Since my Janice has been off work since her first knee replacement surgery, things have been so splendid. I am grateful for all the time we got to spend together throughout her recovery, even if we couldn't do a whole lot. We were together.
We have a unique relationship in that we literally almost never fight (sadly, not a lot of folks believe us), and we have everything in common, really. I had a bit of a mental breakdown/anxiety event on March 22 when I shaved my head of the hair I loved and cared for so much. This means Janice had to deal with the fallout, as she always does. But the fallout took a curious turn.
In the weeks that succeeded that month, I felt myself oddly begin to level off. I attribute it to many things, and I'm sure there are many more I don't know of. But I know people pray and send blessings my way when I express my dismay. I am thankful for all of it, and I welcome it.
I gave the online life a pretty big hiatus during this time, too. I was with my wife 24/7, and I wanted to do things together with her, and being online is physically isolating. And it can be mentally brutal. I'm living proof. I've inflicted pain upon myself many times through the years. That's okay, now. I look back on this person I used to know... myself, or that version of me... and I imagine myself traveling through time and space to be there as I am today and comfort that guy. I have sympathy for that person now, that person who was ME. This outlook took a lifetime to acquire, and I'm still working on it. But he endured so much in his life. It's amazing that he got through so many storms. I'm thankful he did, and does, because that 'he' is 'me'.
I say prayers pretty much at the end of every day, but maybe not the traditional prayers so much. Sometimes I incorporate those, but I hesitate with each word I say as to mean it. But I prefer to talk to God in language I'm more familiar with, and with utmost honesty. There are so many religions and faiths in the world worthy of respect, but I respect no religion that espouses hatred, violence or revenge. Although those types are usually on its extreme right fringes. I realize the Catholic Church has blood on it's hands more than most. But Catholicism at least managed to somewhat change with the times; although I think it's just about time for an overhaul. Nonetheless, I deem myself Catholic, as an anchor to my belief system. It doesn't mean I agree with everything in it. Then it would be a cult. An organization that does my thinking for me. If I was told by the church to leave, I would, and go somewhere else that would take me. But I'm not a rabble rouser, not like I used to be. The passing years will do that to a person, if they're lucky.
But my moods changed, quite drastically. I started watching some spiritual guide-types online, and my mind opened up almost like pulling rubber-backed drapes from a sunshiney window. Maybe not quite as dramatic as that, but, you know. Nonetheless, I noticed some kind of elevation.
I subscribe to some science pages on social media, reputable ones without bias or spiritual leanings, because I have my own. Although bias is really just an ego offshoot. You prefer something over something else without trying both. Remove your ego from any equation and the truth emerges.
But that can be a monumental task! A person's ego is what tests the soul. Deep in your heart you know what's right, but is your ego trying to negotiate an agreement, or looking to crush whatever comes up against it to sate itself? Pride and vanity really went under the microscope for me through this ongoing journey, if you want to call it that. Adjustments needed to be made. I discovered this after shaving my head in March. What on earth would drive me to do such self-destructive things?
My anxiety attack in March slapped me upside the head in a big way. WAKE UP. Wake up or you'll stop living. This is unsustainable. I left the house in a state of sadness and fury when I discovered Janice knew about Alexandra needing help, but no one told me. My ego forced me to feel excluded. I wasn't. It's a minor detail in a minor story, that I apparently decided to virtually blow out of proportion, because my ego told me it was unacceptable. My being in the dark on that situation was not a big deal. But I made it one. I inflicted upon myself the mental anguish of falsely being ostracized from my wife and daughter. The molehill morphs into a mountain.
I had vanity problems of kind of the reverse sort... I wouldn't accept myself. How I looked, how I talked, what I knew or didn't know, etc. I used to look at myself with disgust in the mirror a little too often. Until these spiritual guides reminded me in my head, "Revisit that person, and those events. Would you, today, sit idly by without compassion while you watched what you were putting yourself through? You would hug that person and try to help." All of it true. So it's time to make adjustments.
"I am who I am. And that is enough."
I can't change the way people think. I can't steer their universe. (To me, if there are eight billion people on earth, then there are eight billion different human realities.) All I can do is be the most compassionate and kindest person I can be, and if someone has a problem with any of it, that's just what it is. Their problem. Not mine.
As summer moved along, with mainly favorable weather, we did things together. Somewhat limited, mind you, because Janice got her second knee replacement done only three months after her first one. Recovery from the second surgery turned out to be significantly more trying than the first one. I believe there was more extensive damage to the second knee that was done, thus the recovery will be longer and a bit more frustrating. But she still wound up being further ahead in her recovery than most. Nonetheless, the damp and humid summer weather began taking a toll on her arthritis on top of the healing knees. "So what", she says. She still wants to go for marathon walks and train at the gym. She wants to get to 100% ASAP, because just three months after her second surgery, she has to report for work. There don't appear to be any programs in place to take care of people in situations like this. Janice was stonewalled everywhere when she attempted to get benefits to cover for more healing time. She needs six months per knee, but she will not get it. And she has to endure the ramifications.
