I am Better But Not There Yet

A week ago last Saturday I was sick and decided I needed medical attention.  I went to a CVS “walk-in” clinic, signed in with the computer only to have it say on the last screen ‘we have no more appointments.”  Appointments?  Why is this called a walk-in clinic if you have to make an appointment?  So I drove miles out of my way to visit another CVS clinic only to have the same thing happen.  Let me tell you, I couldn’t stop coughing by this time.  I was sick.  A block from this CVS was an urgent care so I pulled into the parking lot and it was basically empty.  I thought it might have been closed.  But I went to check anyway and it was open!  I walked up to the receptionist only to have her tell me they were appointment only that day, but I guess me coughing and hacking so bad she felt sorry for me and took me in.  I was so grateful.  The PA that checked me out said I had bronchitis and wheezing.  Oh wow..I was sicker than I thought I was.  She gave me four prescriptions.  Did I say I was so grateful.  On my drive to pic up my prescriptions I got to coughing so bad I was vomiting and couldn’t stop.  I thought I was gonna have to pull over to the side of the road, but I pushed on.  When I got to CVS to pick up my prescriptions they weren’t ready and I had to wait 45 minutes.  Now it was an hour drive from the urgent care to the CVS.  Then I waited another 45 minutes.  Then after I got my prescriptions I was walking down the aisle, I looked into my bag and one prescription was not in there!  OMGsh...I had to go back into the line and wait, all the while coughing and hacking and feeling like I was gonna throw up.  I know Jesus got me through all that.  When I got home I couldn’t stop coughing and spent the night throwing up and coughing.  I told my cat if I died that night please don’t eat me.  Well, I did make it to the next morning.  Praise God!  

I haven’t babysat my grand baby for almost two weeks.  That’s how long this nasty virus has hung on.  Even now, I’m still coughing, but not nearly as bad.  I think I will start my inhaler and hope that takes care of this tail end of this virus.  I was reading that the normal flu/cold viruses are gonna hang onto us a lot longer because we have been washing our hands so much that we now have no immunity to even the smallest of bugs.  I believe that.  We have jeopardized our immune system.  

It is October 2021 now.  I’m usually keen on decorating for the seasons, but I just haven’t felt it this year.  We have little to no extra money.  I still gotta get dog food which costs a lot.  

Right now life feels a tiny bit normal.  Donald is out on his tractor (I’m still scared he is gonna fall) and I am here typing on my blog.  It feels good to have a moment to collect my thoughts and just now have to be on high alert every second.  Although in the back of my mind I know I am.  I am keeping my ears open.

I know my seasonal depression will be starting.  I have to fight through that, too.  That is why I try to do ancestry research in the winter to help me fight through the dark days.  I did find that my sixth great grandfather is a revolutionary war veteran which is cool.

I guess this is all for now.

Blessings,

Bev

A Long Overdue Update

 Since I left off last time, hubby (Donald) got home from rehab..I went and picked him up.  Basically, same routine as surgery; I watch him so he doesn’t fall and take care of his needs.  Oh what fun.  This is life now.  It sucks...I can’t even begin to tell you how much it sucks.  Maybe I’m not being grateful for what I have or I’m not finding the joy in all this.  I really don’t know.  I know I have become a resentful, angry, unhappy person and I don’t even like myself anymore.  I just don’t know how to fix me because I have not time for me.  I have no money for me.  

I have been through a lot in my life...the death of a child, lost embryos from infertility, panic attacks, severe depression, lost vacation with my family (because I became housebound). but somehow I managed to find my way out of those things.   And I could find joy again, but this time I am completely lost.  Maybe because I’m just older now and I really have no reason to fight.  I don’t see my life continuing into my 70’s therefore not much living time left.  It’s not a sad thing, just the way life is.  Eventually we all have to think about the end of our lives, don’t we?

So right now, I have bronchitis.  I haven’t been sick like this in a long time.  I haven’t been able to babysit our new grand baby and I miss her.  

That’s all the update for now.  I am tired.

Blessings,

Bev

I Wonder if I Broke My Rib

 

About four days ago I was in bed laying against a bunch of pillows in a sitting up position while I was reading a book.  Then all of a sudden I sorta heard a pop, then everything inside my body shifted!!  I could feel things moving.  I have been in pain every since.  I wonder if I broke my rib.  From what I read about rib breaking it says I wouldn’t be able to breathe, but I can.  But I’m having pain and muscle soreness right where everything felt like it shifted.  Like I don’t have enough going on in my life and now I have to deal with this.  Why???

