in a medical facility?

all done, signs of summer's end, beautiful but deadly

I’m home. The procedure went well but once again had to lay flat on my back for six hours and an overnight stay in the hospital. Discharged in the morning and home by 1 PM yesterday. Another week of taking it easy slowly easing back into my regular routine. Still have to have another transesophageal echocardiogram in 45 days to make sure the device is still in place and stable. The shield is made of a sterile gortex like material with little titanium hooks that grab onto the heart muscle so now when asked if I have any metal in my body, the answer is ‘yes’ and I have to carry a card with me at all times saying I have this device in my heart with instructions on safely administering an MRI if I need one…specifications about static magnetic fields, maximum spatial gradient field, whole body averaged specific absorption rate. Have yet to find out if I’ll set off a metal detector.

Wednesday when I walked around the yard there was no sign of the ox blood lilies. This is what greeted me when I got home on Friday.

Once those two weeks of triple digits were over the weather has cooled quickly, the next two weeks of highs in the 90s changed to highs in the 80s a week later, partly cloudy/overcast with rain predicted all this next week. The change has been sudden and very welcome. Besides the ox blood lilies, other signs of the end of summer and approaching fall are emerging. Marc says the pampas grass is blooming though I haven’t seen any yet. The tallows continue to drop their speckled red/yellow/orange leaves and now the oaks are starting to drop some of their tired foliage. The days are definitely shorter, nearly full dark at 8:30.

I heard some clanking in the garage. One of the puppies was stealing empty dog food cans (rinsed clean) out of the box where I put them before it all goes to the metal recyclers. Minnie and I went out and there he was under the magnolia tree, she’s barking madly standing beside me and the goofy dog is not the least bit intimidated gently trying to get nose to nose with her which they did for a moment and then Minnie started barking again so we came in and I let her out in the little backyard where she continued to bark ferociously at the puppy on the other side of the fence directly opposite her, laying there wagging his tail. Puppy just wants to be friends. 

You might remember that I got stung by a wasp a month or so ago when I was working around the spot in the front yard where a pine tree used to be that died and the rotting roots have made a hole in the ground. A few weeks later I was using the trimmer around that same spot and saw a horde of wasps start to boil out of that spot and I ran like the wind and escaped getting stung. So last week, walking around the front I went over to check it out expecting to see a large paper wasp nest but what I found turned out to be a huge yellow jacket construction (no wonder that sting hurt all week). At first I thought it was a wild honey bee hive until I took a picture and zoomed in. Those were not bees. 

Definitely have to get rid of this, first on my yard to do list when my week of recovery is over. Even so their construction with the nest inside is really amazing and quite beautiful with the different colors and layers of chewed up and exuded wood.

the last one, puppies, and a bare hint that summer will end

Bearing down on the end of August and the end of summer as if the end of August is the end of summer here. Alas, not. But next week, the last week of August is also the last week of the summer of medical issues. Hopefully. For a while anyway. The Watchman procedure, the one that will close off the little pouch on the side of the left atria that will get me off the blood thinner, is scheduled for next Thursday. Then one more week of resting and recovering and I will finally be able to be over it all! 

One of my neighbors had acquired two big dogs via family members, a german shepherd and another of indiscriminate heritage but equally as big, and they had four puppies. They are not restrained by a fence or other means and the adult dogs kept mostly to their yard. The puppies however, playful and joyful, would roam and mom or dad or both would follow to keep an eye on them. They often found their way to my yard because I’m not that far and Minnie would go berserk barking trying to chase off them off. The more she barked and ran at them the more they were convinced she wanted to play. Apparently, two of the puppies have found new homes and the remaining two are old enough now that mom or dad don’t follow. And these two puppies are huge. They are going to be very big dogs. 

This summer has been hot and dry lately and they discovered my small kidney shaped pond several weeks ago that was filled with water plants. Was, past tense. The pond is just the right size for one puppy to get in and get soaked, then the other gets in. 

They show up every day, get wet and go romping around the yard while Minnie goes engages in outraged barking. If I let her out she tries to run them off. She’ll chase them off a short way and then they will chase her back. They’re monsters as far as she’s concerned but they’re just big golumping puppies, not even a year old yet. Yesterday when Minnie retreated to the front of the garage where I was standing one of them came up to her, kind of bowed down and whined at her. Minnie was having none of it. I keep telling her they just want to play.

Yesterday evening I tried to get some pictures of them just outside the gate into the little backyard but they were like perpetual motion machines. So this is what I got.

Back to the end of August and the promised end of summer. While we will still have hot weather for the month of September, the crepe myrtles and the tallow trees are starting to drop their old tired foliage. This is usual and a sign of the coming change of season though it will be months before those trees lose all their foliage.

recovery of one kind and another and another

I found this blooming in the ditch this morning totally out of season.

