A new adventure. Thanks, VA!

Mike got his new prescriptions in the mail today (VA). I am SO not happy with the supposed ‘care’ the VA gives. Or at least through this particular office.

He was put on Metformin last year with absolutely no instructions on anything having to do with diabetes. No diet info, no blood sugar level info, nothing. He called several times and even went back in to ask about a monitor and test strips, since we were thinking it was probably a good idea to test if he was taking meds to lower his blood sugar. The doc kept telling him there was no need and so he never got a monitor.

Since we had no way to test to make sure his levels weren’t getting too low (and his levels at the doc’s were only just barely high), he just quit taking the Metformin.

He had another checkup last week and I went with him this time. This time he did get a script for testing supplies along with the Metformin, cholesterol med, nitroglycerin, and inhaler. Still no information on managing the diabetes, though. He also got put on a waiting list for a sleep study so we can get something done about his horrible sleep apnea (granted it’s a years wait, but at least it’s in the works…).

Anyway. His meds came in the mail today. He now has an Accu-Chek glucometer, lancets, test strips, and something else that goes with it that says to use 1 dose a day to calibrate the glucometer. The problem is there was NO information or instructions on how to use the thing. So, we have all these new tools for managing his diabetes, but not a clue on how to use any of them. Lovely.

It’s a good thing he married into the family that he did. I have an aunt who is a diabetes nurse. Her whole job is teaching newly diagnosed diabetics what they need to know to be able to manage their condition. I’m hoping we can get her to meet us at my grandparents sometime soon and give us a crash course.

It makes me wonder about all those veterans who DON’T have access to that, though. How many other veterans has this doc put on blood sugar meds with absolutely no instructions on what to do to take care of themselves? How many of those are capable of figuring it out on their own? I mean some of the older veterans may have difficulties with memory or may even be Alzheimer patients. Does this doc prescribe meds to them the same way? That is– he enters the meds into the computer (says nothing about the meds in the office) and then a couple of weeks later they just show up in the mail.

Add to that the fact that they didn’t want me going into the exam room with him (I insisted) which tells me that 99% of the time no one is “allowed” in with the vets…

It makes me sick to think of how many veterans are getting such sub-standard care just out of this one office. =(

*update* Mike just got back from asking the pharmacist at Walmart for some help. Turns out the lancets the VA sent will not fit in the pen-thingy. Also, there still is no actual machine to READ the test strips. This thing that came in today is just for pricking the finger. >=(

The sick never stops!

So I haven’t been able to get on here and post or update the counts or much of anything lately because of all the sickness! Somebody stop the sickness, please! lol

Made a trip to the ER with Matthew today. He and Meg both just finished 2wks of Xopenex and Pulmicort neb treatments for their asthma. Some virus or something got them flared. Matt finished last Fri. Tuesday he had the growth hormone stim test (we should hear back in a couple of weeks). Friday he woke up coughing and having problems breathing so I immediately put him back on both the Xopenex and Pulmicort and kept him home from school.

Yesterday (Sat) he was VOLUNTARILY getting on the breathing machine about every hour and a half. Clue number one that he was sicker than his usual, since normally even in the peak of an asthma flare I have to fight him to get the treatments done. All day he did this. And all day he was still having difficulty breathing and coughing. Couldn’t even finish a sentence without coughing.

He started running a fever yesterday afternoon so I gave him a tylenol. I had almost decided to take him in to the ER last night, but he was doing a little better after the Pulmicort treatment last night, so instead I sent him to bed.

He woke up 2 or 3 times in the night and gave himself another breathing treatment. He did the same this morning. I knew last night he and I were going to be missing church so we slept in a little. Me more so. He didn’t come back in to wake me up again until almost 11am! He said that he’d done another treatment about an hour before but it didn’t seem to have helped at all and so were we going in? He was starting to sound scared, so I said “Looks like.”

I got up and got dressed, got the kids both dressed and away we went. Good thing Meagan had stayed home from church. Otherwise I’d have either had to go pull her out early or leave him at the ER to come home and pick her up, since church wasn’t due out for another hour or so.

They did a chest xray which apparently was fine since no one mentioned it afterwards, and also did a rapid strep since he was running fever and had a runny nose.

Guess what?

We’ve got strep! Poor kid. Anyway, I had to deny a shot of steroids because it would have only made the Lyme worse, so instead he got a SIX dose albuterol neb treatment and a tsp of Zithromax.

He can’t go back to school until Wednesday, so the baby-sitting my dad I was supposed to do tomorrow? Cancelled. lol My brothers will have to handle him themselves. Mom and Dad will have to go to the Lyme appt for Dad without me on Tuesday, too. I guess that’s a good thing, though. I was worried the doc might get upset with me because he told me Thursday to go to the ER because of my headache and I kinda sorta didn’t. oops. LOL

I’m just hoping now that no one else will come down with the strep! At least Meagan and I are still on antibiotics, so maybe we won’t get it.

Groceries and Dad again

That seems to be the standard theme around here lately. Probably because I’ve been too sick/busy to even THINK about anything else… let alone blog about it.

Went grocery shopping for the first time this month. I spent $80.82, so 82¢ more than my budget for the week, plus I still need bread. =(

BUT!!

I didn’t go grocery shopping LAST week at all. I’m still not ‘ahead’ because the week before I stocked up on the chicken which used most of last week’s budget.

