What a beautiful day in the neighborhood

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hospital, postaday2016

  
  
What a glorious day! We needed to return to Cooley Dickinson Hospital in order for me to get one of my two shots over the weekend, the shots are called neupogen injections and they will help increase my white blood cell count so that I may continue with my chemo and my radiation treatments. After the injection, easy as pie, we went for sushi, I didn’t eat anything raw, I had shrimp tempura and eel in two different specialty rolls while my husband and our daughter ate sushi. Afterwards we took a nice long stroll and back home.

The 4 nights I spent in the hospital were tough, I had to wait for pain medication while they figured out my needs and such, I couldn’t just get up and take something, waiting is very hard when you are in a lot of pain. I’m happy I’m home. However I was grateful to be under the care of those wonderful nurses and doctors; their names or at least some their names are: my Doctors Sean, Z , Rockwell and Chavani with the help of nurses Jeanne, Kim, Mary, and Barb. I had a great team. I can’t forget my radiation team, nurses Sara, Mary and I am having a brain cloud, well they know who they are and how wonderfully they help me. I’m tired now.

I am very lucky and I wake up every day knowing full well how lucky I am.

My hubby the delightful patient

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hospital, pain, patient, postaday2013

This weekend was a very stressful weekend, we spent it at the hospital once again. Last weekend, we were there due to my hubby’s dire and excruciating lower back pain. The good doctors did everything that they could and gave him the necessary medications and sent us home. He was still in pain during the week but it was manageable.

Friday night my hubby and I were laughing while watching a show similar to America’s Funniest Home Videos and then at 3:00 in the morning my hubby woke up with an insanely acute pain in his chest that we immediately left for the emergency room. Once we arrived they took him in immediately and were able to reassure us that he wasn’t suffering from a heart attack, but the pain wouldn’t go away, he said it felt as if his lungs were being constricted and trying to breath made his pain in the heart area unbearable. At this point they were doing EKG’s and he was strapped onto the monitors, the nurses were so wonderful and the emergency room doctor was very considerate. At one point, I was sitting in the chair and my forehead was pressed against the wall sleeping, he had been given fairly high doses of morphine so he was dozing. We were awakened by the doctor and he informed us that my hubby had been admitted because his pain was extremely worrisome and they had to find out what was going on, so my hubby was being wheeled and I was following on foot.

I know that I wrote my usual posts yesterday, but I knew that, even as I was writing them, I was distracted and really not in the best frame of mind to be writing. But that was then and the news that we eventually found out was good.

As soon as my hubby was installed in his new bed and the proper equipment was reattached to his sticky things on his chest and along his sides, I sat down in the chair at the foot of his bed. I ordered breakfast for him but he couldn’t eat it, all he wanted were liquids, he was incredibly parched. I ate the breakfast. He did make room for me in the bed and I fell instantly to sleep. When I woke up my hubby was smiling and he said that each time a nurse came in, she would say how cute we looked in bed together with me sleeping away. His first doctor came in, but he was a kidney specialist, a good one I have to say because he immediately had a game plan as to how he was going to figure out what the cause of the pain was and he brought in a cardiologist, a guy originally from New Jersey. My hubby renamed him Doctor Broelson because after their last meeting today before leaving the hospital, I said that my hubby and the cardiologist were embarking on a serious Bromance, they had so much in common, primarily the New York tri-state area bond. My hubby’s new cardiologist figured very quickly the cause of the pain was an inflammation of the sac that holds the heart in place. His condition is called pericardiotitus and with the proper course of treatment, the inflammation goes away.

The cardiologist and my hubby hit it on so well and he took pity on me squeezing into the side of the bed, that he had us transferred to another wing of the hospital since my hubby had to stay another night. I went home to get more clothes and my own medicine since I was spending the night with him at the hospital. When I came back, I went on a long journey through the huge hospital until I found my hubby and he turned to me and said “see honey I got us upgraded to a suite” “How many people do you know who can say that they have been upgraded in a hospital?” He was right, compared to the other room, this was indeed very similar to a hotel suite. There was his bed, a flat screen t.v , an incredible lounging chair, a couch that turned into a bed and a large bathroom with a shower. I can see getting better much more quickly in this ambience.

At one point my hubby got a glance of his chart and he read “A delightful 53 year old man came presenting symptoms of labored breath and intense pain in the chest area” He was absolutely tickled by this, he told myself and the nurse that no one ever calls him delightful and the nurse told him that she thought he was a delightful patient. His cardiologist came in shortly afterwards and my hubby mentioned it and the cardiologist said impishly that he may have had a hand in those notes. Like I said, there is a bromance going on with those two, which I am very happy about, there can’t be a better friend than an excellent cardiologist after all. He also allowed my hubby to go home because with the proper medication his inflammation went down remarkably quickly. So as long as he takes his medicine faithfully at the right times, this episode should be the one and only.