To top it off, the staffing situation where she works is shaky, at best. These big box drug stores have installed self checkouts in their stores, subsequently allowing them to cut hours for their workers. Staff began to dwindle. Ultimately, there were two people running Janice's post office kiosk in her absence. And one of them was Alexandra, who was the de-facto boss until her Mom got back, working. It proved to be stressful on Alexandra at times. She suffers from something of her own, some type of digestive disorder that no one can seem to diagnose. It's hard enough finding someone who'll take it seriously. She can't seem to get a gastro doctor who's willing to get to the bottom of it. It's been over twelve years, and she still periodically throws up for up to hours for reasons she doesn't understand. She has pains in her pelvis, and she's waiting to see a gyno. It's been years that she's been waiting. Anyone could understand that we're constantly worried for her.
Anyway, the post office's hours had to be shortened because of staffing issues. Two people just aren't enough. There are not enough in that store trained to work in the p.o., putting strain on the existing workers when there's shortages. Nowhere is this more evident than since Janice was off. Alexandra did a stellar job running operations despite all of this. I'm telling you, that woman has untapped intellectuality.
Knowing we were staring down the barrel at Janice's return to work, we wanted to get as much fun into summer as we could, although truthfully, just being together is fun enough. We saw family several times at Caissie Cape, in August especially. The summer air, the steaks and burgers and watermelon, the drinks and pot gummies... it appeared we might be able to handle the transition somewhat well, at least on a physical level.
I remember that Thursday late afternoon when we were in the car on our way to Costco. I was at the traffic light on McLaughlin and Mortin waiting to turn left. Something hit me. Not the car, me. I turned to Janice, and said:
"Things are going too good. Too good. Why are things going so well for us lately? Ever since March things just steadily improved. I'm happy, which is weird!" I don't know what "born again" really means, but I think I've experienced the closest thing I ever have in the last few months.
"Something pretty bad is going to happen," I reasoned.
"I can feel it."
The next day, we planned on heading out to the Cape to see family, who were assembling for some summer vacation time. The weather was great in August, as it usually is around here. We met up with lots of folks I'd been waiting awhile to see again since last summer. What a sweet crowd that night. Everyone was in great spirits, everyone hugging each other, laughing, just enjoying the presence of each other. It was especially great seeing my nephews Chris and Shawn and their families and catching up a little bit. I'm so proud of those guys. I worry about them, but I'm really happy with the men they turned out to be. Really that goes for all of them.
"We'll be back tomorrow and continue this!" we promised. Janice was getting sore in the legs, no doubt her fibromyalgia acting up, or her knees, or both. We got in the car and headed home on what transitionally became Saturday morning, the wee hours of September 1, which is my wife's birthday. We'd made plans for what we were going to do and were looking forward to it.
We came in the house when we arrived, and pretty much headed straight up to the bedroom, our favorite place, where we can hunker down in bed and do anything we want. We have a fridge, TV, blu ray player, laptops.... we're good. It's a calming environment that we love to bask in. MMH stays with us all the time, wherever we are is where he is.
Janice sat up suddenly while we were watching TV. "You okay? What's going on?"
"I don't know," she said, her breath beginning to quicken. "I think something's up. I'm not sure what's going on."
"You gonna be sick?" I inquired. "Just lay down and take deep breaths." I stroked her head and stayed close. I'm beginning to worry. Janice doesn't get felled by viruses very easily. And she often can just fight them off. But this was different, as we were to find out rather harshly.
She asked for a garbage bag as she sat up in bed again, and began quietly groaning. I'm really worrying now, because she's going to be sick. Anyone who knows me at all knows how terribly emetophobic I am - that is, I have a tremendous fear of vomiting. When I know someone else is dealing with it, I immediately empathize, because it's pure hell to me. I can't watch it though, or I might get sick myself.
Janice got sick not long after. Throwing up into the green garbage bag, incredibly violently, before getting a brief respite. Then she went to the bathroom and got sick again. And again. It continued I would say on average every half hour to 45 minutes. There were spurts where it looked like it was finally passing, only to crash again. Gravol would not stay down. Anything she drank did not stay down. If it went down, it came up. And each and every time she got sick, it was terribly, heart breakingly violent. I cried several times out of sorrow from seeing her suffering, and there wasn't anything I could do to fix it.
"If this keeps up, I'm bringing you to outpatients," I warned her. We have a disdain for going there, because our healthcare system is in shambles right now, especially post-Covid onset. We could not have been more unprepared for this. I'm increasingly worried here. Then a spell would come where she was improving again. It would be followed by more retching.
She encountered a spell of a few hours where she seemed to be on the mend, and I had to go do a reading at church that afternoon. I didn't really want to leave her. I never saw her get this sick in a long, long time, and what if she took a turn for the worse while I was gone? She urged me to go, telling me she'll be alright. It was only for an hour anyway.
After I'd stopped at the store to get a few things, I went home. Janice informed me she'd been sick nearly the whole time I was gone. Now a fever was showing up. It was coming and going. This is perplexing.... if she has a fever, how can this be a stomach virus? I mean, I've had them all! And I've never had a fever between vomiting rounds. I began to take this even more seriously.
She would drink Gatorade to try to retain some electrolytes in her body after being so severely dehydrated, but that wouldn't stay down either. The garbage bags of vomit began to multiply.
