Hubby had an accident

[kitkatz]

I saw my niece and my sister today.  They live in Northern California and came down to visit the family for awhile.  The niece is so cute.  I got to sit with her for quite a  while.  We went to dinner at Carrows (our diningroom) she sat with me and devoured four crackers, then went to her Mom and ate her dinner.  She is quite a charater.  Despite being tired, she made it through dinner like a trooper.  I love being able to give the little ones back when they cry.

My little one comes home on next Sunday. I can't wait to see her.  She sounds so grown up in her blog.  She and her friend Shelly plan to drive to California from Texas.  I am also expecting my Uncle Fred sometime the next Monday.  I am hoping that he and Maria can meet, then she can see him when she heads to Oklahoma to see Shelly.  So the next week should be exciting with a new school year starting and visitors.

Mom is back from being in Nashville.  She came home acting like she was going to ride in on her white horse and save us from everything.  I think it was a let down when she discovered we did not need saving.  Kind of took the wind out of her sails.  Sorry Mom.  We are pretty much  standing on what is left of our own two feet.  LOL

Victor is doing better.  I see more clear eyes now each day and he feels better.   I know the pain gets to him. He will sit in a corner and go completely silent on it.  Damn the doctor and his damn comment about getting off of the pain pills. Victor hardly ever takes them anyway and then the doctor goes and tells him to wean off of them.  Geez.  Does he not know that it hurts.  I nag at him to take the pain pills when he needs them.  He is brighter and nicer lately.  I think he is feeling better.  Good for us!

I went to dialysis the other night and had a reaction to something.  The nurses had given me epogen and benadryl and I had pain across the groin, back and into the right hip. I am on a new dialyzer and think that is the problem.  The clinic manager saw me off the machine and I asked her to look into getting the old dialyzers back for me.  She saw how ill I felt and said she would look into it immediately.  I really looked bad. It was so bad I asked them to take me off of the machine so I could walk the pain out. I NEVER ask to come off of the machine. It is nice to be believed about something, even if you have to look like hell for it.  No more Benadryl while on this dialyzer.  Maybe it was the Epogen.  We will see Monday.  I know I have to run on the same dialyzer on Monday. Oh well. They are trying to kill me off slowly in center. LOL  I am thinking of changing dialysis centers and going to the Kaiser one on Hosiptality Lane in San Bernardino.  It is Fresenius run and sounds like a better place.  Besides I would have a better chance to go on the NXs machine for home dialysis if I am there.  Plus my doctor runs the place and I would be in contact with him more often.  I am going to call and see what happens this week.  See if a chair is available and get a tour of the place. 

I came home Friday and went to bed. Almost missed Victor's ten oclock antibiotic. I got up out of slumber land and staggered into the den to help him.  He had the meds ready and was going to wake me up.  I felt bleary eyed,  We even forgot a step in the nightly ritual. Hew boy. Had to go back and complete every step and DO it right.   I was up after that until 1a.m.  Then slept till 10a.m. this morning.  I felt rested the last couple of days.  Hurray!  I think it is because the stress of everything is relieving finally.

Our dog, Missy, who is whippet and labrador, is barking at every person who knocks on the door. We have a lot of that because the nurses come at 6a.m. and then a 2 pm.There are pharmacy drop offs and equipment people in and out of the house.  Then family visits.  Wow. Poor puppy she just does not know what to do or where to go.  She just wants to please us.

I have a large orange cat lying across my desk.  I was going to clean up the mail but Aslan has decided he likes to sleep across it tonight.  What a pain in the ass!  I am watching the third Star Wars movie for the 1ooth time.   I like the movie a lot.  It is a good bridge between the two stories.  I have a lot of questions about it though.  One day I will think about them and tell them down here.

Well that is our lives now.  School starts back in five days

[Bajanne]

So our superheroes are still up and running (well, up at least)!!
So glad to hear of the progress. Keep on keeping on!!

[goofynina]

God bless you and Victor Kit,  it sounds like things are finally looking up for ya, i am so happy to hear that, i am sure we all are.  And i think my mom and your mom should get together drink some coffee and compare notes, lol, seems like our moms are pretty much the same,  but thank God for mom,  wouldnt be here without her....

[Mom3]

What grade do you teach? Any help in the classroom or are you on your own in there?

I'd advocate for my spouse over the pain meds if I saw him suffering terribly. Some people, especially some men, can feel that they have to "be tough and take it"...and doctors are under so much pressure for prescribing adequate pain relief to patients. The doctors are really caught in the middle sometimes! There have been some prosecutions for prescribing pain medications that are more persecutions--but that is another thread.

Good luck with those first weeks of school. It's an exciting time, but usually hard even when the home front is not so challenging and you aren't dealing with dialysis. You must be incredibly dedicated! You should be written up in some of the education mags as a "heroine of education"!!!

