At the hospital

Song of the day: “Que Sera Sera” by Doris Day. Sang it together with Sally in the ambulance, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since.

So, there we are, once more, writing from the hospital, but this time not in the normal waiting room, but instead in this small consult room in the back while Sally waits for yet another brain scan. Things were getting to be too bad these past few days. She was unresponsive, hostile, not to mention completely uncooperative, so today we decided to not linger any longer, and called for an ambulance. It took some doing too, seeing as she wasn’t bleeding half to death, or screaming at the top of her lungs (not at that moment anyway), but the ambulance did arrive, and I got to go along because they don’t like having patients sit alone in the back. Of course the driver was tearing through corners, meaning that Sally puked all over herself, which had the orderly thrilled of course, and me gagging, seeing as I am unable to handle vomit. Sat there the rest of the way, breathing through my mouth, thinking happy thoughts. It wasn’t working. *sigh*

We arrived at the hospital, and thankfully (partially due to the vomit smell, I think) we got put through triage rather fast and were set in this little back room where a rather nice doctor (for a change) spent some time asking about her symptoms and then took the time to explain to me what was going to happen next, and what has been going on. Apparently the oncologist treating Sally has not been entirely frank with us. Nope. Turns out that her lung cancer has spread, grown considerably in size, but that it is progressing as expected (the way the dude said it). And here we’d been led to believe that it hadn’t grown. *sigh* Apparently you can’t even trust a doctor, eh?

But anyway, this ER doctor was a kind fella, and took his time to explain to me that the reason Sally has been so aggressive is because of the steroids that she’s taking, which is logical, I guess, seeing as it has been getting worse ever since they’ve upped her dosis. Added to that, her increasing weakness has everything to do with the lung cancer. He did this little test thing where she had to lift her arms and stick them out ahead of her, and it was practically impossible.

I do admit to finding it so very odd that she had moments of complete lucidity while we were talking with the doctor. Personally he thinks there might be something wrong in her blood, so they’re going to do some blood tests. Had a good nurse this time round, who got a vein at the first try and drew blood without a problem. Yay for the nurse. That sure is a first.

Added to the blood test, the doc has also ordered a brain scan, to make sure that the lesions aren’t getting worse. In both cases, the head and the blood, if there’s something off, she’s going to have to be admitted, if there’s not, I’m going to be able to take her home tonight with heavier medication that will increase her appetite, and morphine for the pain.

Right now, she is sitting across from me in a hospital gown, because the rest was completely soiled, and another nice nurse didn’t make a problem of needing to help her get changed. It is promising to be a long evening, but what the hey, I’ve got my computer with me, I need to write this blog anyway, and…well, we’ll just have to wait and see how things go, won’t we?

As to the past couple of days. I am not happy with how Knight’s been doing. Poor fella’s very quiet, doesn’t eat well, and has this “paleness” about him. I know, I can’t really explain why it looks that way, but it does. Added to that, you can also see that he is getting on in age. His face is getting to be gray, and his eyes are less fanatic than they used to be. Gawd, I sure hope he’ll hold out a bit longer…preferably without all these health messes. His foot is a friggin’ disaster again. Seriously, the vet, wanting to be helpful since he was already “under” anyway, figured she might as well try to stitch his foot again, only to have it now twice as bad than before, darn it. Poor fella. Such a tough life he’s had. Not a single year without some sort of trouble, and the last year has been the worst ever. Now he’s at the vet’s almost every month, with problems that keep persisting, for crying out loud.

But enough about that. What else has been going on? Well, I did manage to do some work on the new bathroom. Considering there was welding to be done, for the market, as well as other stuff, I did most of the last bits on my own…with grandpa and cousin Ed’s help when I needed it. Most of the walls are up now. The tap is in, and the floor is done. With a little luck, and time…we should be able to manage time, seeing as we were forced to cancel Saturday’s evening market (car will stay at the garage during the weekend)…we should get it done round Monday. Wednesday at the latest.