We would lie in bed at one point, facing each other, and I saw tears begin to flow from her eyes.
"What's the matter? Are you hurting somewhere?"
"I'm just so happy to have you!" She said, tears streaming. "I can't imagine dealing with something like this without you with me. I'm so grateful God gave you to me!"
That turned out to be one of the sweetest, but heartbreaking, moments ever.
On my side, my nerves are in tatters. I can't take my cannabis oil because I don't want my judgment being compromised in a situation like this. This formed somewhat of a microcosm of stress that was slowly, but unrelentingly, building.
She got sick again.
I swiftly got up and headed to the dresser. "We're going to the hospital," I ordered. There will be no "no" for an answer. She resisted up to this point and it became not about choice anymore. She cleaned up as best she could, grabbed a green garbage bag and we got in the car and went to outpatients.
We both thought, 'wonderful, we're going to outpatients on a Saturday night - it's gonna be Grand Central Station in there." Well, it wasn't. Shockingly enough, there were maybe a dozen folks there before us waiting. On a Saturday night at the Moncton Hospital, you can be virtually assured it will be Grand Central. But not tonight.
At triage, we asked if Janice could get a shot of Gravol or something to get her relief from vomiting. They gave her Zofran, a bit of a heavier hitter against nausea and vomiting next to Gravol. Her knees were really hurting. Her legs were hurting It was getting hard to walk. Her lower legs in particular were beginning to swell. At triage, her blood pressure was significantly elevated. Despite all this, she was given a barf bag and told to wait. We assumed we wouldn't have to wait long. I mean, Janice is uncontrollably throwing up in a clear barf bag where she has to keep it for analysis, right there in the waiting room. This continued for almost three hours. All of the staff in the waiting area just seemed to turn a blind eye to her blatant suffering. Even if it were a stranger, I would want this person in a bed.
Janice had knee surgery just three months prior - so it's understandable that she would need either Traumacet or Percocet to deal with that pain, both of which she has prescriptions for at home. Her leg was sawed in half, for all intents and purposes, for knee replacement, after all. She's to manage that pain for as long as it takes for up to six months. Now that she can't keep meds in her, she was feeling more and more pain.
After that three hour wait, we finally got called through the doors. They took blood from her, but not without making a pincushion out of her, because her veins were virtually non-existent from being so dehydrated. She continued to be sick. When all was said and done, she'd thrown up for up to 100 times. That is the definition of hell to me. It's also hell to watch Janice have to go through with this. I was beside myself with anguish and fear. Fear over what this will wind up being diagnosed as.
She was given intravenous saline after they amped up their dartboard game and had a port put in her arm. They gave her Gravol this way, and it seemed to work. But we've been strung on this yoyo before.
The first doctor to oversee Janice came to talk to us. He said he believed it was just norovirus or something similar, because there's always something going around. He said he'd keep her around for observation awhile to be sure she stabilizes. We accepted this and waited.
As the shifts changed, another doctor took over. It appeared no two doctors in that ER wanted to agree with each other. The next one that came along pondered that it might be her gall bladder. Well, that made sense! She had all the symptoms of gallstones. We were kind of relieved, because we finally discovered the culprit, and that surgery is laparoscopic, so she'd be in and out of there, and case closed. We began to breathe a little easier. Not only that, but Janice doesn't have her tonsils or her appendix, so this would be the Triple Crown.
Janice finally got a room, after waiting in a chair by the nurse's station for hours with her IV hanging over her and a barf bag always in tow. It was in there we saw the next doctor, number three.
And with a new doctor comes a new diagnosis. This one had a more hair-raising one. He said she likely had sepsis, poisoning of the blood from an infection. Janice's high white cell count kept the doctors wondering why that was so. We resolved with the idea that we caught it early if that's what it is, and now they can finally go after it.
I assured Janice, under my rather rigid exterior, that now that they were finally onto this... again.... that finally we can look forward to the end of this. Knowing full well in my head how serious sepsis can be. Anyone who knows of it knows it's the last thing they'd want.
It was around two o'clock in the afternoon on that Saturday at that point. I had to go home and take care of Marbles, as we'd been away for around 15 or so hours. When I got in the car in the parking lot to go home, tears welled up in my eyes. To the point it was rather difficult to drive.
I got through the door and saw MMH on the couch, meowing mightily to greet me home. After a while, he seemed puzzled. Where was Mom?
And things unraveled from there. I started breathing heavy. Tears relentlessly dripping. I felt my body shake, my hands rendered almost useless from the nervous descent. Then with every exhaling breath, I loudly was groaning. A deep breath in, dreadful groan out. I lay on the bed and took deep breaths to try at least to gain my composure. I picked up my rather useless cell phone to try to message Alexandra. All this while I'm progressing toward hyperventilating with my groaning, shaking too much to use the cell phone. I pulled out the laptop, and went on facebook, basically sending out a distress signal. I would say that's somewhat out of character for me; I expressed in my status the frustration and anguish over the doctors' guessing games and the thought that I just might lose my wife to sepsis. The chances of this were very real and looming over me like the darkest of storm clouds. The long waiting room wait was looming ever more ominously now.