Today it is seven days counting the day of my surgery. The incision is still ugly but healing, the bruise is fading, what’s left turning yellow and brown. Yesterday I picked up the rest of the debris, all small stuff, in the little backyard adding to the big pile there. This morning when I let the dog out I cleared the front yard making a small pile on edge of the street. The county is supposed to be coming around and picking up storm debris starting tomorrow. I’d like to move some of the piles around here to the street before they get to our neighborhood but it probably won’t happen because I’m still being very conservative in my activity. Maybe the small one on the side yard, maybe the small one in the front yard but the monster in the side yard and the one in the little backyard will take much longer to move. And of course, the big backyard hasn’t even been touched. I tried to torch the burn pile yesterday but with all the rain we’ve been having it wouldn’t catch. Maybe Monday as long as the rain holds off. Unfortunately, it’s forecast to rain every day next week.

Yesterday Marc drove me down the county road I take to get to the grocery store. There were five enormous, 50 year old at least, pecan trees down, keeled over uprooted, just on that short stretch alone. I’m still astounded by how much damage that category 1 hurricane did.

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My sister’s sudden and completely unexpected death had a profound impact on me beyond just the loss of my best friend and main companion other than my husband. It really just took the wind out of my sails and, in retrospect, made me hyper sensitive to my own mortality which I see as the core cause of all the medical stuff I’ve been going through the last two months. Instead of recognizing an intense afib episode for what it was, I basically panicked which sent me to the ER which led to all those tests which led to the false aneurysm diagnosis and everything that followed that. Really, the only procedure I needed was the afib ablation because the medication was no longer controlling it. How many years have I taken off my life as a result of two months of panic, all that anesthesia?

It impacted me in other ways too. In my grief I lost all motivation to do anything creative. The broken water pipe at the studio has been fixed but I still haven’t bothered to get Marc to go over and turn the valve back on (I can’t get it to budge), I put away my colored pencils, sketchbook, and watercolors. I have the fabric to make a new skirt but haven’t gotten my sewing machine out, I bought all those new crystals and still haven’t hung them. Gardening, yoga, and SHARE have been my only activities and it’s too hot to garden now even if I wasn’t still recovering from all those procedures.

Well, one of my readers, David, has, unintentionally I’m sure, kicked me in the butt. I’m going to get my colored pencils, sketchbook, and watercolors and paper out and put them on the small work table. That may be as far as I get today but it’s a step forward.

Tuesday my niece and her husband will arrive. Our plan is to go through Pam’s old house and start clearing away some of the stuff. Nothing has been gotten rid of at this point and it’s time to pack up her life. The furniture will stay except for two pieces that have no real value, just taking up space in an overcrowded house. Next Saturday all the family will gather once again to scatter her ashes as she requested and when that is done I think I will be able to finally let her go. I need to start making again.

 

and then it was Tuesday and the aftermath

Read the previous post first.

Monday night I washed with the special soap, clean sheets on the bed, no pets allowed to sleep with me, got up at 3:30 AM, showered with the special soap again, put on clean clothes all as instructed, left the house at 4:30 and arrived at the hospital a little before 5:30 AM for the diagnostic cerebral angiogram. Checked in, told us to be seated and they would call me directly and we waited and waited as person after person who arrived after us got called back. About an hour later the guy comes and asked me for my ID, they are having trouble finding my account. He comes back after a while to tell me that my procedure had been cancelled and that was why they couldn’t find my account. No one notified me, who canceled it and why? Some night nurse canceled it last night but the head nurse on the floor was calling the doctor to find out what was going on and as soon as she talked to the doctor, he would have more information. 

So we waited again and after awhile the guy comes back and says I have two options, the doctor is willing to go ahead and do the procedure but I’ll have to wait until he does the other two scheduled after mine for today and no one could tell me how long the wait would be or I could reschedule. I’m here, I’ve had the pre-op, I've done all the preparation, I’ll wait especially since the neurosurgeon is leaving town again next week. Finally they call us back to the staging area where the attendant gives me a gown, tells me to get naked, climb into the bed with a puffy space type blanket that warm air is being blown into (much better than the warm blankets that cool off in 5 minutes), puts support hose on my legs that come up over my knees (to prevent blood clots she says) and again we wait. About 9 the nurse comes in to start prepping me, says I’m next, scheduled for 10, takes my vitals and puts in the IV. I questioned her about the cancellation, did a nurse have that kind of authority? No, she said, that no one really knows what happened, that Monday was totally chaotic with doctors and patients canceling because they couldn’t get to the hospital and somehow mine got sucked into that, that the hospital was running on generators right now, no wifi and the internet was sketchy, she had to write down all the stuff to enter it into the computer later but this area was fine and they would move me to the pre-op area soon, which they did about 10. 

