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!