Just had to come here and complain.  

Blessings,

Bev

Grief-Mourning Even When Someone is Alive

 

I didn’t think I would feel so alone when hubby went into the hospital this time.  But I felt even worse.  I felt like I was in mourning.  I felt alone, lost; like I would if my hubby was forever gone!  Most other times when he would be in the hospital, yes, I was alone, but we knew it would be for such and such a time and he would be home, but this time around it’s not the case.  We knew it was gonna be for a long haul. 

The feeling is horrible.  In a flash, life changes forever.  And I’m not talking about for the good, either.  See, I went right from my dad’s house to getting married, so I never lived on my own.  I always had someone there to “take care of me.”  Not that I can’t take care of myself (but honestly, I never had to), so it’s quite a change now in my mid 60’s I have to face taking care of not only myself, but my pets, the house, maintenance....I don’t know how to do all that.

This post sounds like I’m all over the place which I am.  When things like this happens there are no routines.  Everything is a big jumbled mess.  You try to get through the day and so glad when night comes cause I can just go to bed and not think about anything.  It’s waking up in the morning when it’s all a reality again and I have to fight my way through the day.

I guess what I am saying is that hubby and I had a life that was fun and now like overnight it is all gone and our lives are about hospitals, medical procedures, hospital bills, not enough money and on and on.  There are no golden years.  That’s a myth..one big fat lie.

This morning hubby had his ankle surgery.  After five hours, he is just now getting to recovery.  I am not with him.  He is in a hospital an hour away and with my vertigo I haven’t been able to drive that far.  And so now I depend on the hospital staff to take care of hubby.  Dear God, please put caring people around hubby.  God, please use your powers to bring hubby home to us, because I’m scared this time.   I’m really scared.

Did I mentioned the hospital hubby was at when he first broke his ankle wanted to cut off his foot?  Yes, and we were ready to have that done because those doctors didn’t give us hope of any kind.  But God did a miracle and hubby’s brother’s stepdaughter was able to contact hubby’s ortho dr who got him transferred to her hospital and gave us hope.  Now we wait and see.  

Blessings,

Bev

Life at Green House Homestead

 

I am pretty sure that somewhere in my past posts I mentioned that hubby broke his leg in 2017.  He had to have at least four surgeries. He had to have a special type of knee replacement, too.  Long story short after all those years, he was finally walking with a cane and going to therapy.  He even started driving himself!  It was too good to be true, though.  Yes it was.

On April 1st (I think it was) it was a rainy day.  Hubby had therapy to go to.  He was driving himself there, but I asked him if he wanted me to drive him.  I was kinda scared his truck would slid in the rain.  I asked him and asked him, but he said, ‘no, I can do it.’  My inner gut said to take him but, honestly, I wanted to give him some independence and I wanted a couple of hours to myself since we are together 24/7 now.  So hubby went out the door.  A few minutes later my phone rang.  It was hubby!  “Can you come out to the truck and help me?”  Well, that’s weird, he never had trouble before getting into the truck.  I looked out the window and he was sitting in the truck with his legs hanging out.  I got my coat on and walked out to the truck.  I looked down at his foot and it was horizontal to his leg!!  I looked at him and he asked me why his foot was crooked.  I asked him if he fell and he said yes.  I told him he broke his foot (ankle).  OMGsh.  I was in shock.  There was no way I could get him into my car to take him to the hospital.  I had to call the ambulance.

I walked (sprinted) into the house.  I dialed 911.  I was on hold for about four minutes.  It was unbelievable.  Finally when the operator answered the phone I told her the situation.  She said she’d send someone out.  I hung up with her and went back outside, in the pouring rain and waited with hubby for the ambulance to arrive.  And waited, and waited and waited.  Finally I dialed the number to our local fire department.  I was going to ask them if they had been dispatched yet.  Just as I dialed the number the ambulance arrived without lights or siren, I might add.  What the heck???  

They get hubby on the stretcher.  The take him into the ambulance to access him.  I’m still standing in the rain.  I call our kids.  Finally the ambulance guy comes out to let me know which hospital they are taking him to.  I wasn’t happy.  