So now we’re in the pre-op waiting for the doctor, anesthesiologist, and the surgical nurse to come talk to me and while we are waiting we hear more horror stories about yesterday from the nurses who are very chatty. About 11:30 the neurosurgeon stops by, assures me that all is well, did I have any questions. Yes, how tired are you and have you eaten lunch? Says he’s not tired and he’s going for lunch now and they will do the procedure right after. The anesthesiologist comes by and the surgical nurse who stays with me explaining minute by minute what’s going to happen. I will be awake because the doctor will be talking me asking me at times to hold perfectly still while he takes pictures of my brain but I won’t feel a thing, which I didn’t, that she would be by my side the entire time. Once in the operating room and in place on the table and all the prep done getting me in place and immobilized she asked me what music I wanted...Stevie Ray Vaughn. So I lay there with my eyes closed listening to music, being completely still and not breathing when necessary and about 15 minutes later it was over and they wheeled me out to post-op recovery and after a while the doctor came by with the results. 

No aneurysm he says. He showed me a picture of my basilar artery and the junction that the MRI identified as an aneurysm but it was normal and the reason it looked like an aneurysm is because the artery that branches off to the right is sort of twisted around (but perfectly fine) and so didn’t show up on the fuzzy MRI image. So he says you don’t need to see me again and he left. I stayed there for about an hour and then they took me to a different recovery area where Marc joined me again and where I had to stay flat on my back for another two hours. And then they discharged me and we got home about 6 PM.

Still no power at home but we were able to get dinner at the other restaurant which was now open and then spent a miserably hot and humid night. Wednesday morning, still no power so we went out for breakfast and then I called my friends at the end of the street and daughter who also had no power to tell them if they wanted a hot shower or to fill up water containers to come here because while everyone else is on a well which doesn’t function with no power, we are on city water and have a gas water heater. I talked to Rocky about finding the shingles and he came down and climbed up on the roof over there. The entire ridge line of shingles was either off or loose and had to be replaced, all 77” of it. The man is an angel. He had already been sealing another neighbor’s roof who he looks after and he took care of it right away, getting his helper up there to take off the row of shingles while he went to get new ones, working up there in the sun and heat and got that roof repaired while his own roof suffered damage from a tree scraping it when it fell, but since he rents he had to get the OK from his landlord so he would get paid. My daughter also had several trees uprooted, one right next to her house but instead of crushing her house it fell away and demolished the chicken coop (all of the chickens are fine).

Finally we got the power back on about 6 PM yesterday, got take-out for dinner and slept well in the nice cool house last night. Still recovering from my procedure, having to stay off my feet the rest of this week while the incision in my femoral artery heals so I can’t get out there and start cleaning up the yard. And then I have the last procedure on my heart on Monday with another five days or so of recovery. So it’s going to be a while before I’m able to start cleaning up around here and emptying the refrigerator and freezer is the first big task anyway.

medical stuff so if you're as bored by this as I am you can just skip it and, of course, a hurricane

Well, just fuck all! Fuck, fuck, fuck, and dammit all to hell. Finally the diagnostic cerebral angiogram to tell me what, if anything, is in my brain and what the doctor plans to do about it, is just a few days away and a fucking hurricane is supposed to hit Houston the very same day. Will the procedure still be on, especially considering I went through the pre-op yesterday? I don’t know, it’s the fucking weekend and I wouldn’t know who to even ask. The doctor’s office? The hospital? If it’s still on, we would have to leave here at 4:30 in the morning to get there by the arrival time of 5:30, in the dark, in the rain and high wind of an approaching hurricane. Really karma? Have I been that bad? Just…fuck.

I spent this morning searching for hotels within two miles of the hospital. Three options and I’m all for going in the day before even if there wasn’t a hurricane.

So I actually had the pre-op for both procedures yesterday. For the angiogram it consisted of bloodwork and instructions, a breath measuring contraption that I have to suck on 10 times in one hour three times a day every day until the procedure, 

special soap and sponges to wash with the night before and the morning of, brush my teeth two times a day and use mouthwash, change my sheets after my evening shower and close the door so the dog and cat don’t come sleep with me. Really extreme measures. For the Watchman procedure I had to undergo another transesophageal electrocardiogram (from now on TEE) to look for blood clots and measure the appendage in my heart they intend to block off so another bout of anesthesia and another sore throat. It’s much better today but I could barely eat last night. Plus, they went ahead and checked me in for the 15th so I have to wear this

for the next 10 days. Don’t take it off, the nurse said, because it will delay your procedure.

And I hate mouthwash. It burns my mouth and I don’t like whatever chemicals they use to make it whatever color, in this case blue, being absorbed by my mucus membranes and it turns my tongue blue.

So, yeah, fun and games. 

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I wrote all that this morning but didn’t get it published. The current track of the hurricane/tropical storm has it being a little more west of us about halfway between Austin and Houston but closer to Austin by Monday evening, well past us by Tuesday morning so shouldn’t be a problem. The local paper is predicting about 5” of rain which we could use. So now I have to decide if I want to bring the big plants in pots into the garage. A big wind has blown up just now with maybe some rain.