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Diary of a crazy lady: Day three after the blizzard
The street is still blocked.
Idiots parked cars in the middle of the street blocking the snow plows from clearing it. More idiots shoveling more snow in front of my driveway. Maybe I’ll get out come spring.
Cabin fever set in. If G hadn’t stopped in, I may have gone completely around the bend.
The Curmudgeon called and we argued. Seems we do that a lot lately.
Think I’ll go cuddle with Lucy on the couch. She’s waiting for me.
How one gets ready for when the ambulance arrives
When the other one has MS you have special ways to get ready for the ambulance after taking care of a very ill him for hours and, for the third time, he’s climbed out of bed and collapsed to the floor, this time you can’t get him up.
First, directly after calling 911, you must print out his medication list, a copy of his living will, and copies of his medical insurance cards.
While those print out you crate the dogs.
Turn on the porch light and unlock the door.
Then you must remove the baby gate that keeps the dogs downstairs.
Finally you run back upstairs to make sure he has clean dry clothes on then dash back downstairs and wait if they haven’t arrived yet.
When the paramedics arrive, you tell them he has secondary progressive MS, you hand them all the paperwork, and lead them to him answering their questions as you climb the stairs for the fiftieth time in the last twenty minutes. (The millionth time that day.)
When they leave with him, you collapse in exhaustion and debate following them to the hospital or getting some sleep first.
Sometimes I follow them in, other times I get some sleep. Guaranteed it will be hours before he’s admitted.
He’s still in the hospital. There’s no way he’s coming home until he’s better and the roads are cleared.
I yelled at this doctor telling her they sent him home three times still ill, they’d better keep him until he’s well this time.
The driveway is now cleared, the street is not. I think tomorrow I’ll try to clear off my car.
OMG snow
We had a record snowfall of 31.7 inches. I can’t even clear enough space out the back door for the poor dogs to go poddy. Neither dog is amused by this turn of events.
The Curmudgeon is happy to not have to deal with any of this.
If it isn’t one thing…
The news on The Curmudgeon isn’t great.
He has C-diff now. http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/clostridium-difficile-colitis?page=2
In my opinion he probably had it since he landed in the hospital the first time in October, but they didn’t catch it with the tests. And yet even with him still suffering with the runs, they sent him home each time, every month since, saying it’ll clear up with the probiotics they told us to buy.
It didn’t.
Now we have a blizzard of epic proportions according to all the weather reports. A snow emergency is on so I won’t be in to see him until after things clear up a lot.
That’s okay though because since we had a clogged chimney and the back blow from the oil furnace covered the entire inside of the house in oily soot, I have plenty (more than plenty) of work to do.
The kindness of strangers
We only met with Mike once.
For two years I’ve been trying to get our porch fixed so The Curmudgeon can safely go up and down the steps. No one would do the job. “Too small a job, lady. Not worth my time.” Everyone I called responded in this way.
Not Mike, he willingly gave us an off the cuff estimate to be followed by a more accurate one after he talked to his cement guy. He is very concerned about how unsafe the steps are, especially for one whose mobility is so limited.
Last night he called to tell me, because he has a few LEOs in his family, he was attempting to get the FOP involved and see if he could have them pay the repair costs because he knows the price we’ll have to pay will stretch us thin.
Now, I don’t know if he’ll be successful, but the mere thought that he went so far as to try this broke me down into tears.
On another note. I talked to The Curmudgeon’s doctor and from the way she’s talking, he will be in the hospital at least over the weekend, most likely longer.
The Curmudgeon is back in the hospital
I went to see him and he’s just a couple of doors down from where he was last time. Dropped off his MS drugs, specialty drugs they do not carry at the hospital pharmacy, he can’t stop taking them for the time he’s there, so I have to supply them.
His first day there and he was not as out of it as he was for several days the last time he went in.
I have no idea how long they will keep him. I hope long enough to resolve some of the problems they sent him home with last time.
