Life in Middle Girth

Sep 21, 2006 at 14:39 o\clock

Don't get sick, get hurt

by: jaybee

Mood: Cross and tired
Listening to: Night-time creaks

Friday, Sept 22 2006, 12.50am (so its really Thursday night)

I am feeling really angry about something but it makes me feel petty and childish to grizzle about it - but dammit I'm going to anyway.

Here's my husband, 43, Type 1 diabetes so he has to inject four times daily which isn't fun but never mind, he does it. Late last year he was suffering a lot of back and hip pain and we discovered he has a deformed hip socket, and osteo arthritis is taking hold there. Bugger. Oh well, take the painkillers and carry on as best you can and realise a new hip joint is somewhere down the track. Now he's got bowel cancer, had that operated on and is about to undergo chemotherapy for up to a year. For goodness sake, enough! 

Yes, he's lucky - these days injecting insulin is a doddle compared with how it used to be. Easy for me to say from this side of the needle. And isn't it fortunate that medicine has come far enough for hip replacements to be relatively common and uncomplicated? And gosh, we were so lucky that his cancer was picked up quite by chance at such an early stage and he was able to have the operation laproscopically and hasn't ended up with a colostomy bag, and not all chemotherapy is as debilitating as we imagine, and aren't we lucky we had medical insurance (which pays 80% up to a certain limit) ......

Yeah, right. It's all very well looking at the bright side and picking bits of that old silver lining out of the clouds, but every now and then it doesn't hurt to have a little wallow. I just wish there was an evening out process somewhere along the way and that the good guys didn't have to keep taking the knocks while the bad buggers keep getting away unscathed (spose the Mob will get me for that).

But what has got me stewing at the moment is this. Through the last couple of months, Brent has been using up his sick leave with specialist appointments, the operation and recovery time, the scan, more appointments - and so have I because I want to be there  with him - and when the sick leave runs out then you use up annual leave or take leave without pay meaning either loss of family time later on or loss of funds now.  We have been backwards and forwards to Palmerston North that many times I can't remember - there's a certain dollar cost involved there too. Ok, that's just how things work and it's bad luck but it's the same for everyone.

HOLD IT!! Hold it right there. It is NOT the same for everyone. Consider this. A certain other employee at my husband's work recently went hunting down south with his mate. They had a great time out in the wop wops and when they got back to civilisation they got totally boozed, and  this bloke jumped off a balcony and shattered both feet. While I have sympathy for his pain, remember this: it was self inflicted through booze and stupidity and need never have happened.  This bloke got flown to hospital, flown back to his home town, and has been off work for something like twenty weeks ON FULL PAY thanks to our wonderful ACC (Accident Compensation) system. That's not the worst bit.  What has really raised my blood pressure through the sodding roof is that he's going skydiving this weekend - his wife bought him this as a birthday treat - and he's still not back at work because he's on ACC. And we're using up annual leave and going without because we're having to pay for what the insurance doesn't cover (our share of about $16,000 so far, never mind travel and petrol) all because Brent got sick. If he'd got pissed and impaled himself on a fence post or something, we'd be better off, but hey! That's the way it is.

Forgive my bitterness but it just isn't fair.

And shall I carry on whinging? We have to pay for needles, insulin, tablets, test strips - it doesn't stop there. Healthy food is much more expensive than crappy junk. Trim milk costs more than ordinary blue top. Low fat stuff is dearer than regular stuff. Low sugar products are more expensive than normal ones. See? If you get sick, life becomes very expensive. If you get hurt, you get compensated.

Where's the justice? And that's only the financial side. I won't even try to find justice on the "Why us" front.

I feel a bit better having off loaded that. Sorry for those that have had their ears bent.

Jaybee

Sep 19, 2006 at 21:50 o\clock

Why won't they do the dishes?

by: jaybee

Mood: Slightly grumpy
Listening to: Some crap on tv in background

Hi,

Surely it's not too much to ask for my kids to do the goddamned dishes? But no, they won't do them.

It was Brent's first day back at work today, and I was at my work too....got home at 5.30 to find Brent and his sister having a cuppa so instead of getting tea on the go I joined them, which meant tea got later....I'd planned on doing a fish pie but everyone pulled faces at that so I crumbed and fried most of it and experimented with a little of it, chopping up a bit of snapper, some marlin, onions, parsley, egg, flour and turning it into fritter things. They ate it. I loaded the dishwasher and set it going, made a cup of tea and did my newspaper typing, it's now ten o'clock and in spite of me asking and asking and asking the bloody dishes are still sitting where I left them after cooking tea. Jeez it annoys me and ps the husband off. Lazy little shits.