Pacing, hyperventilating and groaning continued as I looked for some reason or way to stop. But how do I stop freaking out over potentially losing my angel? Looking back now, this itself was getting to be bad.
My friend Tim patched in through facebook and asked what was going on, offering to help with whatever I needed. Just having somebody listen and give their feedback in a calm voice was a big deal for me at that time. It allowed me to retain my composure enough to look at myself in the mirror, tell myself "you're going good. She'll be okay. BE STRONG." I calmed down enough to just be sobbing gently while I got in the car and headed back to the hospital. I had no desire whatsoever to eat or drink anything. How do you do that when you're hyperventilating?
I got to the parking lot of the ER. My belly somewhat shaking from the sobbing I was doing, I took several deep breaths and went in. I had to have a mask on because Covid protocol was going on - it was in the air there, because people were being admitted with it. Covid has been flaring up as we inch closer to the fall. My eyes must have looked like eggs covered in splattered ketchup from crying for the past near two hours. I could tell because there was some sympathy as I stumbled through the room. I was still visibly shaking.
Janice was being tended to by one of the young nurses when I arrived, about to take more blood from her. We're all wearing masks at this point. I wanted to raise the concern about Janice not having her pain meds despite having knee replacement surgery three months ago. I wondered whether she could be reacting to the pain via vomiting, as that happens in extreme cases. She was rather short with me. While she was polite and cordial with Janice, I think she saw me as critiquing what she was doing, when I was really just looking for relief for my wife somehow. So there was some harsh pushback from her toward me, and my anxiety bumped up as a result. I excused myself, saying I needed a drink from the pop machine in the waiting area. Janice lightly shook her head while I walked away.
I went to the pop machine, and I hoped this was one of those that took debit or credit cards. I played around with it for a couple of minutes trying to make it work, to no avail. I returned to Janice's room.
"Well, so much for a drink!" I announced. "I guess technology and me just have to butt heads from time to time."
"Aww, I'm sorry! I'll go out there and get something for you!" That was the same nurse. Suddenly she was talking to me like I'd known her. I'd also taken a couple of pot gummies that were starting to kick in, and I loosened up some. It probably reduced my stress level from a 10 to a manageable 5. We even joked a bit. I tend to say funny things when I've got THC in me, much to Janice's delight, especially during times like this. As it turned out, Janice spoke to the nurse when I skipped out, telling her that I have severe anxiety issues that forced me out of work at 54 (I'm 58 now), and that this predicament was tearing me up inside. Janice knew what was going on with me without me even telling her. I like to think that she focuses on my mental health, and I focus on her physical health, hence her being in the hospital. This overhauled the nurse's take on me. Suddenly the empathy and sympathy came pouring out for Janice AND me. Looking back now, I felt like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders. But pale in comparison to what Janice was up against.
Time for another doctor and another diagnosis. This time, this one told her they're going to give her antibiotics to knock out any infection that may be in her. He disagreed, I think, on the sepsis diagnosis, and he thought now that she was calming down, they could give her intravenous Zofran with her antibiotics and she'll shortly be on her way. In the meantime, Janice is still without pain meds, her blood pressure is through the roof, she's still swelling up, and no two doctors could seem to agree on anything.
At one point, the doctor comes around with her chart, and asks Janice.... "do you have cancer?"
"Aren't you the one that should be answering that?" Janice replied, half-harshly.
"Well, it's just that your white blood cell count is so high!"
Let me interject here that the last fucking thing a patient wants to hear is someone ask if they have cancer in a time of distress like this. He should know from her medical records she doesn't have cancer. This really was starting to feel like the ER from hell.
This doctor took her into an exam room where she was poked and prodded, like they do for examinations like this. Janice's abdomen was super tender, It was swollen, as were her legs, and she was in excruciating pain as the doctor pressed down on her abdomen and wouldn't release, while Janice was yelling out in pain. Honestly I fantasized Ally McBeal-style that I clocked the guy. He was doing it while he was looking at her, making me suspicious of his intentions. She was brought back to her room in the ER.
The doc said that he thinks it'll all pass. I wasn't there when this interaction happened, but Janice grabbed his arm at that moment and cried, looking into his eyes and told him, "I can't go through this anymore, I can't go home with this!" He put his hand on her and sad, resolvingly, "we will keep you here and figure this out. Don't you worry." I wanted another doctor on this, stat.
Complicating matters was the revelation (?) that she had a UTI. "A UTI? How could I have had that, I didn't feel anything or have any other symptoms?"
"Well, you do. Sometimes people get them and they don't even know they have it. And the infection spread to your kidneys." Shortly after this, her urine turned brown. This is a terrible sign, beyond the ramifications of a UTI.
Wow. Recanting this is a wild ride, even. Just how many personalities did that doctor have, anyway?
And no, we are not done with the diagnoses.