And do find Mom something to do next time she comes...we need to feel needed! (Though in my case, I've been a bit too needed at times!)

Another educator--
Mom 3

[kitkatz]

I teach learning handicapped 6th graders.  I teach two language arts classes, a math class, an exploratory study skills class, then I have collaborative period and then prep.  It makes for a busy schedule with IEPs and everything that has to be done.  I am looking forward to it.  Probably be a very interesting year.  I have seen no IEPs for this year's group so I am flying blind. We scheduled them according to testing on the SAT 9 testing so they are probably in wrong classes.  Oh well. we shall see.

[Bajanne]

What is an IEP?

[Mom3]

Sounds like a really challenging year!! And a challenging group. I work with kids with individualized education, too. All my students also have IEPs. Our kids have sensory disabilities plus other disabilities in most cases...

Really don't know how you do it. YOU MUST LOVE IT!! But it certainly does keep your mind off any problems outside the classroom during the day. Or does in my case!

Once again--wishing you a great school year. And hope your husband is continuing to improve...

[Bajanne]

Here you guys go again, using a term I don't understand.  Once more, what is an IEP?

[kitkatz]

I Individualized
E Educational
P Program

I get to write one for each child who is on my caseload of 28 children.

[Bajanne]

I get to write one for each child who is on my caseload of 28 children.

That is some detailed work you have to do!!!  I can't begin to imagine the time, resources, creativity, knowledge (and wisdom!) that this would require.

[Sluff]

Kitzkat I'm glad things are getting better for both of you.

[kitkatz]

Yeehaw!  The pic line is out of his arm and the antibiotics by IV are over with as of last night. Hot damn!  It was great to stop giving him those drugs. I still cant figure out why in the hell they would let me give him antibiotic when nurses came twice a day to give him the same thing. Victor is feeling better. I can still see the light in his eyes and he is up most days bossing around the CNAs.  Damn I'm gonna miss the CNA's help around the house everyday.  I come home and find things done.  It's like a miracle. 

I have been in school for a week now and I am tired, worn out and exhausted.  This school year i have more girls than i have ever had.  They are not as mature as last years group and seem nice.  The boys are your typical 11-12 years old and can't decide whether to work or not.  I don't give them a choice is it work or die in my class room. 

Dialysis still sucks as you all know.  I slept the last few days i was on dialysis for around two and a half hours each treatment.  It's kind of unusual that i would sleep that long but i think i am just tired from work.  As i said in another post i leave school work at school, so my day is jam packed with all the paperwork plus teaching four classes.  I found two more kids to add to my caseload that brings my total to 30.  I still have no IEPs for the kids and that really sucks. 

Maria, my youngest daughter, came to visit us from Wisconsin.  She has grown taller and more beautiful. (she is standing right in the room so i have to say nice things) She likes seeing us but is anxious to get back to school and work.  She thought all of the medical stuff is cool.  She watched the nurse bandage up Victors leg and took a look at the machine.  I am sure if she could have gotten her hands on the machine she would have taken it apart and put it back together again with a few screws missing.  She says she is doing well in her classes.  We have cosigned loans for her to continue schooling and i have made her take out an insurance policy, so the loans will get paid back in the event anything happens to her.  I have told her NOTHING can happen to her until those loans are paid off.

My oldest daughter never writes and never calls.  I call her when i want to hear from her. She is getting her own place sometime in august. That is all i know. As far as i know with her no news is good news.  I guess she needs her freedom and she has it.

Shelly, my youngest daughters friend, is typing this for me because i cant seem to put two letters together to spell my name correctly tonight.

So that is the update from the superheros, Dialysis Woman and the One Foot Wonder.

[kitkatz]

Damn it!  I lost the update I had going. Hit a button and it blew away the post!  Damn that great white internet shark anyway.  I will try again.
     Victor is doing okay with his injury. It takes time for wounds to heal.  The vacuum pump is now using a bridge so it can still pull the fluid from the wound.  The wound is closing and healing slowly.  The doctor wants the wound to heal as naturally as possible.  He does not want to do a skin graft in the area since it would be more sensitive to the prosthetic beating on it.  It looks like a year for the healing and shaping of the stump area. Then on to a temporary prosthetic while they build him a real good one.  Cost of over 10,000 dollars or more for a simple prosthetic.  Luckily worker's compensation has to pay for it. 
    Victor has had a friend over doing renovations on the house.  Carpet was pulled. doors were widened. Bathrooms are being fixed to make it more accessible.  He can now get into our master bathroom to go potty.  We have installed rails and are going to pull the sink and put in a free standing sink to use.  Also the bathroom shower will be given a redo.  It will be nice when we get it all done.  Meanwhile the trees in the front of our house gotta go. The tree roots cracked the foundation of our house all the way to the kitchen walls.   Then the tree branch bit the guy who was taking it down and broke his ring finger.  Required two pins to be put into the finger to fix it.  Just our kind of luck.
     I am okay.  Just grumpy and complainy right now. Feel pretty good.  Went shopping today and acted like I had money in the bank.
   
