Saturday, June 02, 2007

at home

I’ve been so busy trying to catch up and coordinate and breathe I forgot to post. I mean I remembered that I needed to only after I was in bed going over stuff in my head.

Stanley was discharged from Bridgeport Hospital on Thursday. He was supposed to go home in the morning but we didn’t get out of there until around 6:00 pm. There was a lot of stuff that had to be arranged and infectious diseases had to figure out what kind of meds Stanley needed to do at home.

Dr. Lobo came in and said he’s 60% sure it was Bartonella that set off the growth—but I think that’s because he can’t figure out any other causes at the moment. It’s still be cultured and there is an additional test that Dr. Lobo wants run—we really need to know the cause so we can avoid it in the future. The kitties have both been tested and we’ll find out the results next week and get them treated if they’re positive. Dr. Lobo said Bartonella can lurk in their saliva, so just make sure the cats don’t bite Stanley (Dr. Lobo has a prosthetic heart valve and a cat himself—he just said the cat is not permitted to show his teeth to him.)

Friday was ridiculous. Nurse number one, Debbie from the pharmacy, arrived around 10 am. She brought the antibiotics Stanley is to take until July 5 (well, she brought the first batch of them—they’ll be delivered automatically). She spent a lot of time showing Stanley how to push infuse one antibiotic and drip infuse the other one. He has to spend two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening getting antibiotic number two, and it takes ten minutes for the push antibiotic. Nurse #2, Steve from Visiting Nurses, arrived about 11:45. He’s the wound-care nurse.

After the nurses left, it was time for the first appointment (I spent time setting up many appointments Friday morning) at the cardiologist’s office for Stanley coumadin check. His level was 1.2, which is too low (it’s supposed to be between 2 and 2.5 I think). The nurse practitioner, Donna, was supposed to simply tell us what his next dose of coumadin should be and set up tomorrow’s test. But no, that would be too easy. She asked for Stanley’s history, and did not listen. She starts spouting off about why he did get some injection anti-clotting agent and pretty much panicking us about how low the coumadin level is and what a Bad Thing it is ... I told her that the docs at the hospital ruled out the injected anti-clotting whatever for a reason that I don’t remember—I think it had to do with the blood clots, and would she please call Dr. Robinson before she, a nurse practitioner second-guessing three surgeons and doctors and two physicians assistants, fucked up and did something to harm Stanley.

Donna couldn’t get hold of Dr. Robinson because he was in surgery—but at least had the good sense to consult with Dr. Michelson, Dr. Lomnitz’s colleague (Dr. Lomnitz, Stanley’s cardiologist, was making rounds or something). The doc repeated back what Donna had told him about Stanley, and it was all wrong. We corrected the information, and he just said, “Okay, we have to get the coumadin level back up, so take 5mg tonight and Saturday night and 2.5 on Sunday and get tested on Monday.”

So now I think Donna is an idiot—this is the second time she screwed up, or tried to. And this is the second time it was made clear to me that Cardiology Associates needs to put a post-op protocol into place—I was near tears this time (in tears the last time) with frustration. I could write it off once, but not twice. I’m wondering now if we’re allowed to get a copy of all our Stanley’s medical records so we have them instead of having to rely on our memory and notes and hope that somehow records will show up where and when they should.

Next week, Wednesday is shot—Stanley has Dr. Gagne for his calf clot at 11 on Wednesday, then we go to Bridgeport to see Dr. Robinson and get the staples removed at 3:30. Visiting nurse Steve comes on Tuesdays and Fridays between 10 and noon. I don’t know when a pharmacy nurse will show up again. Monday at 11 is the next coumadin check and from there, again I don’t know the schedule.

Later Friday we went to Stew Leonard’s to get dinner and milk and stuff in for the next few days. Today we have to go off and do some banking and get cat litter and dog bones (and I get to change the litter boxes—oh joy.) Yesterday I was so exhausted I thought I was in hell, which made my temper worse than usual. I just wanted to beat up on someone, anyone, or sleep. So I took a nap, and that helped, but not enough. I’m really pissed off about this all, and there is, rationally, nobody and nothing to be pissed off at. I slept a long time last night, a good nine or ten hours, and feel much, much better mentally today, but I’m still pretty tired. One more good night and I’ll be okay. My main problem is I keep waking up to check to make sure Stanley is still breathing. That’s what I did the last time, too—so I know I’ll get over it pretty soon.

Tomorrow is Kate’s graduation from high school—I hope the weather is lovely and I hope Jeff and Mike get some good videos. Maureen will have her graduation party for her later when Stanley can travel and family from Michigan can make it. And I just realized I forgot to send Jamie a birthday card on May 29th, and my brother on May 20th—damn.

Once today’s tasks are done, I can work on the two stores I am skinning and get those live. I’m looking forward to getting into flow again when I do them. And the next couple of weeks I’ll be able to have Stanley working on websites so he can help me catch up on our webwork. I wouldn’t exactly call that a silver lining, but it will help. Tomorrow we have a lot of billing to get out, and that will help as well.

I just saw the time—gotta get going!

posted by lee on 06/02/07 at 08:17 PM

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