Day 510

As a teacher, you have those kids (let's call them stinkers) who are somewhat of troublemakers. They're loud, noisy, always bothering other kids, not ever doing what they are supposed to be doing. And they're hardly ever absent.

Whether it's the energy level that keeps them well or what, they are certainly hard to keep down (and keep quiet). But occasionally those kiddos do get sick. How can a teacher tell when those kiddos aren't feeling well? The classroom is calm. The kiddo is quiet, calm, and just goes with the flow. I thought adults were the same way.

Guess not.

After spending hour after hour with sick hubby, he's not become any more pleasant. When he feels well he's impatient and grumpy. When he's sick - same thing. These last couple days have been particularly bad. I even had to turn my mom away from visiting today. I should have turned myself away as well. In fact, I almost walked out of the hospital room on him. But I stuck around, thinking it might get better. Nope. No matter who it was - me or the nurses - he was not a nice person.

Which left me wondering - what happened to that strong, confident person I found on the trip? (That person being me.) Too many days of sitting in the hospital with him. Too many days of driving home with the sun setting in my eyes, big windshield cracks down my side of the window making it difficult to see. Too many days of walking into a house with no working air conditioning and seeing 89 degrees on the thermostat and knowing it won't drop below 80 by morning. Too many days of yard sale stuff in the living room.

It was enough to make me start to cry on the way home. But I caught myself. Both the air conditioner and windshield repair folks are coming tomorrow afternoon. Biopsy results should be back tomorrow evening. There is talk of moving hubby to a rehab center for him to work on being able to walk again.

Then daughter came home tonight and we loaded up both our vehicles with the yard sale stuff (unfortunately she'll have to make a second trip - just too much stuff). She also brought the movie Grease and we're having a late-night girls' movie night downstairs in the cooler basement. And she said I can sing all I want!

I know things will get better so for now I'm holding off the tears. (Other than maybe shedding a tear when I say goodbye to all the stuff that I once held dear.) I also added pictures of our "supervisors" when we were working.

Day 509

With 10 surgeries under my belt I'm a pretty good patient. I know what to expect, I know what to do, I know how it feels. As a patient's spouse I'm finding I'm not as competent.

I show up in the morning, stay into the evening, and head home. I bring bottled water to drink and some days I leave the hospital for lunch and some days I bring my juice and a granola bar. One day I brought the laptop, another day I sorted through the mail, and another day read newspapers and magazines. School-related phone calls and e-mails are inudating me, but at this point I'm trying to ignore them as best I can. I mostly do Sudoku, play Words with Friends with my daughter (when she's not working) and wait for hubby to grumble something at me when he wakes up. Today I got smart and brought my slippers to change into.

But is that what I'm supposed to do? He doesn't have visitors to entertain, he doesn't have a roommate. It is just the two of us. Him sleeping and me trying to keep myself busy.

I feel guilty when I'm not there. But when I am there I feel like I don't know what I'm supposed to do (other than sit with him). Thank goodness for my pictures - I know what to do there.

Today it's the broccoli trees. When our daughter was little and we drove Farmway Road I always made comments about the broccoli trees. Having never eaten or purchased or even paid attention to broccoli before, I thought these trees resembled broccoli. Now that we've grown broccoli, I buy broccoli, and I even occasionally eat broccoli (gasp) I still think the trees look like broccoli.

Day 508

My living room is overflowing with stuff. Yard sale stuff.

Before our trip we went through closets, drawers, bookshelves, cabinets, the storage shed in the backyard and my sewing room, looking for things to get rid of. Downsize. We found bunches of things and stored them downstairs in the basement in preparation for the yard sale. Then while we were gone, we had our daughter move everything up to the living room so it would be an easy move to the carport for the yard sale.

That yard sale was scheduled for the Friday and Saturday before I started back to work. Being my first day back is August 1, coming week is the yard sale was the yard sale.

With hubby not improving and no word from the doctor about when he might be discharged - or when he might be better - I have a living room full of stuff going nowhere. Time for an alternate plan. The organization I usually donate things to no longer does pickups out here in Marsing so I'm on the search for another group. A group that can pick up this week. Coming back to an empty house (but full living room) is driving me nuts.

