5C's Que Pasa

Time just keeps moving, it doesn’t stop for anything or anyone.  Yesterday somehow passed me by.  The good news is that our temperatures have dropped down to 29 C and we can just leave our windows open.  We are not fond of using A/C.  Which was fine until shortly after 8PM last night when someone came to the screen door and ‘asked’ for “Contesssa??!!!”  What the heck!  I was not expecting anyone and just about jumped out of my skin.  Colin was out for 30 minutes and so I hobbled my walker to the door ( dressed in my nightie of course ).   Turns out that this lady and her husband wanted a tour of our home before they met the builder today.  They are thinking of building a home like ours.  I don’t mind giving tours of our place when they properly set up by either the builder or the park sales office but not mere days after surgery and not at night to people I have never met before.

By the way, our stair railings were never installed before I went into surgery. What you see here is what someone else ( who Colin hired ) installed for us just 20 minutes before Colin left to pick me up at the hospital to bring me back home. There was no way I could get into the house without railings.

Colin had given this fellow specific instructions and that did not include a railing that was 48 inches high that I could not reach.  So apparently with some neighbors helping a second lower hand rail was installed.  By the way the original fellow we hired promised that we would have properly installed railings pre surgery.

Not fancy but it got the job done. In fact I have been up and down twice now. No slivers so far.

Things are a bit unsettled in Edmonton with Mom at the hospital but with a few more phone calls it should soon be sorted out.  She is doing very well considering.  No one thought she would live this long but the medical people didn’t realize that this has been her normal for a few years now, lots of morphine, lungs congested and eating at risk.  Dad brought her in a single yellow rose yesterday and she acknowledged that it was symbolic of their first date.  For close to 63 years he has been giving her yellow roses.  Very sweet.

Before I forget again…..Happy July 4th to all my American friends and blog family.

Tags: 319, celebrations, construction, Mom

Well I have managed to do a post and now this one plus read some of your posts.  However there is no way I can make this old laptop do any comments.  Something to do with google and passwords.  It won’t accept what we use in either of our desktops.  My memory is foggy but this seems to be the problem Colin had with this ‘puter in Culiacan last March.  So I am slowly getting caught up on your posts but can’t make a comment.  I am allowed to only sit up for 30 minutes per day ( maybe 2 x per day ) but would rather use that for meals so just know that I am thinking of you all.  We will look into repairs or a new used laptop soon.

Anxious to leave the hospital.

Mere hours later at home.

We have had record breaking temps, 40C with the humidex.  Our A/C is functioning but will be better once we sort out all the wasted air cooling underneath the kitchen cabinets.  Another builder problem but easily repaired.  Wish I could be out there enjoying but it just seems like a huge wet hot oven when I stuck my nose out.

Ruth came by early morning July 1st and un messed me, my own personal Florence NIghtingale.  She is not a nurse but a Home Care Physiotherapist who came to check me out and correct several wrongs.  Most of what I was doing instinctively was correct.  She gave me some great tips on moving around and seemed to just help me relax. She also reviewed my exercises for the next week, to be done in bed 3 X per day and lots of walking with the walker, inside.  My meds were sorted out and I found 2 new pain free positions to relax in.  Colin took a few photos so he could repeat the relaxation for me.  I am feeling the best I have in days.  Well except for one area.  I have a seven pound gain within a 5 day period.  Did I gain 7  lbs of titanium or just plain ‘cr*p???   Bone and titanium are suppose to weigh the same so it looks like the latter.

Just to set the record straight, I had a chat with my friend Diane, down the street here, who had her left hip replaced on June 3rd.  her experience was not perfect but mostly better than mine.  She did not have to wait hours for a reply to her call bell for help but did have to coordinate her care in hospital.  I do believe that while I was in hospital it was busy due to the start of the Canada Day weekend.

Working on my exercises.

I am still in a good deal of pain due to a severe hematoma during surgery.  Lots of bruising equals a great deal of pain so I am limited to 30 minutes of being up and out of bed.

I had a long chat with Dad yesterday and he is exhausted.  Mom is still hanging in but on more and more morphine.  Sadly the hospital staff had offered her an outing in some sort of bed wheelchair out to the gardens while I was here in hospital.  When they realized that there was no family member to push her they abandoned the project.  Mom remembers and keeps asking to go outside.  Can I organize this?  My next task…..