That night the doctors tried to put him hubby’s ankle back together.  Not only did he break his ankle in three places, he broke his leg in the shin bone area underneath where his pole is in his leg.  They tried putting a halo on his ankle to steady it.  Then he came home in a so called ambulance.  The next day his halo was bleeding all over the place.  It was awful.

A week later I take hubby to doctor for his checkup.  Doctor tells us the halo is broken and hubby has to be admitted to the hospital right now to have more surgery.  I felt my heart drop into my stomach.  The panic attack/anxiety has started.  This is unbelievable.  

So right now, hubby has been in the hospital almost a week.  He will have to have more surgery.  We have tried getting in touch with Dr. Janet Conway/Benjamin Chartier at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore where hubby had his complicated knee surgery, but they have not called us back.  I emailed Ben, hubby left message with secretary and I even texted the doctor.

I guess we are on our own now.  Here we go again.  I think I must cry in my sleep because it feels like my eyes are swollen when I wake up.  Of course I am still dizzy and so off balance and lately I’m even feeling nauseated again.  

When I came home from the hospital last Friday, Maddee was not walking on her left hind leg.  Her hair is falling out again.  Why does everything happen at once.  I am not strong anymore to deal with all this stuff.  I’m not. I’m so overwhelmed.  

Now I’m back to having to take care of everything.  The grass is growing up so high it’s terrible.  I am trying to be good to myself but it’s hard.  So much to think about.

That’s all for now.  

Blessings,

Bev

Can I Please Get a Little Validation?

To tell you the truth, I don’t even know where to begin.  Seems like my life is one big jumbled up mess.  It’s not fault of my own, really.  I don’t have a personality where I go with the flow; that I see everything as happy, although I know some people like that and I truly envy them.  I see the glass half full instead of being grateful for having anything in my glass at all.  I have no idea why I am like that.  I think it stems from somewhere in my childhood.  I think I must have felt, being a third child, that I got the short end of the stick most times.  Don’t get me wrong, my parents did they best they could with what they knew, but I think I wanted to be nurtured more.  We never really got hugs growing up or “I love your” but my parents provided for us, never forgot a holiday, had wonderful birthdays.  Maybe I was just a needy kid, I don’t know, but I know I’ve carried a lot of that needy stuff with me into adulthood.  Or maybe I feel like my feelings don’t get validated....yeah, that’s it.  I have no one to just say to me, “I see how you feel and I’m sorry things aren’t better for you.”  I just want validatation. 

I don’t remember where I left off in my last post.  My husband had undergone five operations for a knee replacement.  It was a long haul, but finally in March 2021, I started to let him drive.  Yes, it was up to me.  It was so nice to see him being able to go on his own.  He was driving himself to therapy.  He even went to the store a few times and brought home dinner (going through the drive thru, of course).  I had a few hours to myself (finally!).  Things were getting back to a normal routine.  And then it happened!!!

Last Thursday on April Fool’s Day it was raining.  Donald was to go to therapy that day.  I asked him a hundred times if he wanted me to drive him.  I was worried about his truck sliding in the rain...maybe he couldn’t put enough pressure on the brake pedal to stop.  He insisted he could drive himself but I had an underlying feeling I should take him.  But he said no and my wanting a few hours to myself kicked in and so I let him go out on his own.  That was a huge mistake.  

So husband walked out the front door.  I was watching tv and crocheting.  Then my cellphone rings.  It’s him.  “Can you come out to the truck?  I need some help.”  Okay, I thought.  I looked out the window.  He was sitting in his truck with his legs on the ground.  That’s weird.  I get my coat on, go outside.  I look down at his feet.  I looked up at him.  He says, “look at my foot.  It’s not straight.”  Yeah, I noticed that when I looked at hit.  I asked him, “did you fall?”  He said, “I slipped.”  I said, “you broke your ankle.”  His food was parallel  to his body.  And immediately I knew hell had arrived again.  It couldn’t have been raining any harder.  We were getting soaked.  “I have to call the ambulance,”. I said.  There was no way I could get him into my car to take him to the hospital.  So I went into the house to use the house phone.  I called 911.  The had me on hold for about four minutes....unreal!  When I finally gave them all my info, I went back outside to wait with husband.  And we waited and waited and waited...good grief, where are they??  After about 10 minutes, I dialed my local fire department to see if they had been dispatched yet.  As soon as I dialed the number husband said, ‘here they come.”  And that began our road to hell again.  Or mainly, my road to hell.

