Blew That Popsicle Stand

On day five of our Providence Hospital occupation our collective decided to accept the offer of Great and Wise and take ourselves home.  It was time.  After five days of IV antibiotics, fluids, breathing treatments, meds, and blood, we blew that Popsicle stand for the friendly confines of our home. 

Marty is much better, she is weak, she is tired, she is not all the way back but I am confident she will be soon.  Tonight she has a clean head, a clean body and her own clean bed; it’s been a good day.

When we went into the hospital last Thursday night Marty had a raging urinary tract infection.  Keep in mind the urinary tract is not just a hose, it’s a kidney, a bladder and has some names Great and Wise used that I can’t remember because I can’t pronounce them and if I can’t pronounce them I can’t visualize them and if I can’t visualize them I can’t remember the words….so there.

Suffice it to say, she was sick, 103 degree temp sick, a whole body sick.  Her white blood count was sky high and it affected her body in ways we don’t like.

We used fluids to flush the yuck out and eventually had to pull back on the fluids because she was getting too much and she started to really wheeze.  Once the fluids were minimized the wheezing improved; with the infection tamed by the miracle of modern drugs Marty started to feel better. 

Feeling better really started yesterday, Sunday.  You can always see it first in her eyes and the way she holds her head; if Marty holds her head up, looks around and makes eye contact with the people in the room I know we are headed in the right direction.  That started yesterday afternoon.  Until then she had worn the sick, I need to lay down in a hospital look.

We passed a couple of other blips yesterday and we talked with Great and Wise this morning when he came to Marty’s room this morning (Monday).  Yes, he comes to Marty’s room, in the hospital, doing rounds, healing people.  How cool is that?

He came in and said he didn’t see any reason we needed to stay unless we just felt too uneasy to leave.  Marty had her leaving face on even at 7:30 a.m...  We opted to leave.

The suddenness and the depth of this illness are troubling to me because it plays right into my obsessive anxiety ridden approach to watching my charge.  I hover, we all know I hover, and I watch Marty’s every movement to make sure it’s not odd or out of synch or different.  My hyper vigilance has now been reinforced with this latest illness.   

I’m probably going to be worse for a while, until I can get some time and distance between us and this most recent event.  It usually takes several weeks of normal life for me to relax my ears and get off point, to get past always being on edge waiting for disaster, looking for the next weird thing.

My fretting drives Marty a little nuts, it drives the caregivers bit nuts, and it really drives me crazy.  Tough shit, can’t help it, it’s why we were in the ER before her blood pressure crashed.

Hey, we’re home.  Marty is safe, she is as well as one can be given the circumstances of the last few days.  We are grateful because we know we are one infection away from very bad outcomes, but really, so is everyone else, we just practice more.  

Right now, today, tonight, we’re good.