Also driving me nuts is pulling into the driveway every night seeing the overflowing wildflower-turned-perennial garden. Time to start whacking away at it (as soon as I can find the time).

Day 507

We heard the word diurese quite a bit today. As far as I can tell that's the medical term for getting rid of excess fluid by going to the bathroom. As in, they are forcing him to diurese. His IV has been cut off, he's on a cardiac/low sodium diet, his Sprite supply has been reduced, and they are adding and even again doubling some medications all in the hopes the fluid will be purged from his system.

But at this point, the kidneys still have not kicked in. He isn't eating much, he's sleeping most of the time, and he's too weak to get out of bed on his own. They've given up on even helping him to the bathroom. Thankfully he's not in pain, but he certainly isn't well.

With so many unknowns, it's nice I have some knowns right now - my flowers. Coneflowers. I couldn't decide on which picture I liked best so you get them both.

Day 506

He's been through tests, tests, and more tests, and he has a diagnosis.

Renal failure.

His kidneys are operating at 20% of normal and the doctors don't know why. A kidney biopsy is scheduled for Monday, and a specialist visited with us today and gave us worst case scenario (at least I hope it was worst-case). In the meantime he remains in the hospital as they try and get the 20 pounds (yikes) of fluid he put on in the last two weeks since we've been gone.

I'm not home much now, but I did take a picture of my flowers that look like thistles. I saw some in a planter box in Ketchikan just last week but theirs hadn't turned colors yet. Mine have.

Day 505: Home

I thought the worst part of returning home was going to be needing to get the windshield replaced after a big, huge, long crack developed on my way to Vancouver.

Then I thought the worst part was having to deal with the non-working air conditioner at home.

After leaving Vancouver yesterday, I then thought having to drive home with this brand new rock chip smack dab in my line of sight was going to be the worst part. (It was pretty bad, making me cross-eyed all these last two days.)

But none of those was the worst. What was?

On our way back to town we stopped at the doctor's office to get hubby checked out. The doctor sent hubby straight from his office to the hospital for an overnight stay. He has already been through several tests and has another one coming up before midnight.

Let's hope by tomorrow this time we have some answers.

Day 504: Back to Vancouver

I decided I won't ever drive in Vancouver, British Columbia again.

When we arrived a couple weeks back traffic into downtown was horrific. Yes, there were three lanes going in each direction, but cars and buses and taxis and bikes were swerving in and out of those narrow lanes with no apparent rhyme or reason. In a city of over half a million people it was stressful to get to our hotel.

But today as we left the cruise ship we took a taxi back to the hotel where we left the car. As I watched the taxi driver maneuver in morning rush hour traffic, I figured it out.

Three lanes. The middle lane is the go-straight lane. The left lane is the go-straight lane until you get to an intersection. Then it becomes a go-straight lane and a left turn lane. The right lane is a bus lane and/or a parking lane - except when it's not. If no one is parked in that lane, go right ahead and use it as a go-straight lane. And even if someone is parked in that lane? Drive in that lane until you get to that car, then dart back into the middle lane, then dart back into the parking lane when you can.

Basically consider those cars turning left in the left lane and those cars parked in the right lane as obstacles in your road race. I won't do it again, but when I drove out this morning I adopted a taxi-driver aggression and made good time!

But today's picture isn't of the mess of traffic. It's of a huge pile of yellow stuff out at the docks. Sulfur. I'm not sure what it's used for, but it sure is bright.

And on another note...No Happy Birthday ever sprang from hubby's mouth but I did I eat a couple bites of my birthday cake by myself (way too much chocolate for me), but thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. It means a lot to me so a big thank you!

And for the questions about him - he made two trips to the ship's doctor but unfortunately he didn't follow all of her recommendations. His resistance to doctor's instructions (and my pestering) may have been detrimental decisions so we're trying to get him into his own doctor as soon as we hit town. Right now we're again stuck in Yakima (just like on the way up) but hope to get ourselves home tomorrow. I'll keep you updated.