The next doctor shows up... this one thinks she has COPD... or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. They'd taken x-rays and CT scans and saw something going on in her lungs. So naturally, let's throw another disease down the Plinko board and see where it lands. Jesus. Then we started second guessing everything she did! Her cartridge pens that she inhales her prescribed THC cannabis now went on the radar for being a culprit. We wondered if 'Popcorn Lung' was part of the picture. Some kind of lung infection? What, really? A tumor?? It's like they have a list of diseases they can throw in a hat and draw to "reveal" the diagnosis. At this point it was getting hard to take anyone seriously, and it was pissing us off.
But finally, the lead doctor in the place - the one guy overseeing God knows how many other doctors (again, our health care system); and he gave us the last word on what's going on. For now. For now.
He said she did not have sepsis. She did not have 'the flu' or norovirus or anything like that. She had E-Coli. After pondering what could have given her that, ultimately it came down to a funky watermelon we got at Costco. I tried just a small sliver of it, but Janice had a few chunks. The next day, I had gastro issues. I didn't feel good at all, but I recovered. They were going to put her on their strongest antibiotics and keep her for a couple of days. That should do the trick, he said.
At least we had a solid diagnosis. He was in charge of all the tests and bloodwork and finally figured out that E-Coli was wreaking havoc on her. That, too, can be deadly very quickly, it's no less worrying than sepsis. But she had the meds for it, and her vomiting seemed to have subsided. Maybe this was the ticket.
Janice was finally sent from her room where her bed was a gurney for two days in the ER to a room in the hospital. There were three others in the room, all with various maladies. Janice just had to stay in bed while the antibiotics worked, and they also finally got on top of her pain with Dilaudid, or something like that. It was effective and knocked the pain out pretty good. Finally things were looking promising.
I would bring Janice food while she was there, sandwiches or a treat or something. Memories of hospital food are ghastly ones. To the point where I'm not necessarily afraid of staying in the hospital, but having to eat the food! But as it turned out, there are big improvements on the culinary side. The things they were bringing Janice actually looked good. I worried a whole lot less about that.
I believe now we're on Wednesday. Our friend Natalie showed up at the hospital to see Janice, and she was the first to have to don the Covid gear. This was a selfless act on Nat's part to do this, especially when it's not expected. Janice entered the hospital at midnight on Saturday, her birthday, and had been there since. This was a far longer ordeal than we could have ever expected. And I wasn't handling it all that well, either. But I did keep it together for the most part, thanks in large part to my THC gummies. Then our friends Tim and Marley showed up. I'm into the whole 'vibes' thing these days, and those two brought a wave of great ones with them. Tim gave me a ton of U.S. junk food that he graciously likes to shop for to bring home for us sometimes. This guy's done a lot for me/us, and it keeps piling on rather lopsidedly while I can't really reciprocate, so I have to mind my guilty feelings and focus more on the gratitude, which we have immensely for him and his wife. The world is just a far better place with them in it. They stayed a long time, and offered their support and reassurance that we'll all get together when this thing is past us. Things like this are good to lift the spirits of the ailing.
But wait.... there's more.
The regular bloodwork revealed that Janice had picked up Covid in the ER. She was in the midst of giving E-Coli the boot and it left a crack in the door for Covid to take over. Now anyone who wanted to see Janice had to dress in the mask, gown and protective shield if they wanted to be near her. Every time you left her room, you had to take the gear off, and put fresh new gear back on when you went back in. The room she was sharing with the others all complained of being in the same room as someone with Covid. It sounds harsh, but if Janice just got out of knee surgery, we would also voice concerns about a Covid patient in the room. She has immune issues because of the meds she takes for psoriatic arthritis, fibromyalgia and other forms of arthritis, and she has to take a biologics intravenous med every week called Enbrel, which was sadly and cheaply replaced by the far inferior Brenzys by our Great West Life health plan. And it's next to impossible to see a rheumatologist, because hers is only part time now. The last time she'd talked to her, she said she would be looking at Janice to replace the Brenzys with a next-gen treatment called Symphony. But in the time since, Janice hasn't been able to get a hold of that doctor, who's now part-time, apparently. The option of Symphony was tossed and replaced with Brenzys again, for reasons we can't figure out because she can't see her rheumatologist.
Janice was once again being relocated, this time to another floor where there was a gentleman there who was just getting through the far end of Covid himself. He said he'd been in isolation for seven days, and now he's off to Halifax for surgery on his eye. He couldn't do that until he'd gotten through the seven day mandatory Covid quarantine. This was an ominous warning for what was to come.
Janice was then reassigned to yet another room, in the isolation ward on the top floor. She was given a private room, with the same dress protocols, and she wasn't allowed to leave for seven days. The room had a pretty nice view of the sunset every night, but other than that, it wasn't the Taj Mahal or anything. An alarming thing to us is their putting an oxygen line on Janice. They told us it was "precautionary".
The deal by this time is that Janice was having kidney issues related to E-Coli, and not some damned UTI. They'd been overworked and were on the verge of shutting down, as is evidenced by the brown urine. This is all exacerbated from her newer battle with Covid. Janice takes immune-suppressing drugs to cope with her chronic illnesses. So this, along with acquiring E-Coli and then Covid, on top of the fact she's still trying to recover from knee replacement surgeries, and she takes immuno-suppressant drugs, makes for an exceedingly uphill battle for my wife. I know of few who are as tough.
