Testing my thinking here. It is very easy to start feeling sorry for myself. I want to write to see how I feel. To see if I am just feeling sorry for myself or if there is light ahead.
I can't imagine that the rest of my life will be like this. If it will be, I'd rather jump ship now. Because of the hip problem, I am practically stuck here. Evenings are very lonely. I wait for 10'o'clock to come so I can take my sleeping pill and finish another day. Life isn't meant to be lived alone, ... not for me. I need to hear another voice, .. feel some one's arms around me.
TV is boring, ... I can only read so much and then the words run together.
I want the hip surgery over and done with, ... but will it be a success. I have friends who have had this done, and still can't stand up straight and walk normally. I don't want a future like that. This getting older is ridiculous, ... in my head I am not 74, ... I am 35 and want to be able to do what a 35 year old would do.
So as I reread this, ... I guess the hip thing is what is dragging me down just now, ... as well as missing Elvin. Losing him I am dealing with, ... I dealt and am dealing with the cancer thing. I can't imagine a future until the hip thing is over with, ...
Mornings are good, ... I can go out and have breakfast with people I know, ... I can go for coffee, ... I can get things done, as long as it doesn't involve bending over or picking things off the floor, ... or out of the garden, ... but my life has been the garden. I need to be able to pick up stuff, .. I just can't let it all go.
It is too quiet. I miss Elvin so much. There are things I want to share with him and begin to, ... and he is not there.
I love my home and the peace that is here. However, ... I hate this town and this area, ... a forgotten area with the worst health care around. I don't want to have to go to Toronto to have the hip surgery, ... but I wouldn't have a stitch put in in Niagara. I don't want to have to rely on anyone other than myself, .... I wonder where this comes from. I relied on Elvin, ... we relied on each other. I will do what I have to do and will succeed at what I do, ... but it is so good to have someone who cares about you to bounce ideas off of. Someone to plan with, ...
I have friends who are newly alone as well, ... but our situations are all different, ... they suggest I call, ... but when I need to call, I am really down and don't want to burden anyone else with my problems.
So, ... rereading, ... I guess it is mostly missing Elvin and waiting on the hip problem, ... plain as that.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
beginnings
My journey began on November 1, 2009. I woke at 5:00 a.m. with pain in my upper abdomen radiating from one side to the other. For about 2 weeks prior to this, I had noticed that my stomach was becoming distended at a rate much more quickly than would be normal for the amount of food that I was eating. Knowing that warm water could relieve stomach pain, at about 7 a.m. I had a mug of lemon and honey in just that. Shortly thereafter, I lost the warm water and the pain stayed with me for the rest of the day. Later in the afternoon, my temperature began to rise, and I again was sick to my stomach. We , my husband Elvin and I, decided that it would be a good idea to have this checked out, and so we made a trip to the Emergency (now called a UCC) where I was looked after very quickly and it was determined that I had a bowel blockage. I was hooked up to an intravenous, given an X-ray that verified the blockage, and was admitted to hospital. I was given pain medication, medication to relieve the gas, and antibiotics On day 2 of my stay, I was taken to Greater Niagara General Hospital for a CAT-scan that verified the findings of the X-ray, ... a blockage in the area of the valve between the large and small bowel.
You are allowed 2 days in a hospital here in Fort Erie and so I was shipped to Welland by Patient Transfer to see a surgeon who was to give me a colonoscopy hopefully followed by surgery. This surgeon after a minimal examination declared that I had gastroenteritis, not a blockage and took me off all medication. I was having clear liquids to eat. When first in Emergency, there were no bowel sounds, in other words, nothing was moving. About day 2, bowel sounds finally began to be heard by stethoscope and this was the beginning of diarrhea that lasted for about 10 days. On the day I was to be discharged, the surgeon in Welland decided that perhaps another CAT-scan should be done, ... "just to make sure". What do you suppose they found, ... sure enough, a confirmation of the first CAT-scan. I was discharged on a Thursday being told that the surgeon was arranging for an MRI and would call me. There was no call until the following Wednesday, by which time I had seen my own doctor in Fort Erie who had attended me while I was in hospital there and asked him to arrange for a surgeon preferably in Hamilton, however, he made an appointment for me with a surgeon in St.Catharines for December 22, ... 1 month and 22 day from the beginning of the problem.
