Hmmm… Where to start?
Mom is still in the hospital, but she was moved to the PCU on…fuck, I forget. What day is today? Yesterday, or the day before. I think. I’m pretty sure it was on Tuesday. Then they decided that not only is she too anaemic to release, but her haemoglobin was 8, and it needs to be 12 before her cardiologist will sign off on her leaving, so they transfused her today. She is done with the first one, and probably somewhere in the middle of the second one right now. Of course, she had to delay them whilst she debated over whether or not she wanted some stranger’s blood, and tried to talk them into letting Yours Truly donate instead.
Oh, hell.
Not that I wouldn’t, but I’m sure before I ask that it’s violating some protocol they have hiding in a drawer somewhere. But nevertheless, Mummers wanted blood from me, not from some strange person. Sigh.
And that doesn’t even *begin* to address the “Why Me?” issue. Go bleed Meg. I mean, not that I wouldn’t—I would in a heartbeat—but…why is it always ME? Why do I have to call paramedics? Why do I have to sleep sitting up in a hospital? Why do we want to suck out all of *my* blood?
Well, probably ‘cos she knows I’d say yes. Sigh. That, and I think she didn’t *want* to do it, and this was a stalling tactic. She does that sort of thing. So I waited patiently as her nurse checked (only to come back and say no…told you, Mom), then I waited whilst she called my brother, to ask what diseases could one get from contaminated blood (she couldn’t accept my telling her that the likelihood these days is extremely low, which her nurse and cardiologist also explained; she insists upon asking, in her words, an expert—which kind of makes one wonder why she’s with the cardiologist she has if she thinks he’s as incompetent as she thinks I am, but whatever). So my brother told her to quit the crap and take the transfusion, and so she did, and she told me to go home. So I waited long enough to make sure she didn’t go into anaphylactic shock or anything, and then I left. She wanted to talk to her roommate anyway, who is another teacher, albeit retired.
Yes; my mommy has moulded the minds of our youth. Be fearful.
So now I’m home, and she’s on her second bag-o’-blood, and tells me on the phone that she’s feeling hot. Not sexy-hot, but heat-hot. And no, she won’t tell her nurse, because…I don’t know. Neither does she. It’s a big secret. God blessed fucking DAMN IT! So *I* have to call up to the nurses’ station to tell them.
This is how I have been spending most of my week. Hell…my *life*.
Yesterday, I had to fuss at her nurse; on her floor, they take vitals and blood for enzymes every four hours, which leaves not much time for sleep. Even less, when you take into account the noise that is constantly going on—and I mean a *lot* of racket, plus nurses talking in loud voices in the halls, and so on. In a hospital? Considering that my grandfather and father (for much of his career) would smoke as they did their rounds (as peculiar as it sounds, this comes from their mouths to your eyes via ‘Codia. If they said it, it happened; both of them were/are far too humourless to ever lie), I would think that *noise reduction* would have been deemed by hospital administration as conducive to recovery before getting rid of freaking cigarette smoke. But whatever. Perhaps I’m just cranky ‘cos I want a cigarette. :-)
So Mummers complained to me that in the past forty-eight hours, she had only slept for an hour. She exaggerates, true, but I heard enough of the racket whilst there to believe that she’d had a rough time sleeping, especially when you factor in the vitals-checking and blood draw every four hours. So I told her nurse when she came in, and the dingbat immediately said that Mom is so tired because she is anaemic. I had to get into the “considering that she hasn’t been able to get six to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in the past forty-eight hours, we would be premature in deciding that her tiredness was resultant from anaemia” discussion. And I got The Look. You know—that look that Harry Mudd’s androidettes gave Spock, or McCoy, or whomever? The “But…we are identical…” look, just before their necklaces started flashing and they went on System Overload? Yeah. That look. So Alice-the-nurse had to pop out into the hall and call for “Bobbi, the Charge Nurse”.
Yes, I’m calling her Alice sarcastically. And yes, she really did yell down the hall. Mom and I had a good eyeroll over that one; had I not just complained about the noise?
And yes, her necklace was flashing wildly. Poor thing.
So I sat for about fifteen minutes mentally formulating how to peaceably explain to Bobbi The Charge Nurse that something’s got to give without picking a fight whilst Mom and I watched baseball. Yep, baseball. Mom likes baseball.
Butsoanyway.
Then Mom wanted some tea, so I went off to fetch it and Alice called me over so that Bobbi could talk to me at the desk, and I told her I’d be right there just as soon as I got tea for Mom. So I’m in the kitchenette putting that together, and in walks Bobbi and introduces himself.
Ummm…yeah. HIMself. Ok, so I’m apparently sexist, and didn’t know it until now. His nametag/badge thingy said “Robert”, so I’m guessing he’s a “BobbY”, and he’s *cute*. Damn it.