The doctors began questioning her medication. They cut her blood pressure meds in half because of the strain on her kidneys, but they wouldn't tell us why at the time. In fact, they were hardly transparent about the meds they were giving her at all when they gave them to her. They would hook bags up to her IV unit and she wouldn't have any idea what they were.
But her kidneys failing were showing up via inflammation throughout her body. Her legs were swelling, retaining water because of it. It was getting harder and harder for her to do something as simple as going to the bathroom.
She was given Paxlovid intravenously, a Covid medication, but I think by the time they did it was too late. It's supposed to lessen or shorten the life of the virus, but only if it's early enough in the diagnosis. It didn't make any significant difference. The water retention factor was increasing, so something had to be done to push it back. Enter Remdesivir... the big guns in the Covid fight. This served as kind of a relief, because we know that stuff will take care of it ultimately. But something had to be done to bring down the inflammation.
Enter some anti-inflammatory drug that's a diuretic to try to get that excess water out of her, called Dexomethozone. We did not know what they were giving her, as they just wouldn't inform either of us. All I really knew is that Janice was on a course of Remdesivir. When it started, none of us knows, because we weren't told.
Janice became a little bit flaky, and we assumed that it was just effects of the Remdesivir. They were giving her meds nightly to help her drift off and stay asleep, since her body had been going through such terrible stress for a week now. What a way to start the month. This was Friday night, and as I kissed my wife goodnight, I went home blindly confident that she'd be accompanying me soon. I would tell Marbles, "I think Mommy's coming home soon!" Marbles would wail a lot when I came home, like he was asking where his Mom was. It was evident he knew something was wrong. He would stay with me in bed when I came home to sleep most nights. Other nights he would howl rather sadly sounding.
I took THC and tried to sleep. I did, relatively okay, since I felt like my wife was coming home soon. I was excited! I'd never been apart from Janice more than two days since we've been together over 32 years. And that was only I think two times. These were the saddest nights I've endured with us.
The next morning, I awakened and opened the laptop to see if there was any communication from Janice, or someone else. This was when things took a mysterious turn for the worse.
She was telling me on messenger that my brother Roy and Lexy were arguing outside her room. She told me she was completely sure they were there arguing. I found this suspicious because Roy's not the hospital type, not to mention there were Covid protocols to abide by. And Alexandra doesn't just randomly turn up. She'll ask if she can bring something, or signal that she's coming.
Then she proceeded to tell me to come in. I told her I'm home laying in bed, I'd just woken up. She swore that I was there, to just come in. She would say she's pretty sure she has cancer.
She has 'cancer'.
This sent a shockwave through me. She said she just has to deal with it, and I tried to assure her she didn't have it. But I was wondering myself. There was no one telling me otherwise.
Then I resorted to going on facebook and creating a group where I could talk to my family, knowing that we have nurses among us. Everyone who chipped in talking were incredibly gracious and reassuring, namely my niece Erin who had contacts that could help clear up any misconceptions - well, there's more than a few of those. Erin assured me that it's medication related, as I think she found out what it is they gave her. My heart swells with gratitude for that information.
I called Alexandra and asked her if she wanted to come with me to shop for a bit and pick up some things for her Mom. Like every day Janice wasn't with me, I would scrounge up supplies or clothes or whatever she wanted or needed and bring it to her.
When Lex and I got to the hospital, we dressed in our Covid attire and entered Janice's dark, quiet room, to find my precious wife curled up in a ball at the foot of the bed crying and shaking uncontrollably. She was paralyzed and couldn't move. This was the scariest sight I've seen in almost 30 years. I was taken aback and not sure how to deal with it. We summoned nurses, and Alexandra and a sweet male nurse helped Janice off of the floor onto the edge of the bed, and got her to lay down and comfort her. My sweet wife, crying inconsolably.
While Lexy helped her Mom try to normalize, I'm veering farther away from normal myself. But I snapped out of it - Janice needed me. And Lex can't bear all this weight. I've been protecting her for too long, and now she's a woman (Erin had to point this out to me... Alexandra has always been 'my little girl') who's a super ally. Eventually, I mostly got my bearings. We had Covid gear on, so we couldn't see each other's expressions. But I could see worry in Alexandra's eyes.
Once Janice calmed down enough to talk, she came up with all kinds of wild things. The big one being that she had cancer. She's hallucinating this because of that doctor that asked her if she had it. Now she's on a highly psychoactive drug she was never warned about (or us either!) and spitting all kinds of crazy talk with a straight face, believing everything she's saying. She thought my nephew Ryan was tapping her phone - yeah, no. She could've swore she heard her mother and relatives outside her door. Everytime there was a beep somewhere from out in the hall, she thought she was having a heart attack, and that if she concentrated hard enough it would stop. We tried in vain to convince her all of this wasn't true, when we still had no idea. No nurses could explain what was going on. She had a full-blown drug induced panic attack, and they had to give her something to calm her down.
I did make an attempt, having been told that the Remdesivir was hooked up (or was it, I don't know, because this was all opaque) to research this. I looked into potential side effects of it, and discovered there can be hallucinogenic effects in something like 16 percent of patients, or something like that. I tried convincing myself that that's what was going on here. Alexandra found some comfort in this.