 Well there you go the update from the superheroes here in Rialto, CA : Dailysis Woman and the One Foot Wonder.

[Sluff]

All this and only a six month handicap sticker? I think you need to find a different Doctor.

[Black]

Glad our Superheroes are still around and winning the daily battles    Thanks for the update.

[kitkatz]

Here i am all doom and gloom lately.  I really do not think it is doom and gloom. It is a good old feeling sorry for myself, I think.   Get ready for a long update here.

Hubby and I were talking tonight.  We climb into bed and talk for an hour so before we go to sleep.  I mean we REALLY talk to each other.  He was crying. I was crying.  Oh boy.  You think the two of us could pick separate times to cry, but here we were.  Our feelings about this entire situation sometimes bubble up and get out of control for both of us. 

I have no idea how he can be so damn patient with everything going on with him.  I think I would have had a blow out by now.  He just sits there in the wheelchair and goes to his appointments, does what the doctors says to do, and runs the equipment they have on him every day.  I am in complete AWE of him.  He is most courageous. (Sometimes I wonder if he is too dumb to know any better.  But I wonder that about myself often, too.)  I think I would have had a screaming fit by now if I were in his shoe. He does this recovering business very well.  I want to run around and scream and dance around at people.  I do that, it would upset him, but I want to. Oh how i want to.  He is currently in the wheelchair most of the day with the vacuum pump on his wound area. It has gotten smaller, but damn is it a slow process.  I want it to heal quickly, but tissue does not do that very quickly.  It has its own timetable.  I am amazed at how much it has healed since June after the surgery to debride it.

He has been slowly renovating the house to make is more handicapped accessible, He has had new grab bars installed in the master bathroom so he can use the toilet in there. It is a long drop the the toilet seat for him, so off to Home Depot he and his friend Ray Ray went to order us a king size crapper. Yep we are getting a taller toilet.  We now have the winning hand- a royal flush!  (I know I know.)   He has replaced the garage fire door with a wider access door.  We now can easily get him in and out of the house through the garage door.  They also put a new genie on the big garage door so it opens beautifully now and closes, too. Ray Ray put new shelves in the garage that he guarantees will hold at least three hundred pounds each.  He even sat on one to prove it to me. I told him not to do that again.  They are slowly working on getting all of the crap up off the floor in the garage so hubby has work space with the wheelchair for his hobby and so we can get out of the house.

Speaking of getting out of the house, we went to Ventura Gun Show last weekend on Saturday.  It was great for Victor see his gun collecting buddies.  He also knows that the shows are wheelchair accessible and we can do them with his chair.  He saw quite a few friends who had not seen him since before his accident.  He had to explain what happened.  After awhile it gets routine and does not affect him as bad as the first time telling it did.  Then we went over the hill to Van Nuys and saw my godmother.  She is 96 years old and had knee replacement surgery last month or so.  She has healed really well. She gets around with a cane. Looks good. Sounds good.  She has stairs to her home, so Victor had to crawl up the stairs and into the house. It was only three stairs, but oh my God.  I had to walk away and wait until he wa sin the house.  It was very hard to watch him do that!  When four months ago he bounded up the steps on two feet. Damn it!  I had to help him getting down the stairs.  He was able to hop down them when we left.  We had a nice visit. My aunt sent me into her back yard to pick tomatoes and squash.  I do not eat tomatoes or squash so I gave the produce to my sister.  She loved the produce. 
Then we left my aunt and went to see Victor's 95 year old aunt and cousin in Sherman Oaks.  They fed us dinner. We visited them for awhile.  Their house had just a small entry to get over with the chair.  We had a good time with them.  Then I got to drive the freeways home in the dark and listen to my hubby tell me how to drive.  (I hate it when he does that. Just because I do not drive the way he does...)
This trip showed we could get out and do things.  We were both pretty exhausted and rested on Sunday.

I find I am having a lot of feelings about all of this tragedy.  It is hard to tell him how I feel about it because He is in the middle of it and is the cause of it.    I want him healed and up and around.  I worry that he will get content to stay in the wheelchair because it might be easier than walking in the prosthetic.  I worry that he is not going to heal properly. I worry when I am at work. I worry when I am at home. I am on two amputee sites and boy are there ever problems with prosthetics. I worry about that, too.  I also worry about how we are going to make it financially with him pulling in 60% of his pay now.  I figured it out and we can make it doing what we are doing now, but barely.  Anything happens to me and we are broke folk. (Umm..dialysis patient here...)  He worries about taking care of me if I have an emergency.  Enough of our friends have told him they will come if we ever need them to deal with emergencies.  I TOLD him that already, but I guess he had to hear it for himself. 

