Getting Better?

With time most of the nasty side effects have gone away. We contacted the doctor, who said to increase the infusion time from 30 minutes to 6o minutes, which has helped a lot. I have made a conscious effort to keep drinking plenty of water to help flush my kidneys, which also seems to help. Yesterday I called Home Health and they had a nurse come out and replace the Foley, again reducing the pain and discomfort. So little by little things seem to be improving. I think it helped that I took three naps yesterday 2 1/2-hour naps and one 2-hour nap waking up at 5 PM in time for supper. I thought that with sleeping that much during the day I would be up all night. However, I slept well most of the night. I guess sleep is what I need in order for my body to heal. I have noticed I am exhausted to the point of tears for 3 to 4 hours after each infusion of medicine.

Unfortunately we won't be going to visit our son, daughter in-law and grandson this coming weekend. This also means that I won't be picking up the dehydrator and next weekend son J and I plan on making more beef jerky. We will just have to see what happens. The 20 pounds of bottom round, purchased at sale price, is in our freezer, so if we can't get the dehydrator the meat can just stay frozen.

Having my health return is more important then making beef jerky.

Oh the Pain and Agony of It All

Well I am now on the drug Maxipime. The Home Health Nurse came yesterday afternoon to help me start the first dose. After she left I noticed that I felt nauseous, dizzy, and had stomach cramps. That was when I remembered how I disliked this drug when I had it while in the hospital 2 years ago. Yesterday afternoon I managed to do the final things P. needed for supper.

Then this morning at 12:30 I woke to give myself the next dose. I was up the rest of the night with the same symptoms. They were no worse then after the dose in the afternoon. However they were enough to keep me up the rest of the night. At 3:00 AM I had to make one emergency trip to the bathroom waking poor P up. I get to stay home during the day, but she has to go to work. I felt so bad about interrupting her sleep. However this morning she told me that she went right back to sleep.

The pain and agony from the midnight dose stayed until about an hour ago. Now as I write this I see that it is time for another dose. I must say that it is experiences like this that cause me to have more patience and compassion for others. It is also times like this that I miss my friend Joe. I know I could have called him and after talking to him we would find something funny about this and had a good laugh. It is just that right now I don't feel like laughing. I guess I will post this and start the next dose.

Made it back home

After spending the last 1 1/2 days in the hospital while they figured out which drug I am not allergic to, I am once again back home. For some reason they couldn't get a PICC started yesterday. So yesterday afternoon I had a Groshong CV Catheter installed instead. Pam had a work dinner to attend so Kurt came and brought me home around 7:00 last evening. This morning the Home Health nurse is coming to start the new IV's.

It was an interesting couple of days. I've met a lot of new people to talk to. However, I am GLAD to be back home again. Hopefully I have not picked up any super drug resistant hospital germs during my brief hospital stay. That was one of the main reasons they wanted to send me home so quickly.

More set backs

This morning after I was finished with the IV of Primaxin I developed a red itchy area close to the IV sight. A couple minutes later I noticed red bumps on my legs and Pam noticed more bumps on my back. We called the Home Health Nurse who came out and called the doctor's office. Of course this is Sunday so the Home Health Nurse talked to the on call doctor who isn't my doctor. The on call doctor said to stop the Primaxin and to call my normal doctor tomorrow at 1:00 PM when she get to her office.

I hope this delay doesn't give the Pseudomonas the opportunity to start getting worse. So we wait until tomorrow to see what the doctor wants to do.

Here I go again

I was wrong when I thought we had gotten ahead of this cold. Yesterday afternoon the Home Health Nurse called to tell me that me sputum culture result shows I have a Pseudomonas infection. The last time I had this infection it took 18 months to fight.

So this morning the nurse came and started an IV line. She ended up placing it in my wrist which is an issue because of the chance of my damaging or dislocating it when I use my walker to transfer to my wheelchair. Because of that, and because it took her a long time and a number of sticks before finally finding the site by my left hand wrist, she is going to set up an appointment for me to have a PICC Line. This is an upsetting development. However, I like having a PICC Line batter then having an IV.

If this isn't bad enough, my right hip aches. It started last evening and kept waking me up during the night. Of course I right away jump to the worse conclusion that the infection has settled in one of my replacement hips. Now I know that this a possibility, and that pseudomonas does colonize in replacement joints and/or tracheotomy. However, there is no proof that this is what happened. So I must wait until Monday before talking to my doctor. I know I could call the Doctor's weekend service, but the doctor won't do anything until Monday because I am on the IV antibiotic. She will want to give the antibiotic time to work.

So what started as a cold, has suddenly turned serious. It is time for me to go and work a Sudoku puzzle. I need to keep my mind busy so I don't spend all weekend wasting energy on worrying instead of allowing that energy to help in the healing process.

From Sore Throat to Cold and Back

Just as I feared my sore throat turned into a head cold, which is no fun when one has a tracheotomy. By Tuesday evening I was starting to run a slight temperature and having to suction my lungs more. Wednesday morning the Home Health Nurse came to change my Foley. Even though my lungs sounded clear to her, she called my pulmonologist because my temperature was 101. The doctor ordered a sputum culture and placed me on 10 days of antibiotics.

Already yesterday I was feeling better and today I feel better still. So I think we caught this cold and started treatment before it developed into an infection.

Of course not all is good news. Yesterday, I saw my neurologist. Her news was not as encouraging. She said that I have lost some ground in the fight against this disease. However, that it was only a small decline so I am happy that the lost wasn't more.

