Timothy Birdnow

Just a personal and production update for you, my three or four loyal readers. As you all know my wife had to have surgery for cancer and has been bed-ridden for two months now. She has endured every imaginable problem during her recovery, and it's been slow going. The surgical reconstruction has done well but is healing slowly (and it's where she sits so she has had to lay down for two solid months now.) She stopped eating and it's been a constant struggle to get enough nutition into her. We had fed her intravenously in the hospital but they had to stop that after a week or so. We had a gastric tube put in her and she got much better (she was weak beyond words) but now she is vomiting and has diarrhea and heartburn. They just had to stop the feeding to reassess. The vomiting continued, which makes the nutritionist at the facility where she resides think it's not the feeding tube, although she's not an expert on them and admits it could be. They are trying a different feed based on the recommendation of an internal medicine doctor who is friends with my wife's sister and who himself has been on a feeding tube for ten years. We just started the new regime; hopefully it will work and her stomach problems will subside.

It is, of course, quite difficult to eat while reclined. She can be no higher than thirty degrees.

At any rate there has been a bit of a lull in Cat's health crisis, enough for me to take some time keeping the blog alive. It's been really crazy up to now.

The sad thing is her niece is getting married next month and I know Cathy really wanted to go to the wedding. We had hoped she could go in a wheel chair at least, but it's obvious even that is going to be impossible, or extremely unlikely.

At any rate I thought I owed you all an update on the home front. It will remain hit-or-miss with this blog as I'll post when time permits, but I spend most of my day at the nursing care facility these days. I sure wish they'd get better chairs; threw my back out and it's largely from sitting on the cheap chair in her room. If I had a comfortable recliner (like they have at the hospital) I would sleep there in the afternoon but it's impossible in this kind of chair. (You'd think, given the cost of this place, they'd be able to provide good furniture but they are non-profit so I understand.)

Cathy was lucky getting into this place to begin with; nobody wanted her, given the extend of her problems and how much work she entails for the staff. The upper levels of the staffing is excellent, but the lower portions - the techs - leave a bit to be desired. They can't keep help, which is common in such places. These are essentially McDonalds rejects and would make more money flipping burgers. I've had to do my share of yelling at people; the med-techs are especially bad, often not giving her her medicines. I have THAT largely straightened out when I told the director I considered that neglect. The problems with the meds have largely subsided after my veiled threat (I hate having to do that) but I'm always worried. They had her on way too much of one of her meds, which partially explained her stomach issues. Nobody could figure out who changed the dosage.

Scary stuff.

But overall I'm pleased with her facility. There was absolutely no way I could have cared for her at home.

So please be patient; I'll keep writing if you keep reading. I may just be a bit slow sometimes. Bear with me.

Cheers!

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 07:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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