What a weekend I tell you. I am for one relieved that my hubby is fine and on the mend.

Healthy maintenance

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health, hernia repairs, hospital, postaday2013

Today my hubby needed to get his hernia repaired, it had been in need of repair for a few years but being an exceptionally busy man (a workaholic if we are being honest) my hubby let it go until it was starting to bother him enough that he kept the appointment that I had made for him. Our out-patient experience at the hospital was a very pleasant one, I can say this because I wasn’t the one being operated on, but my hubby can’t complain either because all the nurses took such good care of him. He was the star attraction on the floor, my hubby is very charming and affable, even more so when he is at the mercy of medical personnel.

His doctor Dr. Earle had operated on me in 2010 and my hubby was impressed with his work so that is why he picked him for this procedure. Dr. Earle and his team have a very relaxed, yet professional rapport. The nurses love to tease him as Dr. Earle loves to tease them and his patients, he told us a few jokes and I just burst out laughing. My hubby really appreciated that because he appreciates self-confidence in others, it puts you at ease when they are in charge of your well-being.

I still can’t get over that despite being cut open, hospitals are still comfortable sending you home the very same day. I know that for us it is infinitely cheaper, but still no matter how many times it happens to one of us or someone I know, it still amazes me. In France, they like to keep you for a few days and I am assuming that in other countries, they would keep you a tad longer as well. Here it sometimes feel like an assembly line operation, you come in on a conveyor belt and you get moved along the belt until you exit the line. Maybe that is why the nurses are so kind and nurturing, they want to make sure that when you leave, you are in the best shape possible. All that I can say is that my hubby’s nurses were exemplary and kind.

I’m so relieved that my hubby came through with flying colors.

Hearing it from both sides

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hospital, letter, mammogram, postaday2012

Apparently today was the day for medical reminders. The hospital where I had my mammogram was kind enough to send me a reminder for my 6 month follow-up mammogram. The other letter that came in the mail today and was sitting right next to the hospital’s envelope was from my doctor, ob/gyn, sending me the correct order form for my 6 month follow-up with the additional paper work for an ultra sound, just in case. Oh joy, I am not complaining about the reminders, I know that I need to have it done, they found small clusters of calcification in one breast and it has to be monitored, it is the responsible thing to do. My small dilemma is that our health care coverage is a little dicey, we couldn’t afford to keep the coverage going to the end of the year by paying for it in advance which is the proper way to pay for it, I was milking the coverage by paying the last month as late as possible thus eking our coverage along, meanwhile I had applied for our state subsidized health care coverage plan back in October. Since nothing is ever easy and it doesn’t matter if it is dispensed by the government of by the private sector, there is a waiting period no matter which sector you are dealing with. The state medical coverage agency wrote back asking for some more income documentation which I provided. I called and the agency has everything that they need, that is what the nice gentleman said, this was before Christmas, this nice gentleman told me that I would have the definitive answer in about two weeks.

So I have been watching for the mail praying for an envelope with a specific weight to it hinting that four health care cards are waiting inside the envelope. I didn’t expect the other two envelopes to have come so quickly, I only had my last mammogram at the end of July, I can’t believe that we are already into January. I, at least, don’t have to worry about waiting forever for an appointment, the Burke’s Women Imaging Center is very accommodating and the staff is wonderful. Am I worried about getting the mammogram? A little bit, every time I think of it, my stomach drops a few feet and it doesn’t feel very good. But the good news is that part of my desire to get covered by health insurance is so that I can get this done and be rewarded with a clean image and the worries will be finished.

Actually, some good news on the health insurance front is that the big guy is up for 3 interviews this week so if he gets hired at one of these firms, he will be covered by the firms’ health insurance and that would be amazingly great news. I am not getting ahead of myself and getting all excited because the big guy has been interviewing for quite a few months and the economy hasn’t been viewed as strong enough for the firms to hire him unless they had extra work on the horizon just for his position. So what has been happening is that firms have been putting out feelers for executives while they are bidding for projects, the hubby gets to the last tier of the interview process and then the firm doesn’t get the bid and they say “oh sorry, the position was yours if we had gotten the project” I want to strangle these executives by this point, it really gets you down, my poor hubby is trying to keep a positive outlook but it is difficult. However, regardless he is excited about this week. That is all what matters because when he is excited he does really well in interviews. Crossing fingers.