Maybe this post is a pitiful me story.  I just know that my life has been taking care of family and hospitals.  Going back to my teen years, I didn’t really have to take care of my grandma, but we did do a lot of things for her.  My grandfather had died and my grandma broke her hip.  My mom did the best she could for grandma, but eventually, she had to live in a home.  I would drive over to the home to get grandma for holidays at mom’s house or go visit grandma.  

Then mom got sick.  She got diabetes and heart disease.  She had heart attacks and bypass surgery.  Sometimes I would take her to her doctor appointments.  At this point in my life I was married.  In February 1981, my mom had bypass heart surgery.  My aunt came from Florida to take care of her.  My dad was working so it was hard on him.  Then in March 1981 while my mom was recovering, husband fell off a ladder at work and broke his left hip.  I had a 1 year old and a 6 month old I was taking care of.  Then I had husband to take care of.  That was a long haul.  

In 1983 my daughter started complaint of stomach pains.  We had her at Children’s Hospital every night for weeks.  They couldn’t find anything wrong with her.  Long story short, I had the pediatrician test her for cystic fibrosis and she tested positive.  That was devastating.  Knowing my baby had a fatal disease was unbearable.  She had to have checkups every sick weeks, hospitals stays, home therapy..but I did it because she was my baby.  She died in 1992 when she was 12 years old.

Husband started shaving ulcers on his toes/feet that would never stop bleeding.  He would get infections and have to be hospitalized.  Eventually he had his toes amputated.  Then he’d get another ulcer.  He even had to go into a decompression chamber to heal one.  

And in 2017 husband broke his knee.  I think I made a post about that, but it’s been a nightmare.  Hospitalizations, home ivs, bedridden, therapy...for over four years, non stop.  So you ca probably see why when he finally got to drive it was wonderful.  But that was short lived.  

So now in April of 2021, here we are again.  He broke his ankle in three places and dislocated it.  He has a halo thing around it and is bedridden again.  And so all the chores of taking care of the house/yard, the pets, the cleaning, the painting, the repairs are back on my shoulders.  

And that is why my health is going downhill so fast. Everyday I feel I’m falling deeper and deeper into a pit that I will never come back from.  I keep trying to get up everyday and continue on, but it’s so very hard when this has been your life basically....and I just wanna escape from it.  Where’d I go and what I would do is beyond me.  But this life is no fun.

A hug would be nice from someone.  Just to validate that I am doing a good job.  Some encouragement would be appreciated, too.  That’s all I really want.  

I am glad it is spring.  I can sit outside on the porch.  It gets me away from the ‘hospital room’ in the basement where the patient waits to be feed.  I just hope that God will say I was a good and faithful servant, but even that worries me that I haven’t done enough.  I know grace isn’t given because of work, but I still feel like I don’t measure up.  I try, then I failed and I throw in the towel.  I ask myself what is the use?  How many times can a person keep trying??

I better go check on my patient.

Blessings!

How Can It Be Well With My Soul?

                                                                         

Do you know that old church song "It Is Well With My Soul?"  How can that really be?  The history of that song was written by a man who lost his wife and daughter, yet he is saying all is well with his soul.  I don't buy it.  

My Katrina passed away on November 1, 1992.  I know what losing a child feels like.  My soul was not well then and it still isn't well all these years later.  October, cold weather, dark days and the anniversary of her death depresses me.  

And now that I also have health issues, I wake up most days wondering if I will have another dizzy attack and tell God things are not well with my soul.  I have no deep happiness anymore...don't feel like smiling, don't feel like laughing, don't feel like doing much of anything.  I have nothing to look forward to and since hubby has had leg problems for the last three years I've had to be the one taking care of most everything and it's a heavy, heavy burden for me.  I know some people could get through it, but I'm not one of them.  

I have a cat that won't use the liter box.  This does not sit well with my soul, either.  I'm tired.  Bending over makes me dizzy.  

I worry about money, paying the bills, home repairs.  Because I'm the one who has to take care of those things.  And it has never been me who had to take care of those things.  It has always been hubby.

I do try to have a happy day...I do, but the minute I wake up there's always a crisis.  And I try not to look backwards, you know when things were so happy and fun, but there are times I just can't help it.  I miss my kids.  I miss holidays that were magical because of the kids excitement.  I miss my youth.  I miss having the energy to do things.

