The Week That Could Have Been Worse

Because I had a crappy week, I almost did a whole Kafka thing to start this post, about waking up to discover I was a bug, blah, blah blah.

But I realized, as this is my life, I am certain to have even worse weeks in the future, like getting arrested or something. Oh wait, that’s already happened too (I’ll tell you another time). So I’ll save The Metamorphisis for then. It was a tad melodramatic. A giant cockroach. ha ha ha ha Sigh.

This week it felt like everything I touched either broke, got dropped or went wrong. But don't worry. I'll have so much fun writing about it I will end up not minding a bit. :)

My work week, under pressure for hundreds of deliverables, was almost a total wash because I couldn’t access the remote system to my office for three days. Tick, tick, tick….I will probably be working all weekend to make up the work.

Tysabri infusion totally knocked me off my pins this month. I slept for 14 hours straight afterwards.

Then:

Car wreck and insurance issues. Grrrrrr!!!!

Gas company issues. Grrrrrrrr!!!

Mortgage payment issues. Grrrrrrrrr!!!! Although this one was mildly amusing. Two calls received from the mortgage company. That’s odd. I check online bill pay. Yep, mortgage is paid. I call to check on the problem. I tap in my account number as asked by the automatic system and a sweet little recording tells me everything I already know, how much I paid and when I paid it. And an arrears of $7000. I literally dropped the phone. I started pressing ‘O’ like mad to get a human being. And I got ‘John’.

John had a definite accent, but I couldn’t place it. I started blabbering .

Me: $7000! BLAAAH!!!! $7000! BLAAH!!!! $7000?!?!?!
John: Oh well, thank you Mrs. Cooper, I will ask you to please not worry about that.
Me: BLAAAAH?!?!
John: No, thank you Mrs. Cooper, this is nothing to worry about.
Me: BLAAH!!!
John: No, really thank you Mrs. Cooper, this is not a problem. This was a mistake in the recording.
Me: BLAAAH BLAAAH BLAAAAAAH!!!!
John: Well yes, thank you Mrs. Cooper, I can understand your anxiety about this unfortunate situation, however this is an error which you are not to be concerned about.
Me: Blah?
John: Yes, thank Mrs. Cooper, this was a mistake.
Me: blah?
John: Yes, so thank you, I offer my apologies for the nervousness you experienced.

And at that point I was almost coherent again.

John: However, thank you Mrs. Cooper…

Me: BLAH?

Poor John was experiencing more anxiety and nervousness than I was.

John: …thank you, I am so sorry to tell you this and there is no reason to be upset however there is a $4.02 discrepancy in the statement we sent you and the actual amount that is owed. So we can accept an electronic payment for this $4.02 and as a courtesy we will waive the usual $12.50 fee.
Me: $12BLAAAH50?!?!
John: Oh no!! No! Thank you Mrs. Cooper it is waived, waived, it will not be charged to you.
Me: blah?

It took ten minutes of repetition before he got all my bank numbers because of a very subtle language barrier. Finally I said:

Me: So John, where are you located?
John: Ah Mrs. Cooper, thank you for asking that. Our corporate office is in Iowa.
Me: But you’re not in Iowa, John, are you?
John: Ah, thank you Mrs. Cooper…heh, heh… he laughed nervously…thank you, but we are not authorized to disclose that information.
Me: But it is not Iowa, is it? Or even the United States? Or even this continent, is it?
John: heh heh Thank you Mrs. Cooper, I am sorry, but thank you we are not permitted to disclose that information. heh heh
Me: Ok, well, thank you John
John: Oh, thank you Mrs. Cooper. Have I satisfactorily resolved all of you issues?
Me: Yes, thank you John.

Except for where in the world is GMAC Customer Service. Hmmmm.

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It wasn’t an entirely sucky week, as I did have an appointment with Dr. Wonderful. Except I had meant to change it but forgot and remembered, while I was in the shower, 45 minutes before I was due there.

I couldn’t not go now.

As if I'd miss an opportunity to get more narcotics. Um, I mean as if I’d miss an opportunity to scope out his adorable self.

So I desperately raced to get ready and burst out the door, ten minutes late, with wet hair and panting like a dog. So off I trotted.

