Hi. I’m squinting at the clock (it’s about 12:45 Monday afternoon) and I just woke up. While I take my breakfast meds — a fistful of pills that includes Gabapentin, two Hydrocodones, Metoprolol and three Lasix tablets — with a strawberry meal replacement shake for elderly diabetics, I would like to include some prose, with a more serious turn, that I failed to add to my most recent Howdygram post due to being sidetracked by Errol Flynn movies at the last minute. (That’s one of the longest, and most awkward, sentences I’ve ever written.)
So I’ll get serious
now instead, okay?
I would like to write about LOSS.
Many of you may already know that, due to crippling foot pain (from gout, plantar fasciitis and bone spurs in both heels), arthritis, diabetes, diabetic peripheral neuropathy, edema, incurable infections (cellulitis, kidney/urinary tract) and congestive heart failure, I haven’t been able to stand or walk since spring 2018, at which time I wound up immobile, bedridden at home in a
genuine hospital bed, catheterized and living under the care of a hospice organization. This wild and crazy lifestyle has been going on for 18 months, after previously being
almost bedridden on a contour chair (in exactly the same spot as the hospital bed) for four years with a portable commode nearby.
Let’s just say I haven’t been able to get around much for the last several years. (And I poop in a bedpan now.)
The amount of “loss” it’s taken to get to this point has been nothing short of colossal. Overall
mobility (i.e., not being able to stand up or even leave the house) and
personal freedom (where and how I poop) aside, I’ve also lost about 95% of my enjoyment for
food, because my taste buds died from advanced neuropathy more than a year ago and there’s almost nothing left that I can (or want to) eat.
Thank God for hot and sour soup. Sam brings home a large order for me every week from China City. I’m addicted.
Let’s do something light and fluffy for a minute … let’s look at a few
FREE FONTS! I’ve got a short list for you tonight with the spotlight on two bold and fancy scripts (“Loguetown,” “Glarious”) with lots of swashy things, and three attractive display fonts. I’ll include download links below the graphic in case you want to add these to your collection or stockpile a few for early holiday gifts. Enjoy …
It’s been a depressing, disastrous evening here for bedridden old women with catheters (i.e., yours truly), but before I tell you what happened you should probably read an earlier
Howdygram post with some background information explaining that Sam removed my catheter on November 2 during a medical emergency (searing pain from burning urinary tract spasms), after which I lapsed into unconsciousness for 48 hours.
Five days later my hospice medical team inserted a new Foley catheter, but that didn’t turn out to be the smartest next step for me because six hours ago those searing urinary tract spasms came back! Frankly, I hoped I’d be pain-free for several
months, not a handful of
days, so I begged Sam to yank my catheter
IMMEDIATELY … and he did. (Thank you, Sammy.) The pain is gone. Of course now I’m stuck in bed on a gigantic “wee-wee pad” until we can figure out Plan B.
We’ll text the hospice’s director of nursing on Tuesday morning to find out what she recommends.
Adult diapers?
Kindly stay tuned for the next chapter of The Applesauce Diaries, but please feel free to resume your normal daily routine in the meantime.
Thank you for reading this. Have you remembered the Alamo lately?
No comments:
Post a Comment