However… =)

I am almost (I still need to get a little more ground beef stocked) at the point of being able to float by each week needing only the bare essentials replaced… milk, bread, cereal, fresh fruits, and toilet paper. LOL

I bought some soaps today, so aside from laundry detergent (which I will likely be making up a batch of DIY stuff soon) and dishwasher soap (which I will likely be trying to replace with vinegar and baking soda), I shouldn’t even need much in the way of non-food groceries for awhile.

I have shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, liquid dish soap, bath soap, lots of ziplocs, etc. I even got stocked up on cat food (well, the canned stuff anyway).

Also, I got the kittens collars and bought a new phone. Both things were on my list to purchase with ‘leftover’ grocery $$ when I could, so I can scratch those off the list now and move on to the next thing. =)

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Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.

Dad is still in the hospital, but they tried to send him home today. Mom said uh-uh because they still hadn’t gotten him eating anything more than clear liquids, nor have they given her any kind of instructions on his care or told her what is going on or what the plan is for his surgical site (still held together with what they call “spoons and wires”). Also he has been VERY disoriented and confused, not to mention depressed. He’s hallucinating, too!

He is aware that his brain is not functioning properly and when Mom said that if she needed to exercise her medical power of attorney to refuse discharge from the hospital (he wants to go home so bad, poor guy!), he told her that he hoped his brain cells would be functioning enough to realize that she is only trying to do what is best. So it seems that he is worried his brain is getting worse… or maybe he knows for sure it is getting worse… or something.

Anyway. It’s gonna be real interesting to see what happens tomorrow since the hospital’s infectious disease ‘person’ (an RN, not a doc) will be reporting Dad’s extremely positive ehrlichiosis (a tick-borne infection) test results to the CDC. His primary doc HAS been informed of the test results and so far has done NOTHING with them. This is an infection that is supposed to be treated if even SUSPECTED. In other words if the docs think you MIGHT have ehrlichiosis, they are supposed to start treating you with doxycycline before the test result comes back to confirm it. Why? Because it can kill you if they wait too long to treat.

Now obviously it did not kill him before the test result came back, but he should have been prescribed the antibiotics back before they drew the blood even! That was a month ago!

*sigh* It’s all just so frustrating and my poor mom is about at her wit’s end trying to get someone to take care of Dad!

Why is it…

whenever I finally manage to get an interesting pic to put up here I lose the stupid camera??

My brother borrowed our good digcam, so I had to resort to using the old one to snap a pic of the progress on the stocking. That was probably Sunday night. I went just now to find the silly thing so I could retrieve the pictures and I can’t find it anywhere! Go figure!

I’m too tired to mess with it much more tonight. I’ll look again in the morning. If I can manage to find it, I’ll snap another shot of the stocking (since I’ve worked on it a bit more since Sun.) and post both pics at once.

It’s somehow gotten buried under a pile of papers or something somewhere, I’m sure.

Things have been getting piled higher and higher over here the last couple of days because we’re back in “crisis mode”.

Dad ended up having emergency surgery (again!) Sunday morning, so I missed the am services at church for a start. The surgery went ok in that they removed a TON of scar tissue that was basically twisting and gluing his intestines together with his bladder and everything else. The surgery went not so ok in that they had to really pull him closed tight and hold him together with wires which is putting pressure (too much? they’re not sure) on his kidneys making his kidney failure more problematic. Then to top that off, they could not get a central line in (either time they tried) because of scarring from his PICC line before so they can’t monitor the pressure his kidneys are under. On top of *that* his left lung collapsed and they ended up putting two chest tubes in (one on each side) to reinflate it and prevent it from happening again. He’s also still on the ventilator.

He hasn’t eaten or drunk anything since last Tues, so they’re finally considering giving him some IV nutrients in the am. He “might maybe” be developing pneumonia. Oh and he weighed 122lb before surgery (he’d lost 8lb in about 4 days from not being able to eat or drink) and now weighs 142lb! He has been pumped so full of fluids he is swelled up like a balloon! His kidneys aren’t working properly so it’s all just accumulating in his tissues.

The biggest problem is that about a week and a half after intestinal surgery the intestines turn to tissue paper consistency and any minor irritation causes perforations. The docs are worried that the wires holding him together may do more harm because of this. The other possibility is that his kidneys can NOT survive the pressure caused by keeping him held together in which case they will reopen the surgical incision and leave it open. If they do that, his intestines will end up, according to the surgeon, as a mound outside of his body. Ordinarily they can then use a mesh screen of sorts to hold things in place while the skin heals. With Dad? Not so much. He scars so badly his body would just grow attached and around the mesh… like a tree grows around a rope or hose over many years. For Dad the only option would be what the surgeon described as a specially designed “plastic bubble” that they would put on him to protect the literally HANGING OUTSIDE OF THE BODY intestines!

*shudder*

That is NOT an image that sets well, is it? =( That’s not much of a LIFE, either. More like survival just for the sake of surviving. =( If that’s the only option, Mom and I both feel like it would be better for him to just go home to glory. We know Dad would not want a life like that either. =(

Basically he is as the surgeon put it… “between a rock and a hard place”, in which any one of a number of things could “do him in”.

Meanwhile, he seems to be doing somewhat better today. His hands were not as swollen or cold, he was calmer (probably because he was being reminded over and over where he was and what was going on), and he was less afraid he said. Well… he wrote actually, as he can’t talk on account of the giant tube down his throat.

I’m off to bed for now. Gonna snuggle in and read some before I go to sleep, I think.