I have real feelings over this stuff.  I am impatient for all of this to be done with.  I find I have no patience with adults and their crap. His doctors make me crazy with their every six months handicapped placard! They are not the ones going to DMV and standing in lines twice and waiting to pay 6 bucks for the placard.  I am! The insurance company now wants four doctors statements about his amputation in order to give us the insurance money that he is owed.  It is only 12,500 for loss of a leg, any part of the leg.  But it will help pay for these renovations for the house.  We also are going to need a new car.  The station wagon is a stick shift.  One more damn thing to worry about.  I sometimes get frantic over everything, but I just have to calm down and take it one day at a time.  I feel like I am slowly losing what little mind I have left.

I am scheduled to have parathyroid surgery in November during the first week of school break.  Great. I hope we are further along in this healing process for him than we are now. I am scared of this surgery but am more scared of what the high PTH is doing to my body.  I hope it works.  I hope I heal fast.

Okay so there we are.  Crazy us! ( Maybe I am the crazy one. More worry.)

[Sluff]

Here we go... BREATHE Slowly...Deep Breaths...ok  Now Breathe slowly..

It all seems overwhelming and there really is no way to comfort and/or help you, but Just know that time has it's way of working things out. I know you probably hear that alot but it really does.

You are a very strong person and you will get through all this. Wish there was something I could do to help.

[Sara]

I know you are dealing with a lot and I can only imagine the emotional side of it, but it sounds like you guys are really making it work.  You're doing great, and it's only going to get better. 

As far as the financial side of it, God are we feeling it with Joe missing work, and all these extra co-pays and everything, and I am seriously worrying about what will happen once he gets a transplant.  I'm PMing you a site that has really helped me and is full of amazing women.  I can only dream of being like them someday.   

[kitkatz]

Lots of slow deep breathing goes on around here.  In particularly by me. I get up in the morning and go to work and give the kids I teach the best I can give.  It is enough I wonder?  Can I fight ESRD and still be the best teacher I can be? I have done it for almost eight years now. 
     Then I come home and try to be patient and loving with the hubby.  Lord knows how impatient I am right now.  I try to remember he cannot get out like I can and go right now.  So I try my best.

My thoughts.

[kitkatz]

Victor update.  He is feeling better.  The prosthetics people have a temporary leg ready for him to try out next Friday.  They had him standing on it last Friday. He said it felt weird to be up on two feet again.  Hurray!  The final prosthetic is awhile away. They have to shape the stump and get it ready for a real prosthetic leg.  It all takes time. *sigh*

[kitkatz]

I am updating this so you all know what is going on with us.  Victor is up and around on his artificial leg when we go out of the house.  He is still using a walker to help him with balance.  He is not too steady with the cane yet, but is working on it in therapy regularly.  He can get in and out of the car and we built a special walkway on the side of the driveway so he would not have to deal with the steep pitch of our driveway getting in and out of the vehicles. It works pretty good too.  He is currently making a 23 minute half a mile on  the treadmill at therapy, down from a thirty minute half mile.  It makes for a 46 minute mile, not going anywhere REALLY fast, but he is proud of the progress. I am too.  He is keeping busy with the house renovations.  Periodically I am asked to make a decision on something in three minutes flat, like wall color or something. Luckily for them I am in the I do not give a crap phase and I pick something I like pretty damn quickly!  The house is a mess and I just kind of kick things out of my way as I go through.  I am cold, cold, cold and my superhero powers do not extend to keeping me warm.  I hate being cold.   So here we are.
 Hey, you Aussies, send some heat our way to Southern CA.

[shay_pcb]

WOW! That's a lot to go through! I'm glad he's getting better! I haven't read EVERY post on here...yet...but I'm getting there! lol I hope everything gets better quickly! Good luck!! 

[Ohio Buckeye]

Kitkatz, when I read your posts I always think you must
be made of steel.  You are so strong.  You inspire all of us
to keep putting one more step forward.  I heard dit is cold
in CA and citrus crop is pretty much ruined.  It is turned cold here
too after a nice mild winter. brrrrrrrrrrrrrr
be glad when spring arrives.

[Sluff]

 

[kitkatz]

Hubby had an appointment with his doctor the other day.  He has an appointment with a plastic surgeon soon to see what can be done with the stump area where the skin died off and was replaced.  It still has a dip in it and the prosthetic is rubbing it raw.  Yes, folks, it looks like more surgery for us to go through!  I guess it is payback time for all of the times I have been under the knife while on dialysis. I just about burst into tears over it when he told me. Feels like we are dancing one step forward and two steps back!
I am going to have to get some professional mental health help.  I feel...I don't know how I feel right now.  Running in circles and screaming inside!  Get the bat!