I guess that makes me appearance-ist, too. Or just pathetic; your pick.
But Bobby’s probably about 6’ 5”, and I hate having to look up at people (which, at 5’ 10”, I don’t do often). It’s disconcerting, plus I’ve spent so long being so tall that anyone who’s taller than I am is automatically cuter than they’d normally be. Or maybe I just have issues too numerous to mention. ;-) But Bobby’s cute outweighed the irritation I felt, and the atmosphere (I’m at a point in my life where medical personnel just leave me cold. Long story.). So that sucks. Bobby’s a lot of cute, even with that silly militaristic (yet another strike!) longish flat-top haircut. Augh. And did I mention that he had nice arms? And a nice jaw line? And…
Damn it, I’m doing it again.
So he opens the conversation by asking how he can help me. Okay, Bobby; here are your options:
1. Make it so that my mother can sleep. Tell everyone to shut the hell up unless someone is coding; I am sure everyone could use their indoor voices if they tried, which they do not—I have heard them not trying. Close her door at least enough to block out most of the lights in the hall, let her draw her curtain to wherever she wants it, and quit letting people pull it back unnecessarily and/or without returning it to its original position; she makes me put it there for a *reason*, damn it. Change whatever you have to change about the schedules of whoever is taking her blood and vitals so that she is not awakened at 2:30-3:00 every morning, because with all of the noise and lights, she’s not able to fall asleep until about one to two a.m., and after she’s awakened, she can’t fall back to sleep again.
2. ummm…I forgot. You are being all calm and making me feel like a raving bitch, and I am not; I am under orders from Mommy to Fix It. Quit just looking at me!
3. I forgot that one, too. I think I included #2 and #3 in #1. I think. Would you quit just looking at me?!?
4. Oh, fuck it. Our fourth option is that you could scrog me senseless.
5. You could make pumpkin muffins for me. I’ve been remiss this holiday season, and haven’t made any for myself yet.
6. I can’t think of anything else. Quit just looking at me.
7. Ok, negotiation time: You let me scrog *you* senseless, and *I* will make pumpkin muffins. Mommy who?
Ok, so I didn’t mention items 2 – 7. If there is a Hell, I’m certain that it is already primed hot enough for me just *thinking* about how cute he is when Mom is in distress. Oh, am I going to burn.
So Bobby and I launch into negotiations for real; the 4-hr check can’t be skipped without it being considered refusing treatment. The door, lights, and curtains Mommy and I may count as a Win. The people, carts, and things in the halls can’t really be controlled, but the door mostly closed might help, and he can get Alice to get a sleeping pill ordered. I don’t like the sleeping pill solution, but I can give a little; the refusing treatment we have to hear from Mom directly (and I’m against that; if they keep the lights off or dimmed, the sleeping pill should let her go back to sleep, though). So we head off to hear from Mummers whether or not she wants to refuse treatment.
After a long and drawn-out discussion in which Mom keeps asking know-nothing Ancodia what she thinks (wtf?), we decide that she isn’t going to refuse treatment; she’ll try the sleeping pill route. And the whole time Mom keeps interjecting comments about how great I am, how I always have a cool head, how I called for paramedics and saved her, how I am in such-and-such a program and am considered an expert on so-and-so…I was looking under her bed for pods; I didn’t think I was gone from the room that long, but... No, rilly. We were discussing her sleeping when she started talking about how I’m such an expert, and I just stopped her (where is my Mommy, and what have you done with her?) and explained that the claim that someone who has just had a heart attack—or anyone for that matter—needs more than an hour or two’s worth of sleep is not something that requires credentials. And can you believe that she stopped? Not kept going in spite of me, not started a fight with me, but stopped. Holy shit…she *has* been replaced by a pod person, I thought. They always screw up and get the personality wrong…you’d think they would have learnt by now.
Bobby ran off to go do Charge Nurse Things and to tell Alice to get orders for a pill. As soon as his ass had cleared the doorjamb (not that I was looking or anything; I just wanted to make sure he was out of the room), I turned to Mom. What in the hell was that, I asked her. She never brags about me—NEVER. It’s always Meg or Butthead, *never* me.
Wasn’t he handsome, she asked. I told her I was certain his boyfriend probably thinks so. Mom asked if I really thought he was gay, ‘cos she didn’t. I didn’t either, but I’ll die before I admit that, *or* that I thought he was cute. The way my luck runs, he’s American Psycho Charge Nurse. He probably made Charge Nurse by faking patients’ lab reports to look dutiful and pushing his predecessor down an elevator shaft. Yep, I told Mom; he has “Gay” written all over him. She doesn’t think so. And, he wasn’t wearing a wedding band, Mummers mentions. I offer to run out and go get him and tell him she likes him before the lady in 5104 has a chance at him. Mom laughs; she was thinking about *me*. Oh, for goodness’ sake; do me no favours. What do I need with someone who would take off their wedding band to run around a hospital probably claiming he had it off for work, but cheating on his wife—or boyfriend!— the whole time? Mom laughed; that story is kind of familiar, considering she lived through it. No, she said, grabbing my hand; we certainly don’t need that, do we?
