Kissin'

We got home from our last hospital stay on Saturday, June 6.  It was a marvelous four night three day stay but it was a little pricey for the amenities offered.  We rolled Marty out cured of all that ailed her.  It’s something of a conundrum, you go to the hospital to get better, you would think rest is part of that.  You would think wrong, Marty was tired.

It took a few days for her to recover but she did and Marty is just spiffy right now.  We checked again for nasty bugs in the urine and she is nasty bugs free, let us all rejoice.

Marty’s healing is best exemplified in two very simple stories.  I find them fitting and more than a tad bit humorous.

On the second day in the hospital I wanted to get Marty out of the bed and into her chair, its part of our ritual.  Lying around in bed all day, even when a bit ill, is not beneficial to anyone.  Marty’s nurse came in and unhooked her IV and I swung Marty’s feet out of the bed and stood her up to transfer her to her chair and Marty says, “Why are we doing this?”

Me, “It’s good for you, besides, we might want to make out or something,” Now understand I say this stuff for Marty’s benefit, she loves it when I play the fool, and sometimes my mouth just says stuff, I can’t help it.

Marty looks at me, looks at the nurse, looks back at me and says with a note of seriousness, “I’m not doing that, I’m not making out with you.  I’m not kissing YOU.”

Well okay, shot down once again by my own wife.  She may have a teeny tiny bit of brain damage but she is not going to let me have my way with her.  

The nurse, who probably didn’t understand that Marty still had spice, wit and sand, busted out laughing at her somewhat indelicate response and I suspect I looked the part of the goofy old husband, which is type casting at its best.

The second anecdote is really the second verse to the same song.  

Marty has one of those lift chairs, she sits, you press a button and it moves her to a semi-standing position, maybe a little hunched over because the back of the chair pushes you forward.

When I get her up I hold the controller, stand in front with her wheel chair to my right.  I push the button and sort of tap my foot as I wait for the slow rise of the chair.  Sometimes I sing, “Up from the chair she arose.”  Yeah I’m the goofy old husband, we have established that.

Sometimes I lean forward and push my forehead on her forehead and we laugh a little, every now and then I will put my forehead on hers and reach down and kiss her on the lips (sorry kids).  This time I leaned down, touched my head to hers and puckered up for the peck and Marty turns her face to her left, dodging my puckered lips, leaving me in mid-pucker. I hate mid-pucker.

She turned and smiled and I thought, clever girl, giving me a bad time and puckered and went in for a quick peck, thinking I was going to get it in but no, she turned to the right and there I was lips on her ear.

I pulled back a bit and said, “Okay, what the hell was that?”

Marty laughed out loud as only she can at this point in her life and says, “It was the Dodge.”  She laughed more at my expense.

Now the moral of both of these stories is that Marty has still got it.  She has wit, she has humor and she still lives for keeping this goofy old guy in his place.

Next time I’m going to be faster.

She's Doing Five to Seven With No Chance of Peerole

Damn it.  We are back in the hospital.  Since Tuesday, damn it.

I never said it but I thought it.  I was driving and against my better judgment I thought it.  It was a fleeting thought but there it was, me thinking everything was normal, me basking in the glory of not worrying about the next shoe to drop.  That was Monday; I was riding high tempting fate.

Marty gets urinary tract infections, it happens with some regularity and it is part and parcel of her strokes.  To combat her propensity for UTIs Marty takes a daily prophylactic antibiotic that has helped but not completely stopped the infections.  UTIs can be debilitating, causing some pain, causing a general funky feeling and even causing a little cognitive impairment.  That’s why we take these infections seriously and react quickly.

Months ago, through the direction of Great and Wise we started working with a home health nurse that comes about every three weeks to get and test Marty’s pee.  The most recent test indicated a urinary tract infection.  That was last Friday.  We started the typical antibiotic and frankly Marty seemed to be doing great.  

Monday, the day I was driving, the day the thought of normalcy flashed through my melon, the home health nurse called and said the normal antibiotic was not going to work.  Marty had Pseudomonas Aeruginosa in her pee and we needed something different.  Okay, no biggie, I called Great and Wise, just change the antibiotic, we will be good as new.

Then it got a little complicated.  I talked to nurse Wendy and she said yep, Levaquin was not going to be our friend this time.  The only friendly antibiotic that Marty wasn’t allergic too required intravenous feeding, thus she is sentenced to five to seven days in the hospital with no possibility of peerole or pardon. 

After consultation with the Great Office of Great and Wise we delayed our check in just a tad.  I had a meeting with the fabulous Sheryl, our financial guru, and we badly needed haircuts.  We did both of those things and checked into Providence Hospital on Tuesday at 3:30, just like The Hilton but without the mini bar but a really cool moving bed.

This whole process is a little scary because it is exactly what happened five years ago when Marty had her last and worst seizure, a seizure so powerful she broke her left arm as she laid in bed being treated for the exact same illness we are dealing with today.  It’s a little déjà vuie and not in a good way, in fact, in a very bad way, that was a dark time.

That hasn’t happened this time.  We got past that first day and no seizures.  All of Marty’s blood work is coming back with good numbers, her chest is clear and she is actually feeling okay.  I give her about two days before she gets really stir crazy.  She will probably get a little nuts and her dirty hair will bother her because she is doing her five to seven days for possessing bad pee.

When the new nurse came last night she asked several Marty several basic questions to determine her cognitive functioning and orientation as to time and place.  She never knows the year and bless her heart she still thinks George Bush is President which is kind of like living in the Twilight Zone forever.  

She answered all of the other questions perfectly and with vim and vigor with just a hint of sarcasm.  

To conclude the visit the nurse turned to Marty and asked, “Do you know why you are here?”

Marty, without pausing, jerks her right thumb to me, the poor goober sitting to her right minding his own business and says, “Yeah, him.”

Okay, yes I brought her here; no I didn’t have anything to do with stinky pee.  I’m just glad we have good people taking care of her so I will take the rap and play the snitch, this time.