Which reminds me. The car. The worst happened, and the repair is going to have to be a big one. Considering we’re low on funds, our mechanics are now doing a full cleaning of the engine parts, hoping that through this they will need to order less of the expensive replacements and thus save us some extra money, for which I am infinitely grateful. I am totally going to bake them a pie this Sunday, because I cannot afford to pay them a bonus. I’m thinking and apple pear pie, which should be totally doable, if not absolutely delicious. Let’s hope the new oven work properly, because this will be its first run.

We are slowly starting to notice that our dog count is going down. It is a good thing, I know, but it also saddens me from time to time. Seriously, there was a time when feeding time was a complete frenzy, yet now we are obliged to decrease the amount frequently, because the dogs can’t finish it. Of course the fatsos wouldn’t mind at all to clean the mess up for us, but let’s face it, we are trying to have them not be fat anymore. You should see the outrage on Chaos’ face every time we put him in the carport to keep him from overeating. Really, if he could talk you would hear him say, “But, but, but I’m not done yet. I’m a growing boy, you know, I need nourishment. If you put me out, I just might perish.” *sigh* Poor Basset.

Writing. Well, I have been doing both writing and editing. The latter mainly because big brother has managed to battle his way through about twenty pages, which means that he was starting to get urgent in getting me to do a few pages at least. Not that I mind, mind you. The edit has to be done after all. It is just that I often had difficulty separating my editing brain from my writing brain. Stupid thing doesn’t want to switch back and forth at a moment’s notice. But it doesn’t matter. At the moment I am in a rather good scene, which I am desperately trying to hold onto while doing the blogs, the hospital visits, the edits, the cooking, the construction, and all that jazz. I know, fascinating, right?

But anyway, what else. My cabin is a friggin’ mess. On the scale of ten important things that need to be done, it rates about a fifty, right? It is starting to bug me, though, since I am now forced to put clean laundry on the cupboard outside, because all my other horizontal surfaces are all occupied. Got to cut a minute or two out of the day one of these days, to see to that.

Cooking…well, there was none of that today. Didn’t have time for breakfast, so I snacked on a sesame bar instead. Did have a couple of grandpas pancakes this afternoon, thankfully, and some nuggets right before I had to leave for the hospital with Sally.
Luckily we had a full meal yesterday of spaghetti with veggies and a cream sauce, not to mention that we lunched on some red meat with satay sauce (good Sammie), so today’s lack of food should not be the biggest disaster. Also had an alcohol free beer before leaving a few hours ago, so I should have more than enough minerals in my system right now…doesn’t mean I’m not hungry, though. *sigh* Or thirsty. Soon I’m going to have to find a vending machine for water, because, boy, it’s dry in here.

What else, there were the usual chores of course. Laundry, feeding the dogs, doing some cleaning in the carport because there was no more space on the work table. Added to that I had to head to the vet early yesterday morning (again late today) so I’d be home on time for little brother and mom to go to the village to pick up little brother’s new bank account information, and to pay insurance on the van. Then they had to hurry, too, because caregiver had to take tenant to the health center where they’re supposed to check her kidney tube every other day. We’re not happy how that’s going either, considering tenant appears to be a little under the weather at the moment. Let’s hope she doesn’t get complications as well, because having both ladies in the hospital would be…well, that would be way bad. Grrr.

Well, I can’t think of anything else, which, I am going to blame on the fact that it is already past eleven while I write this, and we’re still waiting for Sally’s brain scan. Regretfully there was this fella with an emergency rolled in, just when we were about to get our turn, so the waiting game continues on.

Did meet a rather nice English doctor earlier (an x-ray doctor, apparently) who stubbed her toe, dislocating it, while she was trying to her sick child from its crib. She’s been waiting for hours too, and she just wants to see the x-rays to know if it’s broken or not. If not, she’s outta there asap to go back to her kid. I wish her luck, seeing as this place seems to thrive on waiting, darn it.

I’m going to post this blog later on, and see now if I can maybe get some serious writing done, if not…I’ll blame it on me getting considerably tired by now. Hah.