Lexy finally left after a few hours. The support, love and help she offered was invaluable. And she's going to need to continue to be strong. We all hugged and she was on her way, unsure, as was I, about why her Mom seemed to be losing it.
When a nurse came by on her rounds, I stopped and asked her why my wife was acting so wacky. She told me that there may be a psychiatric issue and we may have to have it looked into. Really. Chalk up another could-be diagnosis.
But in the fragile state I was in, I couldn't process this properly. Could this be true? I thought all these things are a big possibility. There was no one trying to calm me down, not that it's their job. (Admittedly, I feel like this is my ego at work) At one point, I was in the hallway taking a break from Janice because I was in tears, after she told me she was dying with two weeks to live, and that she's accepted it. I paced slowly in the hallway end, attempting to regain my composure. I guess it didn't look odd. No one stopped to speak to me. (Again... ego.)
I re-dressed and went back into Janice's room. I tried to figure out how she could have music playing with her steadily, and we had a devil of a time making that happen. There would always be one issue or another. The biggest culprit being our crappy Samsung phones.
As the night morphed into Sunday morning, I stayed until my angel was asleep. She would jar at times from whatever nightmares she was having, and I'd put my hands on her or stroke her head, whatever I could do to calm her. This woman has been through way, way, way too much this year. Today we both joke about it - she says "this is my 2015", remembering the year that I had multiple surgeries and kidney stone attacks. And a knee surgery. Plus a throat surgery. Throw in a dollop of skin cancer, too, which I caught in its extremely early stages. But, it ain't about how hard you can hit.... right?
I left Janice's room after tucking her in and telling her I love her. What a wild week this has been. Every day has a different curve ball.
On my way to the elevator, I stopped by the nurses' station. The guy who was Janice's nurse when we got in there was stellar in his care and empathy, but he was gone, and I wanted to tell the nurses to be extra watchful of Janice.
"Hey, look... I came in here with my daughter around 6-ish, and found my wife curled up in a ball crying and she couldn't move. I'm not really sure what's going on with her, but can you please look in on her and make sure she's okay? This is hard for her. We've been together 32 years and this is hard."
"Yes," one said looking back at me. "It's hard on both of you. It's hard on you, too." My eyes started to well up. I realized I had to open up a little.
"Could you do me a favor, and get her doctor to call me when she can? I really need to speak to her or someone." She obliged; "of course".
"Okay, thank you so much. Thank you." I made sure to be ultra-respectful to those who were caring for Janice, regardless of whatever circumstances were occurring.
And I grabbed the bags I had of ice packs keeping Janice's Diet Canada Dry cold and her laundry. I remember getting in the elevator around 2 am and slumping into the corner. This whole situation just keeps getting crazier and more complicated. It was so late, the parking was free, because the parking attendant goes home at midnight. Earlier in the week, I'd parked in the parking garage and I was the last one there after midnight, and had to chase down a security guy to get my car and go home. The whole thing just seems so surreal. It did in the moment, and now maybe even more so looking back.
One thing I did resolve to do, was to get Janice a TV for her room. I should have done it from the get-go, but we didn't think she'd be staying so long, let alone get moved around so much. But in my view, a TV would provide some comfort, entertainment and she wouldn't feel too alone in this isolation room. I also sent out feelers to my nephew Ryan, who owns Case Depot, about seeing about a phone, where Janice has a rather beat-up Samsung and mine is even worse. But I figured if a doctor needed to get hold of me, which seems more common as we get older, I'm gonna need a phone.
The next day, my brother Rick comes to our house after messaging me on facebook. He gives me a bag with something in it. It was an iPhone XR, with a case. My eyeballs felt like they were vibrating. Rick and his partner May, along with May's daughter Brittany, along with Ryan and his brother Steven, all chipped in on getting us this. I was flabbergasted. With extra flabber, even. What a supremely fine family Rick's surrounded by. Ultimately, I felt guilty for throwing up the proverbial Bat-signal. I wasn't looking for a handout, and it takes dropping some pride a bit. But that's outweighed by our gratitude. The plan for us with this, is for me to take Janice's phone, and she take the iPhone. so we both had one.
The house phone rang around noon. It was the doctor overseeing Janice. She offered an update on how Janice was, and clarified a few things. I just had to know a few things in particular, namely, is my wife actually dying? Does she have a heart condition? Is she psychotically compromised? No, no, and no. Three hard no's; but, she took a reaction to the anti-inflammatory drug they gave her, effects which have been known to be common, apparently. We discussed a few more things, like her pain meds, her having had knee surgeries, being immuno-compromised and then this. A perfect storm of illnesses. I actually began to weep towards the end of the call and sensed the empathy from the doctor. This call provided a wealth of calm to my soul, and I thanked her for it.