So turn the freaking ball game back on already.
A few minutes into it, she says that he probably has a dog. Where *this* is going I don’t know, so I respond with “Mmm?”. And he probably comes home from work and kicks it, she says. For some reason, especially coming from Mom, this cracks me up. Really, I respond, ‘cos he definitely struck me as baby-pincher material. He probably only does that on Saturdays, when he’s off, Mummers says; the rest of the week, he kicks the dog. So we sit there for the rest of the game not looking at each other, but trying to top each other’s atrocities and laughing. I like her when she’s being nice. Or, nice to me, rather. And semi-normal.
We’ve been kind of getting along all week, oddly enough. I don’t know why. I mean, *I* never cause the upsets—it’s always her flakiness. And she has been being flaky to everyone…just most of the time not to me. Which has been kind of nice, not that I’m going to go getting used to it, or anything.
So this evening when I came back, I got off the elevator and passed by the nurses’ stand on the way to Mom’s room. And Bobby’s up there. He recognises me (hey…there’s the dotty bitch with too much eyeliner on—the one that owns the crazymommy in 5103!) and nods, and I can’t help it. I try to wave, and I just cannot help it. “Evening, dog-kicker,” I think, and start laughing as I wave.
I am sure he thinks I’m batshit. Most cute nice guys do.
Butsoanyway.
My ultrasound was unofficially declared normal by the tech who took it on Tuesday, and what a weird girl that was. She spent several minutes before the exam trying to tell me that what I am experiencing is normal (Odd…my GP, Gyn, and now this surgeon who ordered it all seem to think not, but I’ll make them aware of your vote), to the point where I asked her if I should just skip this and tell them all to forget it. I am thisclose to just giving up on this whole Maintaining My Health thing, and I am already past the point where I abhor dealing with women in a medical sense. Probably there *are* normal ones, but I sure never get them. This lady reminded me of the kooky tech at Dr Vet’s who was so rah-rah-lizardshit over putting Puff-Puff to sleep. When I offered to quit wasting her time and leave, she started in with the “Oh, no—we’ll do it, I just don’t understand why your doctor would order it, etc…” Well, that’s why you’re the tech, and he’s the doctor. And what do you know—I’m a patient! So let’s quit fucking around and go ultrasound some hooters so that I may get back to my potentially dying mother, shall we?
Sigh.
So all through the ultrasound, she kept up with the “nope…nope…nothing”, to the point where I was actually starting to get pretty pissed off, but I bit my tongue. Then she got WEIRD. I totally don’t know if this is normal or not, but it was weird to me, and I’m going to ask my Gyn about it (I can talk to him both better and before this surgeon; my well-woman exam is next Thursday at 1:00, and I know him, whereas my app’t with this surgeon is next Thursday at 3:30, and I don’t know him as well) and see what he says. It was just…weird. She actually pinched me, so that she could see this whateverwhatever that the surgeon had written on the Dx. It’s just too gross. I have a hard enough time describing it to the people that already know. Bleah. Regardless, she *pinched* me. Hard. She actually went after my nipple like you’d pop a zit, and I swear that is not an exaggeration or embellishment. And, after everything else, I was just so not in the mood for this shit. I asked her what she was doing, and she said that she was just trying to see what kind of…oh, screw it…discharge I was talking about, ‘cos it sure isn’t what the surgeon wrote, and she can’t get anything to discharge. Okay, that is really exciting and all, but…YOU’RE HURTING ME! QUIT IT! And she stopped, but then she announced that I was just mistaken, and there’s really nothing wrong with me, and if my surgeon had wanted to check out my ducts he would have ordered a ductogram, so he doesn’t know what he is doing. Whatever.
Bitch.
Butsoanyway.
So that’s more or less it. Mom is okay. I am at least mostly okay. Everybody’s okay. Son-Friend is off Tegretol and it has now been replaced with Keppra, though he is still taking Depakote. I sure hope his neurologist knows what he is doing, ‘cos I’ve not had the time to check into it. His Disability does not kick in until sometime between now and January, so I still have him on the dole. Sigh. I am running the country’s first privatised welfare office; I am the shape of things to come. And this is probably the longest post I’ll ever do. But really, over everything else, I am just glad that Mom is okay, and that her heart damage is minimal. And I’m glad that she is being nice to me, though that means it will suck when she goes back to normal.
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