Thursday, January 18, 2007

And the hits just keep on coming!

There is something about a sick male that is really, really to be pondered. Take my husband for instance. Last week, after trying to work up the courage to go to the doctor for some bloodwork, he finally went. He's been feeling a little bit "off" physically for the last few weeks, but it was nothing he could really put his finger on. All he knew was he just didn't feel good and he was off his feed. That in and of itself should have been a red flag. When Tony doesn't eat, there is definitely something going on. Well, on Monday the nurse called with the lab results. Now, when the doctors office calls you about your labs, your heart immediately does that little stutter step and you have visions of 10 horrid diagnosis flash before your eyes even before you get the phone to your ear and say "hello". So, Libby calls and tells us that he has an ulcer. Not good, but not awful either. He will survive. The hitch in the little recovery plan is that the meds the doctor ordered was kicked back by the insurance company for some stupid reason of them saying that they wanted them to prescribe something that wasn't a multidose pack. So they had to RE-prescribe the same medicine, just broken down into individual pills instead of taking an all in one type deal. Well that little delay cost a day in getting the meds into him. You wouldn't think that 24 hours would make that much of a difference would you. Wrong.

This morning at about 4:30 his stomach decided to launch it's first round of what was going to be the start of a pseudo-nuclear war inside of Tony's gut. If any of you are familiar with what happens to someone who is locked in a battle with a full blown active ulcer attack, it's not pretty and the ulcer takes no prisoners. It shoots to kill. Tony swears he was dying. In fact the jury is still out. But, he is stubborn like most men. The first time I asked him if he wanted to go to the ER, he passed. So I just let him wait it out. I knew eventually that we would be going. So I hunkered down and tried to stay warm and get my rest while I could. Sure enough, pretty soon he said lets go.

Like always, going to the emergency room is no fun. Unless you definitely are showing them signs that if they don't get you in the back RIGHT NOW, you are going to die, the wait is at least 1 to 2 hours. Now once you get to the back, they take care of business right away and are very good at what they do. They loaded him up with IV fluids, phenergan, something to coat his gut and some bacteria busters. Meanwhile, they finally got our med situation straight at the pharmacy so when we left the ER, we could go pick it up on the way home. About 4 1/2 hours from start to finish, I carried and exhausted and pretty loopy husband home and poured him back into bed.

That's where he stays. He is going to be very sad at me for the next few days. I've been down this ulcer road before. He gets to see just how lovely it is being on a bland diet is for a while. He is going to hate it. This is the guy who love hot and spicy.

But seriously, I really don't think his diet has had anything to do with it. I think that he can chalk this totally up to stress. Some of it is self-inflicted, some of it is totally unavoidable. Despite the source, he has got to figure out a way to deal with it better. I wish that I could help him, but you know how lots of men are....they don't want help solving their problems, they can fix them all by their selves. So, I'll just make dry toast and bring the tea.

Oh, and knit. That I can do. I've been doing it a lot lately. It seems to keep me semi-sane. I've finished the calorimetric for my sister. I am so behind in taking photos. I didn't even take one of the hat I made for my daughter for Christmas and it turned out so dang cute! Oh well. I'll take lots of pics and make a post of nothing but pictures one day. Plus I've been spinning a lot. I'm trying to hit a certain yardage for the spin to knit swap and keep missing by just a few tiny yards! I'm getting some groovy yarn though so you'll see that too.

Wish me luck. Gotta pin on my nurse Nancy pinafore.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

ACK!! SO not fun in your house! I'm just glad you were able to finally get to the bottom of what ailed poor Tony! Poor guy, yucky.

Hope you are holding up okay too. I'm thinking good thoughts and praying for you too.

I'm sending a big hug (or lots of little ones) XXXXXXXXXXXX!!

Anonymous said...

Hi Lisa! Thanks for visiting my blog. The Yarn Wench merino I bought was called "Gryffindor 2", and I'm not a Harry Potter buff, but I'd say it's an odd choice for a mostly-pink-and-purple colorway! I loved spinning it though and recommend her website.

I hope your husband finally has the right meds and is feeling better. Why DO they all avoid getting treatment until they think they might die??? If we're paying for insurance, might as well get our money's worth, right? =)