Later, I went back to Janice with more Diet Canada Dry and some flavored water. The salesman that goes around selling cable TV came around right on target time, and I purchased a week's worth. I didn't care anymore about stupid money, I wanted my wife to be comfortable. Flowers arrived from Rick and May, which brightened Janice's day a lot. Janice's friend from work Faith came in and geared up to be with Janice for awhile. She brought Janice a cute little Ty Beanie Dumbo and a couple of drinks - just visiting would have been fine. The three of us conversed for awhile, and then Alexandra and her partner came to visit also. It got to be a little too much commotion for me, with my compromised mental health and lack of sleep, and no THC cubes, so I remained pretty much quiet. At one point I even fell asleep; something that was scarce for me through these times. I went over three days without sleeping starting from the time we went to the hospital. Didn't eat, either.
When our sweet daughter and the rest of the crew left, it was Janice and me, with my wife finally gaining some semblance of being right minded. She didn't remember a lot of it. That's okay, I just wanted my 'real' wife back. I was so filled with relief. All the intravenous drugs were pretty much done now, and she was just getting her oral meds. Things were looking up, at last. We actually joked around a fair bit, as I took my THC and left the car home. I consider it a gift that I can make my wife laugh pretty much anytime, but it gets a bit powered up when I'm on the gummies.
I pledged to Janice to be with her at the hospital Tuesday night to watch the Harris/Trump debate, which was sure to be a spectacle. We talked and talked some more, laughed some, and finally after she got her nighttime round of meds, I kissed her goodnight and went home. I felt better about this whole thing by now at this point, but this going to bed alone every night is just not for me.
Tuesday I get up, do some housework and laundry or whatever, and get ready to go back to Janice. As the afternoon was turning into evening, I showed up with some drinks and we set up the chairs in her room and positioned the TV toward us, and later the debate came on. Well that provided more than enough entertainment for the evening! But the real news at that time was that Janice was finally coming home the next day. There was the seven day Covid quarantine she had to get through, but the remnants of E Coli had to be checked off first. Finally now, though, it was time to gather up Janice's belongings and bring home the bulk of them when I left at the end of this night. And as it came to a close, I kissed my wife goodnight, away from me, for the last time in this place.
I got up Wednesday morning giddy with excitement! "Marbles! Mommy's coming home today, for real! Mommy's coming home!" He actually gave me a look of "yeah, right" because I've told him basically the same thing everyday. I got the call that she was about to be discharged. I got in the car immediately and went to the hospital, parking by the main entrance doors, and waited. For about a minute. Then I got out and waited in the atrium. Out rolls Janice from the elevator in a wheelchair pushed by a nurse, and with what must have been one of the biggest smiles I've ever had, went to my wife and pretty much rushed her to the car to get her home. What a great day this was! We actually went for a little drive, since it was a nice day, and I wanted her to see the sun for real. The feeling of being in the car with my wife again was like a homecoming itself. When we finally got home, we came upstairs to our little slice of paradise, and continued on the path from there of my wife getting healthy again. She has beaten E Coli. She has beaten Covid. While recovering from two knee replacements. All at the same time. This was a handicap match; but these things were facing Andre the Giant in Janice.
All is not finished, though. As I type this two weeks into October, Janice is still getting her swelling down, but it is almost gone. Her blood pressure has finally dropped to just about when she was doing her athletic stuff. She did something to her heel, though, and has a limp, but I think it's unrelated to anything else, as it's improving. She's working on getting her wind back, as she used to really go at the gym. She has to draw blood every week and get an update from the doctor as to how the tests are improving, and they are, every week. She's close to normal on all fronts, minus some long-Covid issues that can be kind of a nuisance, especially when it comes to work or exercise.
I can't spell out enough how fantastic Alexandra was through all of this. When I wasn't eating, she took it upon herself to make a pot of her homemade beef stew and bring it to her Mom, and a big bowl for me, too. She insisted I eat it. It came with some homemade bread and a sausage roll, plus two almond cookies from Nick the Dutch Baker. I promised my daughter I would have it. Best friggin' soup I think I ever had. Janice was offered the same, and gobbled it up. It was the end of my 'hunger strike', which I have to admit was a form of self-harm. I felt that if Janice couldn't eat, I shouldn't either. I thought I could have done better, getting her to the hospital sooner. My daughter is very cognizant of my mental illness. Lexy did everything she could to take care of both of us.
And we have come through the other side of the storm. I don't want to rag on the workers at the hospital, as much as I want to ask why they're given such lousy conditions to work with in the way of staffing. Clearly, the ER is overworked, and I think it's playing on some of their own minds that shows every once in a while. No one who works there wants to not be performing their best.
There are also things to be learned for us here. Janice learned she needs to be super careful about getting any kind of infection from here on out, but basically, she just got lousy luck. What I learned is to appreciate my wife even more than I did. She was taken from me for 11 days, and I don't want to go through anything like that again. But she's like one of those air filled things you punch and it just bobs back up. That would be my wife.
We are mid October now, long past a September to remember. But it's the victory we will remember the most.
Janice's close friend for more than the first week of September.
This was when she just had E-coli and had it beat. Covid says 'hold my beer'.
Aaaand, enter Covid. Here we go.
I brought a shirt of mine from home for her to sleep with. We share each others shirts when we sleep at night.
Alexandra and Nicole gearing up to see her Mom.
Janice gets an oxygen line. She got it sooner than this, though.
And the view from the room.
 |
| The lack of sleep getting to me. |
Finally ready to go home!