Sore Throat

I woke up with a sore throat yesterday morning and still have it today. Yesterday I spent most of the day in bed hoping to get a jump on this sore throat. However, I don't think it helped much because I woke up a couple times during the night because of my sore throat. So I would drink some water and get another cough drop. I finally gave up the battle of sleep at 4:30 and finished the book I was reading Shadow Family by Miyabe Miyuki.

So I guess today will be a day of doing nothing and trying to behave. I sure don't want this sore throat to become another lung infection. The last one I had sent me to the hospital and the one before that took me 18 months with a lot of IV antibiotics taken at home.

The Trip to the Farm

Every morning I send an email to all my brothers and sisters. Today's email was about our trip to a local dairy we took with my two nieces; Me of Those Northern Skies, and her sister B her husband R and baby G who drove from their home in Michigan to spend a day with all of us.

Here is today's email.

M's sister B, brother in-law R and Grace walked in the front door around 10:00 - 10:30 yesterday morning. We decided to go to Tyler's Tender restaurant for lunch on the way to Fair Oaks Dairy. And so began The Trip to The Farm.

First we had to move car seats around with my wife P and I ending up with 6 year old C and 1 year old G in our van and the four parents and K riding in the other car. Then it was decided that M's husband T would drive our van in order to make C more comfortable. We were about 1 mile from home when we went around a corner and the extra oxygen tank fell over and started making a lot of noise. T pulls over, jumps out, runs to the back of the van, opens the hatch and secures the oxygen tank. All this as the four adults and K watch and as other cars pull around and stare at us. We start going again and no sooner turn on to BUSY 4 lane Boulevard. and one of T's contacts fall out. We make it to the next corner and stop in a parking lot, T puts his contact back in and the other four adults laugh as they watch this from their car. And once again we are on our way to the restaurant.

Just as we are about to turn off the busy 4 lane highway into the restaurant parking lot C announces that she has to throw up. While we wait for the traffic to clear we tell C to hold on. I look back at her and there she sits WIDE eyed with both hands clamped across her mouth. We make it into the parking lot and just as T jumps out and begins getting her out of her car seat, C loses the battle. As T cleans up the van the other four adults arrive to help poor C. As my wife, niece nephew and two grand nieces and I head to the restaurant M and T take Charis back home and M comes back to the restaurant.

Poor C, she was just heart broken about not getting to go to the farm to see the cows. Poor T he stayed home with C. Now he didn't say if he was heart broken about not getting to come along or not but I think he was disappointed.

The rest of us had a great time at the restaurant waiting for M to come back. After that beginning the rest of the trip was not as exciting. I had a GREAT time at the farm, bought 3 different types of cheese to try, went on the tour of the farm, saw new born calves, and just before heading home had some REALLY GREAT ice cream. It was as good as Sherman's ice cream in South Haven MI.

M did buy some ice cream for Poor T. C was feeling better by the time we arrived home. I think she just had too much vacation.

They are on vacation

My niece Me of Those Northern Skies, her husband T and their girls ages 3 and 6 arrived yesterday afternoon. I think both of the girls are both a little afraid of me, the trach, and the wheelchair. Today's plan I think is to take the train downtown and then the free trolley to the museum campus, Navy Pier and Lincoln Park Zoo.

Sounds like a busy day. However, I remember days like this when we would go on vacations when everyone was younger.

My first attempt

I haven't posted anything the past few days because our son C, daughter in-law K and grandson L were here.

Last month while on vacation at my sister's my brother C spent a day with me showing me how he made Beef Jerky. While at my sisters, I talked to son C about buying a dehydrator to use in making Beef Jerky. So he spent some time on eBay looking for a dehydrator. When he spotted one we both thought would serve our purposes we joined in the bidding and when all was said and done we were the owners of a dehydrator.

Last week Tuesday P and I went to the store and I looked at the price of meat. I decided to buy a Bottom Round, it being the least expensive. I didn't want to spend a lot on the meat in case I ruined the entire batch of Jerky. Brother C had used a Teriyaki Beef Jerky marinate that I had liked so I used that marinate. Saturday morning, I started slicing the meat into thin strips. I managed to get about one fourth of the meat sliced before I became too tired to continue. So wife P and daughter K finished slicing the meat. I was going to start marinating the meat that evening but plans changed and C,K and L would not be coming until Sunday. So into the refrigerator the sliced meat went and I waited until Sunday evening to marinate it.

Monday morning after breakfast we started dehydrating C's venison. He used two different marinates and had decided not to smoke his jerky. Because he wasn't going to smoke his jerky it would have to be in the dehydrator longer. Every couple of hours C would go out the patio doors and bring the dehydrator in so we could check the progress of the drying. We would move the trays around to insure an even drying of all the venison.

After lunch we started the new grill and prepared a Hickory wood chip packet. We found out we only had enough room on the grill to smoke half of my jerky at a time. We also discovered that we shouldn't place any meat over the burner and the wood packet. The meat placed there burnt to a crisp. I found out that I had put too much meat in each plastic bag and hadn't massaged the marinating meat enough, because not all the meat had marinated. One other thing I forgot that my brother C had done was to turn the meat while it was smoking and to move it around on the grill to ensure even smoking.

However, I am very pleased with the results of my first attempt at making Beef Jerky. I did find out this isn't something I can do myself. It is too much work to do while in a wheelchair. It is a two-day process and the final smoking and dehydrating is more involved then I can handle myself. This however is not a problem because son C took the dehydrator home with him in order to dehydrate fruit and tomatoes. Son J is taking two college courses this summer and doesn't have time to help me and he lives two hours away. So in August when P and I go to visit C, K, and L I will take the dehydrator home. By that time son J will be finished with his summer classes and said he would like to help make another batch of Jerky.