And lounge I did yesterday. I seriously didn't do squat other than play Tree of Tranquility on my Wii. I was so inactive, I felt no need for my usual nap or two even. Although I did get up and make some 7 layer bars to take with me on Thursday for Sam. I promised him cookies for being so sweet when he removed my stitches, drain, and staples. And of course the visiting nurse (VNS) came.
This was the third different nurse they've sent to see me now. I like her best of all. Her name is Stephanie. She's young, funny, and knows what she's doing. She asked me all usual sorts of questions, we reviewed what I've been doing, and she took my vital signs. Towards the end of the visit we were talking about how often suctioning should be done and when the mister should be used, etc. I told her that I'm feeling my way through things based on how my body feels and I told her that I think I'm getting the hang of things, slowly but surely. She snorted at me. She said there's no slowly or surely about it. She said that I'm all over this and that I'm doing absolutely everything that I'm supposed to be doing. She wishes the rest of her patients were as on top of things as I am. Gold star, please. ;-)
So long as she was here, I showed her the weird bump that's two inches to the right of my PEG. I thought is might be part of the PEG inside of my stomach twisting around but she says the bump is from the Hepperdin (sp?) shot I got in the hospital. I told her I got one of those every day while I was in the hospital (so, 6-7 of them) and only have one bump. She said that's the way it goes. They just manage to hit something just right and it lumps up for 2-3 weeks. She showed me the needle mark right in the middle of the lump. I was relieved to hear that's all it was and that it will eventually go away.
I heard back from HR about that end date for my short term disability. She said as that date gets closer, the insurance company will call the doctors for a status on my health at which point they will extend the end date. She said that's likely to happen a couple of times during my absence. Phew. That was a load off my mind!
Boss guy sent me a 'hi' e-mail yesterday. Wants to come see me. I tried wooing him into being my driver for one of my upcoming appointments. He isn't available for the first two but he wants me to let him know when I get the third appointment set up, he's hoping he can help me out with that one. He also offered to 'force' one of his employees to help me out with rides. Ha! Very sweet but I have a handful of coworkers who love me enough that they'll haul my ass around a time or two until my damn neck starts working again. H has stepped up to the plate for this Thursday. I told him I already know it's going to be a long appointment because Michelle wants to piggy back her hour long therapy session with me onto the back of my follow up appointment with Dr. van der Sloot. So, he just needs to dump me off and I can text him when I'm done. He signed his e-mail with: President and CEO of HHAT Company (haul her ass transport). Funny, funny guy.
I feel like I should get back into my format with health updates followed by fun stuff. I've been kind of jumping all around with these blog posts. So, let's make up a list of things we expect to get better, shall we?
Need Improvement:
- Stiffness and loss of some leg function
- Drooling/can't swallow/can't eat normally
- Open neck wound
- Stiffness and loss of neck motion
- Weakness in forward/backward motion of neck
- Weakness in right shoulder
- Shooting ear pain
- Can't talk/Need speaking valve installed
- Missing a tooth
- Chipmunk face
- Need to be fitted for trach tube
- Need to build up some weight/muscle tone
That seems to sum up my body at the moment.
Other random thoughts for the day.......
I spent ~2 hours on Amazon last night/this morning. I was looking at scarves. I think I'm going to have to go through and overhaul my entire wardrobe. Again. This time to accommodate the stoma. I'm glad we're moving in on the cooler weather now so that scarves won't look silly. I can't really start playing with my wardrobe though until I stop leaking. For now, I've been wearing elastic shorts and tank tops on a daily basis. Or today, with it being cooler out, I have on yoga pants with the zippered hoodie that JBB sent me. When you do a search for 'scarf' on Amazon, 400 pages pop up. I made it through the first 20 pages. Yeesh.
I think I've been poisoning myself all week. My mouth has been tasting kind of chemically/funny. I realized that walking around with a wash cloth in my mouth 24/7 to catch drool is all fine and dandy but I probably should be washing them in hot water only and not using both detergent and fabric softener. I re-washed all of them yesterday and I have to say, I'm already able to tell the difference.
Speaking of drool, that was the one thing that came out of Stephanie's mouth yesterday that annoyed me. She seems to think that the drooling is all in my head. That it might feel like I'm drooling when I'm not. What a load of crap. I told her that I leaned over to pick up a basket of freshly laundered clothes the other day and accidentally drooled right into the basket. Ticked me off. My drooling is not imaginary, believe me.
I'm still torn as to whether babydoll and I are going on our cruise October 5 or not. I'm starting to calm down about the whole being on the water thing. And I really don't want to miss yet another vacation. There's been way too much of that happening in the past year and a half. And once chemo/radiation start, I'm going to be absolutely useless. So last night we went on-line and we cancelled the (3) excursions that we had booked that were specifically small boat/water excursions and we re-booked (2) new excursions. One is an off-road Jeep adventure and the other is a day of sight-seeing, shopping, and beach time.
Oh! I just realized that as of today, it's been 8 months since my darling of a man entered my life! Of course with him, there doesn't need to be a reason to celebrate and bring me flowers. He brought me these yesterday, just because. :-)
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