On December 26, Elvin had a small heartattack and spent 9 day in Niagara Falls Hospital, 4 of those days in Emergency on a gurney on a very thin mattress before finally being moved to another room, and then another room, and finally to Hamilton for an angiogram and to have a stent put in. This has been a very stressful 3 months for both of us.
The surgeon in St. Catharines set up an appointment for January 4 for a colonoscopy at St. Catharines General Hospital, ( note we have now covered 4 hospitals in the peninsula) and an MRI on January 5 at Niagara Falls Hospital, known hereafter as GNGH. The results of these tests I received on January 15 and on that day I began my journal with the title, MY JOURNEY. The results of the MRI, indicated the possibility that the mass behind my bowel could possibly be cancerous, and that I had lesions on my liver. I told the surgeon that I wanted the surgery done in Hamilton and would he please get in touch with someone there, which he did. This surgeon wants to do a liver scan, and apparently this cannot be done here in the Niagara Peninsula. I have an appointment now with a Dr. Marcaccio at McMaster Hospital on February 1. Tomorrow morning I am calling him to see if that appointment and the liver scan can please be done on the same day, and surgery, very, very soon.
I find writing out feelings is very cathartic, ... please bear with me and keep me company on my journey. What I have given you is background to where I am to-day.
You are allowed 2 days in a hospital here in Fort Erie and so I was shipped to Welland by Patient Transfer to see a surgeon who was to give me a colonoscopy hopefully followed by surgery. This surgeon after a minimal examination declared that I had gastroenteritis, not a blockage and took me off all medication. I was having clear liquids to eat. When first in Emergency, there were no bowel sounds, in other words, nothing was moving. About day 2, bowel sounds finally began to be heard by stethoscope and this was the beginning of diarrhea that lasted for about 10 days. On the day I was to be discharged, the surgeon in Welland decided that perhaps another CAT-scan should be done, ... "just to make sure". What do you suppose they found, ... sure enough, a confirmation of the first CAT-scan. I was discharged on a Thursday being told that the surgeon was arranging for an MRI and would call me. There was no call until the following Wednesday, by which time I had seen my own doctor in Fort Erie who had attended me while I was in hospital there and asked him to arrange for a surgeon preferably in Hamilton, however, he made an appointment for me with a surgeon in St.Catharines for December 22, ... 1 month and 22 day from the beginning of the problem.
On December 26, Elvin had a small heartattack and spent 9 day in Niagara Falls Hospital, 4 of those days in Emergency on a gurney on a very thin mattress before finally being moved to another room, and then another room, and finally to Hamilton for an angiogram and to have a stent put in. This has been a very stressful 3 months for both of us.
The surgeon in St. Catharines set up an appointment for January 4 for a colonoscopy at St. Catharines General Hospital, ( note we have now covered 4 hospitals in the peninsula) and an MRI on January 5 at Niagara Falls Hospital, known hereafter as GNGH. The results of these tests I received on January 15 and on that day I began my journal with the title, MY JOURNEY. The results of the MRI, indicated the possibility that the mass behind my bowel could possibly be cancerous, and that I had lesions on my liver. I told the surgeon that I wanted the surgery done in Hamilton and would he please get in touch with someone there, which he did. This surgeon wants to do a liver scan, and apparently this cannot be done here in the Niagara Peninsula. I have an appointment now with a Dr. Marcaccio at McMaster Hospital on February 1. Tomorrow morning I am calling him to see if that appointment and the liver scan can please be done on the same day, and surgery, very, very soon.
I find writing out feelings is very cathartic, ... please bear with me and keep me company on my journey. What I have given you is background to where I am to-day.
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