MS so effing sucks
The Curmudgeon did well for the past week or two. Then yesterday it all fell apart.
I had to get help to get him off the floor and into bed. He’d pissed his bed and clothes. So I had to strip him of his wet clothes, dress him, and wash all the bedding and his clothes. I did this after I hurt my back again trying to get him up.
He’s been out of it all freaking day.
Therefore, I had to deal with the guy that came to clean the furnace, Something he usually does, even if it is just sitting on the stairs while the guy works.
The Curmudgeon doesn’t want me here. He wants a mother, I am not his mother, I am no one’s mother. I do not have a nurturing spirit, that died with the 8th miscarriage.
All the wine or martinis in the world aren’t enough to make dealing with this, in any way, easy.
“The lifetime divorce rate is roughly 50 percent; for chronically ill people, the rate is 75 percent.” Are where the statistics stand today.
Am I surprised? No, not one bit. I think about it EVERY day.
However, because I quit jobs so many times to take care of my sister when she had cancer, and because now I’m over 60 years of age and out of work for so long, I am unemployable.
In other words, no one wants to hire me because I’m too fucking old.
I have no way to leave and no place to go. I feel as though I have a gun to my head making me stay. I am beyond exhausted both physically and mentally.
I have no joy.
Finally! Porch repairs look imminent.
We found someone to fix the porch!
For a couple of years we’ve been looking for someone to fix our porch, contractors came and went, each telling us the job was too small for them to do.
We sort of gave up and hoped we’d be able to get a friend to patch it.
However, when the bottom step fell off in October we renewed the search with vigor. Praying the city wouldn’t see it and fine us.
Every contractor we called did not call us back.
Once again, I began a search, and again, no one would consider the job.
We thought we had someone through a friend of a friend, but we never heard back from that person. Then someone else found what looked like a promising lead, sent it to me, and that contractor also did not call back.
In the wee hours of last night I went on a hunt vowing to do it all night if necessary.
A search of cement porch repairs found “Porch.” Once on Porch, I punched in my project, zip code, and other information. Today we had a call and a warm body show up at the house, and by 6 p.m. had an estimate in hand.
Yes, he’s hired.
All but the back pieces and that piece on the right on the bottom step are gone now.
The Hello Crow
The cemetery next door is a winter home for a rather large murder of crows. Because of this we have to walk the yard before taking the dogs out to find and clear up bones and other garbage that the crows and squirrels drop in our yard. Both creatures scavenge from open trash cans around the area. (Too bad people can’t keep the cans covered but instead risk people’s dog’s health…if I miss just one bone…)
Yesterday while out with Gavin, I had the pleasure of meeting our old friend Hello Crow. He’s part of the murder and has been around for many years. We know him by his distinctive ‘Hello’ which makes us believe a woman raised him. His ‘hello’ is a fairly high pitch and quite clearly a hello.
He sat high up in the tulip poplar and said hello to us many time. I, of course, responded in kind.
I’m sure the people passing by thought I was completely strange, but I don’t care.
Global warming anyone?
The sixteenth of January we hit 50 degrees in Pennsylvania.
Yes, we’re getting colder weather over the next few days, but the warm days we’ve had are way above normal for our area.
I promise, I am not complaining. I hate winter.
However, no matter what the vacuous ‘there is no such thing’ people say, it is a real thing and we need to work towards a solution.
So far this year we haven’t had a chance to do this…and I am fine with that.
Lucy speaks
The Momma went out to lunch wiff Auntie G. They went to a place out back and groceries shopping and pet store shopping.
Gavin and I has lots of cookies and big bag of food now, we won’t starve!
She also gaved us some steak from out back, told the Daddy they cooked it wrong and she did not want to complain but couldn’t eat it that done and tuff.
They gived her a new steak cooked perfectly and she brought us the one they cooked wrong.
I didn’t smell nothing wrong wiff it. I thoughted it was berry good.
Yes, I did too share it with the Gavin brother.
Doggonedmysteries 