Well now, an update on the husband. Yesterday we visited the oncologist who gave us the glad tidings that there didn't appear to be any secondaries, certainly none showed on the scan. Hooray!! some good news at last. I was almost too scared to contemplate good news because we've had a few kicks lately.  That's the good bit, the not so good bit is that Brent now has to undergo 30 weeks of chemo, being weekly injections administered at the cancer clinic in PN. Hopefully he will get onto a trial programme which involves a mixture of drugs and gives a slightly better prognosis than the ordinary chemo, but if not it is the other programme, 5Fu I think it's called. Apparently it's not the the absolutely horrendous stuff that lays you out for a week a month and makes all your hair fall out (thank goodness, he may not have much on top but there's heaps on his body!); he should be able to continue working throughout and even play sport but will feel more tired than usual. All this will begin sometime in mid-October, after he's recovered more from his operation. And that recovery has been truly marvellous - as yesterday's man said, why bother with a knife when you can use a telescope?  So we're feeling quite a lot happier this week. Unfortunately the hubby has hatched another cold and is cough-cough-coughing, not too good for his tummy.

Today was a funeral day. Peter Brock, the King of Tonga, and Dave D..... here in our town. He - Dave - had a very noteable funereal procession of Harley Davidsons preceeded by him in a gleaming black coffin on the back of an impeccable shiny old Holden Kingswood ute - Gemma, his daughter, rode on the back of the first Harley and looked so little and alone. Her older sister committed suicide ten years ago under the Bulls Bridge on her 15th birthday, then her mum and dad split up and her mum moved down south; recently Gemma has had a little boy of her own. She's 21, four days older than our daughter. It was in the maternity home that we met and the girls went through kindy, primary school and intermediate together. Dave dropped dead from a heart attack. He was only 47.

After about two years of not keeping up the family communications with the various cousins round the country, not even doing Christmas cards, I've started writing letters again. With pen and ink not on the computer so while they may be pleased to hear from me (or not!) they may have trouble reading my scrawl. It did feel good to be getting in touch again though. And I got a phone call from one cuz at the weekend though I haven't heard from the other one yet. Mind you she might still be investing her millions - it was the Lotto one! It is nice receiving mail that ain't bills.

Tired, grumpier because its now even later and no kids doing dishes. To bed, to bed.

Jaybee

Sep 5, 2006 at 20:46 o\clock

The news

by: jaybee

Mood: Tired
Listening to: Dawn chorus

The expanded version will have to wait, but here is the condensed news on the hubby.

He had his op - laproscopically assisted right hemicolectomy for you medicoholics - on Thursday last week. Came back with drips aplenty, in, out and all about, and made good progress day by day with the gradual removal of plumbing. Big milestones: Friday night, he "passed wind" - got a text while at Folk Dance night for small, it read "don't be down hearted because I have farted". Because this meant the bowel was waking up, he was then allowed food, eg soup, scrambled egg, moving gently on to more substantial stuff. Then it was removal of final drip, and walk to the door and back, with an almost vertical posture. Monday morning, the bowels (not the earth) moved!  These small things are huge achievements, its funny how perspective changes depending on circumstances. Final frontier - home on Monday afternoon. He's very weak and tired but looks a lot better than he did, everybody thinks.

Yesterday we had to go back to see the surgeon who had been too busy to see Brent before discharge, and get the histology reports from the surgery. A mere formality we thought but, no. Another bombshell for us. The lymph nodes that were removed showed cancer in them. This means the possibility that it has spread further, so the next step is a CT scan to look for more, then six months chemotherapy (which changes the chances of the cancer returning from 50/50 to maybe 60/40 or even 70/30 against). Can you believe it? We are having trouble with this one, had so pinned our hopes on the surgery being the end of it all. Not going to do the why thing cos all that does is your head in. Just taking a day at a time.

Sore eyes today, and must get more tissues.

More later.

Jaybee

Sep 2, 2006 at 09:02 o\clock

The operation

by: jaybee

Mood: Disorganised
Listening to: Dunc watching TV in my bed

Decided to blog then thought I’d better do it as a document first because I hate to think of getting everything down then losing it thanks to some site gremlin or my computer as it’s doing its daily scan, but it doesn’t feel the same for all that, doing it this way. Should put the microwave timer on too because I know I have verbal, er, typing, diarrhoea.