Tags: emergency, Family, health, medical, Mom

Colin just figured out how to hook me up to the computer while laying in bed but I am good for only so long so we shall see how this goes.  I just read his posts and your comments.  Thanks for being my support.

I just knew things were not going to go well in the hospital when the one Colin called assistant nurse ( she was an LPN  with a lot to learn ) insisted on my doing knee exercises.  After I got that sorted out with her I then had to explain it was my left side!!  Sigh….I felt bad for the dude in the next bed when she offered him the urinal and he had to explain that he had a catheter.  It got so bad that I asked for the head nurse who never came.  I found out the next day she had not been informed.  So when they decided to keep me another day I said NO.  So finally I am dressed and ready to head out the door when the blood tech comes to take blood.  I asked why and she said that my hemoglobin was low.  I replied that I was going home so it was too late, she insisted.  I hate having my blood taken and now a few days later I will never get those results.

I did go with the spinal but honestly did not like having the injection in my spine.  I felt no numbing at the site as promised and jumped at the needles to calm me.  On the plus side I did not wake up groggy and was more mobile as long as I was on pain meds.  However I did wake up in the OR and have a brief memory of my body being contorted and surrounded by blue cloth.  I did not feel nor hear anything.  Once I finally got home and into my own bed I slept most of Saturday getting up for a lovely meal Colin had prepared and then back to bed. I know I would never have survived this far without Colin’s constant support.  Gracias mi amor.

Colin was at my beck and call all day Sunday.  Bring me this, bring me that, move that over there, I need a pillow here and another pillow under my knee please.  Could you get me some water?  Um, now I have to go and pee.   So then we start the set up all over again.  Whenever Colin walks away he always asks if I need anything else.  Of course I always do, like my book or a kleenex or a pill and so on.  He has been a true angel and I have been horridly cranky mostly due to pain.  That is slowly coming under control now that I can create my own schedule for medication.

Mom is still with us but that is enough for now…..

Tags: health, hip

Well, Contessa is doing good, walking in the hospital exercising. This hospital is very inefficient. She presses the call nurse buzzer and it takes an hour or more to see someone. Food comes sometimes, always the wrong food. Actually, I had lunch with her yesterday because they brought first the wrong plate, very spicy Indian food, and then someone elses plate – salmon on rice. So she got the salmon on rice and I did not have to go to MacDonalds. On Friday, her IV ran dry and she actually saw 2 small bubbles go down the tube and in to her vein. Very serious consequences. They call these the air bubbles of death because they can block  blood flow and cause damage to pulmonary circulation. She had to attend to blocking the iv flow herself. This am she still doesn’t know if she is coming home because there is no one to talk to. She will have to get her walker and do the hallways to find a nurse.. They haven’t bathed her or washed her face or changed gowns or bedding. (2 1/2 days). I can give her better care here. Then she has to deal with moaning from her other room mate and all the other noises. Re drugs, they are only giving her half of what she had last time. They sent a counsellor to talk to her because she has over 2 glasses of wine a day and are worried she will go into shakes, Duh!!!!! They would rather give her more morphine. She told the counsellor to get lost and clubbed her with her crutches. (figure of speech). She told them that she would rather have a glass of wine or 2 then do the narcotics. This she has been doing this spring re the tremendous pain. There is a great drug that is good for pain but the body gets very constipated. Maybe that is a good thing? What about the other side effects – have you ever read technical specs on drugs re all the side effects you can have. Very scary – wonder why they have to cover their backside so much. Her present assistant nurse is a big strapping lady who said to her when she went to the bathroom for the first time and had a hard time lifting her new hip leg back in to the bed. The lady said FIGURE IT OUT and walked away. Her ice packs on her new hip area were water last night and she hadn’t seen anyone for 2 hours so I took the bag to the lunchroom and did the ice myself. Contessa, being a retired registered nurse finds this whole exercise horrible but, She has the hip ; this is aggravating but gives her something to think about. Hope to fetch her today. No picture to follow, forgot to take camera.

C

Well, she did it. Got it DONE! Already wiggling her toes; dancing will follow soon. Her mom still hanging in there. Photos to follow, in sequence

Ballerina to be

The Surgeon  head nurse and his patient. He can hardly wait to start the old buzz saw!

Andddddddd

Ta daaaaaaaaaaa !  Shazaam, only took 75 minutes

Happy Maiden!

Thank you to everyone for all your support and love.