Yes, I'm having a pity party.  

I heard on a Christian radio station of how you can have joy even when things are not good in your life.  I find that an oxymoron or I just don't have what those talking about it have.  Maybe something deep in my soul is missing.  I don't know.  

Okay, that's all I have for now.  

Blessings,

Bev

There Was This House

I live on a main highway that runs from Delaware to Florida.  But I’m gonna write about this one brick house that I would pass everyday taking my kids to school or going shopping.  When I was a young mom the brick house had life.  Although,  I don’t remember kids playing in the yard.  In fact, I don’t even remember seeing people out in the yard. But I know people lived there because at night there were lights on in all the rooms of the house.  Driving by that house I sometimes imagined a family living there that might be like mine.  But because there were lights on in the kitchen of that house, lights on in the living room and even the bedroom I knew a family of more than one person lived there.  

However, as time went on I noticed that the lights in that house weren’t on in some of the rooms as before.  The lights eventually were only on in the living room.  That made me very sad because I knew that there must have been a change in that house.  No longer were there lights on in each room of the house but instead only one light on in the living room.  Which to me meant that the family moved out (the kids) or a spouse had died and only one person was left in that house.  Then sooner than later, I noticed that no longer was the living room light on, it was the bedroom light and the rest of the house was dark.  How sad.   Now this lone person was no longer watching tv in their living room, but is in the bedroom, sick, maybe?  I had thoughts about this person bedridden....maybe they gave up on life.  And that made me think how my life was probably heading in that same direction.  But at the time, I was raising children; I had places to go and lots to do and loneliness was far off.

Fast forward to right now.  In my house, no longer are all the lights on in the house.  Hubby and I mostly ‘live’ in only one or two rooms and not the whole house anymore.  Our lights have gone out, too.  Our kids have moved on to their own lives.  And here I am in my house with only one or two lights on.  No longer do we use a lot of the rooms in our house.  We have limited income and so we try to keep the electric bill down but really there is no reason to be in the other rooms of the house.  How sad.  

Now that I am where I am in life, I think more and more of that house where the lights eventually were only on in the bedroom.  And how sad life can be as people get older as friends and family pass on, kids start living their own lives.  

A few years ago, development moved in to where that house was.  The house was knocked down to make way for a drug store.  Now when I got by that spot it’s even more sad as I think of that place where a family lived, but slowly fizzled out and poof was gone.  

It reminds me that life is so important; to let those you love know you love them.  We are for only a season then poof we are gone.

Not a Great Week

Having this terrible balance disorder is more than I can deal with sometimes.  A week or so ago I was doing okay; I was still wobbly and off balance, but I managed it.  This past week has been awful.  I feel as if I’m getting worse and not better.  I wanted to cry today and I hardly ever feel that way.  I know that other people have this disorder much worse than I do and I am so grateful for the things I can do, but I just want to be normal and have my old life back.  I don’t want to be old and sick.  I feel like so many people on a spiritual level asking God why me.  I was asking that, too when my precious daughter passed away.  Why was I the only one in family and friends who had a chronically sick child who died?  Why me?  Now I’m asking the same question..why was I hit with this imbalance disorder and no one else?  Okay, I take that back.  I know a couple of people who have an inner ear problem, but they are living their lives..okay, so I’m still living, but not like I used to.  I’m miserable feeling like someone is pushing me all the time or that I’m falling when I lay down to go to sleep.  My brain gets so tired of trying to compensate.  I even get rapid heartbeats because my brain things something is wrong and it’s trying to send reinforcements.  My hand shakes so bad now trying to write.  I’m so tired.  

I’ll be going into my 10th month with this.  I never believed I would have this so long.  I thought therapy would do the trick, but nope.  There is a group called Wobblers.  They were given the ‘myicins’ drug and it damaged their inner ear hairs.  They have no balance and I think something damaged mine, too.  I pray God makes me better...heals me in fact, but it hasn’t happened.  I pray every night..okay, maybe I skip here and there.  But why can’t He heal me...why not me?

I have so much to take care of since hubby broke his leg and can’t bend it.  I do most everything including heavy lifting.  Me and my dog have hypothyroid and now I found out my cat has hyperthyroid.  I feel overwhelmed....just dealing with it all.

That’s all for now..

Blessings.