He looked wonderful, as usual. Treated me so nicely, as usual. Listened and totally got it about my pain as usual. And then proposed another surgery. As usual? Oy.

He is recommending a partial shoulder replacement to relieve the pain. So as I am writing this, I am watching a shoulder replacement surgery online on OR Live. So far my favorite parts have been the mallet, the drill and the buckets of blood being sucked out of the gaping wound.

Because I am shallow and immature, my true absolutely favorite part was the huge expanse of bare skin showing on the male patient exactly where my breast would be. Call me crazy, but I just don’t feel like having my boob hanging out in front of a bunch of strangers for several hours. Who knows what kind of bad habits it could pick up? hee hee That was just a little boob joke.

But honestly, would you want any of your naughty bits on display for everyone? While you weren’t even awake to hold it up or make excuses for it? Sigh.

So that was my week. In a tribute to Dr. W. I was going to treat you to the bloody, hammering, drilling shoulder video, but I decided to go in a different direction. No blood, lots of beard. lol



For e-mail readers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_EFdod4YDo


Is it me or does that audience look kind of…anemic? Who doesn’t rock to ZZ Top?

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An update on Joe: still waiting for his surgery due to complications. I was very sympathetic. I said:

Oh for fuck sake!!!! This is ridiculous. Are they waiting for you to
die of old age so they don't have to operate at all?!?!


It is ruining my Angel of Mercy timetable because I have to have another surgery too, so I have limited time where I can stand by your bedside wringing my hands and looking like Ingrid Bergman in The Bells of St. Mary's.

I was really looking forward to that too. :( They are spoiling everything.



An update on the Behemoth: I love it!!

My Journey, Part 2

The second week in August I started feeling an odd sensation gripping my waist, like something was tightly wrapped around my middle. It was hard to take a deep breath and I would be winded after just a few steps. I had incredible pain in my back. The prospect of stairs, never mind the actual fact of having to climb them, practically brought me to tears. I had to attend frequent meetings in another building, down the hill from the main facility where I worked. It was so difficult to walk back up that I found myself actually praying God would get me back without disgracing myself by falling on my face halfway there. He always came through for me, I always made it, although I would be sweating and literally gasping for air. I finally realized I had to do something. So with all the wisdom of my 19 years of education, my 13 years as a nurse and my 50 years of life, I made an appointment at last. With a chiropractor.

To be fair, he listened and gave me a seemingly thorough neurological exam, the results of which should have sent me flying to an emergency room. A test for proprioception, outstretched right pinkie to nose with my eyes closed, overshot my nose and landed at my left eye every single time. Over and over again I missed abysmally. Hmm, he said, rather than the totally appropriate, holy shit!

How long have you had a problem with bradycardia, he asked. Never. Well your pulse is 40. FORTY!? He could not get a blood pressure. These alarming signs still did not send me to the hospital. He said he believed it was the vitamins I had begun taking for the leg spasms I had been having that were keeping me up at night (more ignored symptoms). Ok, if he was selling, I could buy that. He adjusted my spine. I went back for four more visits over two weeks. Then I started having trouble walking. That was on a Thursday. I went to see him Friday night, my legs scissoring as I struggled to put one foot in front of the other. He tested the strength in my toes. My left foot and toes offered no resistance. None. Zero. They were floppy and flaccid. He would not adjust me and said he thought it was time for an MRI. It was actually time for an ambulance, but I was in total denial. He looked at me gravely and asked, “What are you most afraid of?” Because I truly believed there was nothing really wrong with me, there could be nothing wrong with me, I laughed and said, “Well, that I have a debilitating neurological disease that will kill me.” He didn’t smile. Uh-oh.

That night I was fascinated by my useless left foot. My leg was now so weak that I couldn’t lift it to cross it over the other when I was sitting in bed. Saturday I spent cooking for our church picnic the next day. I was dragging my leg as I scuttled around my kitchen like Quasimodo. I went to bed that night all ready for the picnic, still insanely believing, hope against hope, that these were some transient aberrations. I woke up four hours later and could not empty my bladder. I couldn’t walk normally and my right eyelid was drooping so much it was practically closed. Almost my entire body was numb. I finally had had enough.