Right, the operation.

We had to be over at the hospital at 7am, which meant getting up about a quarter to six in order to get away by quarter past…Which we did, blearily. Once over there we had to do the paperwork, meet the nurse (a small, very black, Indian called Bal. He’s lovely), fill in more forms - thank goodness most had been done at the visit last week, shower, shave the very hairy belly from nipples to pubes, don white stockings (for the circulation) and attractive baby blue gown. At this point I was wondering if they’d got him down as a tranny in for nip and tuck, but Bal assured us it was standard theatre garb. I think he understood I was joking, but I forget that not everybody has my warped sense of humour. The anaesthetist popped in for a chat, then we waited..and waited….for days it seemed, but it was only till ten o’clock then they trundled my very nervous, slightly teary husband away, saying he’d be back by two.

Off I went into town, to do some mind distraction exercises. Started off at the kitchen place, expecting to browse the showroom and pick up a couple of ideas - an hour later I’d seen about thirty kitchens and had a pile of pamphlets about a foot high to browse through. Confusion reigneth, but I think price will be a major deciding factor in the final outcome. I mean, sure I’d like granite worktops with sliding pantries and soft touch drawer closures and double ovens and this and that but one has to be practical, we need some dollars left to build the rest of the house too! And oh my god, how is the woman who lived with bare light bulbs for twelve years because she couldn’t decide on light shades going to decide on a whole houseful of things? The noise you are hearing is the sprouting of grey hairs. So anyway, after I left there I wandered into town, but my mind wasn’t really in gear and I just drifted around wasting time. Bought a pair of pj bottoms for Brent in case he runs out, got a summer blouse for work, and that’s about it. Went and had some yummy quiche at McCafe and suddenly it was quarter to two and I found myself skedaddling back to the hospital in case I wasn’t there when Brent arrived back.

Sat in the lounge which is a good lookout point for passing traffic, and waited, and waited, and waited…..at three o’clock I got myself a cup of tea and was just wandering down to Brent’s room in case I’d missed him when I spotted the surgeon, so I introduced myself and asked how it had gone. The procedure had gone well, he said, but it was definitely a cancer. Thunk. I think he said “a cancer” not “Cancer” - you tell me, is there a difference? I’ll hang on to the first one, it sounds less, well, you know. Oh, I said. What does that mean, where do we go from here? We wait now, for lab results (more waiting). We have to wait to see if there is cancer in the lymph nodes they took out, and if there isn’t, fine, but if there is, we’ll move on from there. Does that mean Chemotherapy? It might. (God, it’s like getting blood out of a stone.) When will we get results back? Up to a week. What next? Just recover from surgery first. Then we’ll see what needs to happen, probably start with a scan. I’ll pop in to see Brent later.

Ok. It’s there. It’s happened, the sky is falling - he doesn’t know yet and I’m not going to tell him.

I slunk down to Brent’s room feeling like I’d been hit with a fekkin great sledgehammer, trying to arrange my face impassively in case he was there - but he wasn’t, so I drank my cuppa, blew my nose, wrote in my journal and waited some more. He finally turned up about half past three, as my phone was coming to life with “how is he” texts. Poor darling was dozy, and bristling with tubes. Tubes up his nose, in his arm, out his willy, but he was awake enough to say “I’m glad to see you, I didn’t think I was going to”….My big, strong, invincible macho man. He dozed off and on for the next hour or so then a nurse came in - new nurse, different shift, really neat lady - and talked about this and that, what we could expect in the next day or so, breathing exercises, her family, our family, how to laugh and cough and how not to, how to call for help, the pain thing, the drugs thing, concentrating on recovery and building up to things slowly, the importance of passing wind - lots of stuff. She’d had her mum go through the same op last year and was very good at reassuring Brent and empathising with me. After she left we were just like an old (really old) married couple in a rest home, sitting/lying holding hands and dozing. Awwww…. I left him to sleep about half six and came on home - back to normal life, straight to Scouts where I collected Greg, and Duncan once Mike dropped him off, then pick up tea on the way home (F&C) and try to eat it while talking on two phones at once it seemed, everybody wanting to know the latest. It was quite late by the time I finished, and I just flopped on the floor and watched the stupid programmes the boys had on that they’re not usually allowed to watch downstairs (Pulp Sport and some cartoon thing). They caught me laughing several times, I won’t live it down for a while.

Damn, the beeper’s gone off.

I'll be back later