I got dressed, intending to surruptiously drive myself to the hospital. However, when I opened my bedroom door, the three adult children who lived with me were all still awake and sparky at 3 o’clock in the morning. Indeed, two of them had only just come home. Ahh, to be young. When I emerged fully dressed from my bedroom in the middle of the night, their jaws dropped. They dropped even farther when I told them I, who never even acknowledged a cold, was going to the emergency room. They all wanted to come, but the prospect of that scene, with all their different personalities and coping styles, was like something out of the Marx Brothers. I finally agreed to let my oldest daughter come with me. I still drove, an in-denial control freak to the end. Independent, private. How little I was aware that my existence was about to be irretrievably altered. I was driving straight from the world of ignorant bliss to the world of slap-you-in-the-face chronic illness.

At the hospital, no one seemed particularly upset by my symptoms. Indifferently triaged, I sat in the waiting room for over an hour. Knowing the first thing I would be treated to was a catheter, when I was finally called I cheerfully told my daughter to wait for me there. “A cortisone shot, and I’ll be right out!” She looked at me like I was nuts, but she stayed put.

And then, for the only time besides giving birth 28 and 29 years earlier, I became a hospital patient. Off came the clothes, except OF COURSE for my underwear. I may be Episcopalian now, but the Catholic modesty I was raised with is indelible. On went the threadbare gown, worn previously by untold, and probably unwashed, hordes. Ick. I described my symptoms to a bored physician. I was embarrassed that I had had the numbness in my hands for months but had done virtually nothing, so I said it was “a few weeks”. He asked, when did it start? Because I was too stupid to make my answers match my prevarication, I honestly answered May. This was now the last week in August. “MAY! That’s MONTHS!” he exclaimed, as though I had committed murder. “O.K., well its still weeks.” I meekly replied. I told him about the urinary hesitancy (which implies seconds but had been over an hour) and he immediately ordered the dreaded catheter. Goodbye knickers. I tried to get out of it, because I had finally managed to go, but clinically I knew they needed to evaluate any urinary retention. My nurse came in with the sterile kit and introduced himself. He seemed to be nice man and I had no doubt of his competence. But I said something I would not have been capable of a few years earlier: “Can I please have a female nurse?” He was very gracious and accommodating, but definitely looked disappointed, which I found a trifle creepy. Later, when it was time for it to be removed, he popped his head in, snapping on gloves. “Is it ok if I take it out?” My head said “What on EARTH makes you think if I didn’t want you to put it in I would be perfectly fine with you taking it out?!?!?!” But I was forced by years of good breeding to sweetly say, “Would you mind terribly if I had a female nurse again.” Oy vey. He did not look as accommodating this time, but a lovely woman came in and disconnected me. I couldn’t get my bloomers back on fast enough.

Now Mary Kate could come be with me. One of the staff went to get her and my girl walked in with a steaming container of tea that she had gotten for me, unasked. She is truly the perfect child. It was the best thing I had ever tasted, a cup of normalcy. We sat and watched Hurricane Katrina cruelly descend on New Orleans. But my mind was careening. What was wrong with me? Did I have a brain tumor? Did I have Lou Gehrig’s disease? Did I have AIDS from those accidental needle sticks at work years earlier, or careless love with the wrong person? A CT scan was done, blood was taken. The doctor came back. The blood work and CT scan were telling them nothing and, as I still couldn’t walk, or feel, they were admitting me for more testing. “But”, he said blithely, right in front of my dear, pale, loving daughter, “we are probably looking at Multiple Sclerosis.” And he breezed out.

I was stunned, but for all the wrong reasons. I had a brand new job and no sick time. They didn’t know me well enough yet to be aware I NEVER took off sick from work. I couldn’t be admitted! Additionally, because I could not take sick time yet, I would not get paid for any time off and would be losing money every day. On the other hand, I was almost relieved. I could give up trying to pretend I was well and finally get help. The words “Multiple Sclerosis” did not even register. Mary Kate began straightening my sheets and smoothing them over my legs. I looked up at her and she was crying. Taking her in my arms, we held each other and shook.

Next: Testing, testing and more testing. And a steady diet of humiliation.