Guess this post is really late in happening.
Oops. I’m going to tell you – again – that I’m going to try to be better – again – and maybe I mean it this time. I have so much going on this year that at least I have a lot to talk about.
2017 recap.
Y’all, 2017 sucked ass. Both CJ and I got sick in January/February. He got Bronchitis, I got Pneumonia. Except that I got better and he didn’t. And as the shittiest doctor I have ever seen managed to repeatedly be incompetent, CJ’s symptoms got worse. Blood sugar all over the place to the point his A1C (long term diabetes number) got to about 15. Normal is under 7. His was FIF. TEEN. He started retaining fluid. He got a cane because he couldn’t walk without it. He fell. Three times. And hey, I don’t have the ability to pick him back up, which is a really shit thing to find out in the middle of a parking lot. (Fortunately, every time he fell over, a random Mexican showed up to pick him up. … Seriously. And they won’t take no for an answer. Thanks guys, whoever you are. Muchas, Muchas Gracias!)
Between March and June the “doc” ran enough tests to do more than a complete physical and declared him really healthy. That doc should return his diploma back to cracker Jack and ask for his fucking dollar back.
He should also refrain from practicing medicine on so much as a teddy bear. Even a teddy bear deserves better care.
He prescribed a dose of water pills lower than you can get over the counter at walmart. Keep this in mind in a minute.
Fast forward to June 29th. Day three of me begging and pleading and yelling and crying and trying to get him to a hospital. I was trying to figure out if I could drag him outside and load him under duress. I’d spent the last two nights sitting up and watching him sleep and wondering if he would die before the stubbornness fucked off enough to get him help. It was 12:30 AM on the 30th when I said “I’m really done being nice about this. Get your fucking fat ass up off the fucking floor and go to the hospital. I’m not asking.”
“I’m trying.”
“If you were trying, you’d be upright. Quit being an asshole.”
He tried again. Several times. And I couldn’t even see his muscles flex.
The voice that replied wasn’t his. It wasn’t stubborn and strong. It was… In a way it was calm. It was weird. It’s like having somebody dying and complaining for a week about how bright the room was and then all of a sudden the light is the one thing that makes sense. So when he turned is head, looked me in the eyes best he could, and said “Call an ambulance,” I think we both took a deep breath first, and I cried for a solid minute before I could manage to make the call. It was sort of like the end of a hostage situation.
The guy who got out of the fire truck first was a fucking asshole. Mirrored sunglasses at midnight, bitching because CJ is fat. There were Five FUCKING People between the ambulance and firetruck. If you can’t handle 300lbs between five people, quit your fucking job. Then again, I don’t think this fucker could handle his dick on his own, so why am I surprised. The only thing that stopped me from punching the arrogant sonfoabitch was the fact that I had a hospital to get to. And CJ mattered a whole lot more.
I’ll spare you the rest of the story. Let’s just say that if the person doing the catheter says “It won’t hurt. Ha ha ha” that it will cause so much pain an immobile man can lift two people off a gurney at the same time. If a doctor says “I’m not counting those” when you ask to have a problem quantified, you should be fucking terrified. And reinflating a lung is apparently the worst thing ever. CJ was a total asshole that day, and for once, I didn’t yell at him.
The end result ended up being blood clots (later estimated between 100 and 150), 115 lbs of fluid retention gone in 2 weeks*, including pulling some off with a drain through his back, and a total of 37 days in the hospital (a week of which was in the ccu) and rehabilitation. Thanks to a go fund me, we weren’t homeless after the ordeal, but MetLife could die in a fire and I would happily sit on my fire extinguisher. Because apparently fucking dead isn’t sick enough to get any medical approved. (And I keep saying fucking dead because the new PCP shook CJ’s hand and said he’d never met a dead man before and the nurses and doctors at the hospital have repeatedly given him an estimate of dead in 24 to 48 hours.)
I know I am leaving stuff out, but the gist is there. He was almost dead and I don’t ever want to see him again.
The diagnosis included 115lbs of fluid retention that had opened up drainage in his legs and caused wounds and infections. Blood clots to the point that the doc absolutely refused to try to count them (the 100ish estimate came later). A collapsed lung (bad doc said his lungs were as clear as a freeway at nighttime… He’s a fucking idiot), and Pneumonia in the one that wasn’t totally collapsed (oh, and it was trying to collapse), apparently a total lack of potassium(one day they gave it to him three ways at once), and more. It was shit.
The good news is that he got better. Eventually.
But first, he spent 37 days between the hospital and a rehab facility conveniently located directly across the street from the back driveway of our apartment. Seriously. I walked there in the rain one day because it was so close.
He was getting better when I had a car accident. With him in the car. It wasn’t my fault – some jackass turned sideways and went across four lanes of traffic. I ran out of room to avoid him. But my car was totaled. And he was on blood thinners, so I was terrified. I made him get checked out in the ambulance just in case. Everything turned out to be okay, but I needed the peace of mind, you know?
Then the new doc, the good one decided he didn’t like the look of the Diabetic ulcer (he had two, but the one on the side of his foot was twice as big as the one on the back) and ordered surgery. Yay. Because hospital again. At least this time Met Life paid.
For the surgery, they told us they were going to try really hard to make sure he still had two good feet when all was said and done, but they warned us against stuff.. Amputation came up, and that wasn’t something that either of us wanted. But we agreed that they needed to do what they had to and we didn’t want to go through this shit again.
They shaved the 5th metatarsal and part of the bone it connects to (cuboid?), and while part of the ligament was disconnected, fortunately most of it was still there and he can still walk. Turns out when an infection gets to the bone it just dissolves into mush. Yay.
Oh, and to overly complicate all of *that* – the morning he was supposed to be in the hospital, he went outside to make sure everything was ready in the car and got carjacked at gunpoint in our fucking drive. They took everything. His car, his wallet, his phone, his laptop and headphones and kindle and our fucking clean clothes that I hadn’t been able to carry upstairs yet. They took the bag I carry every day. Phone chargers and all kinds of shit.
And his fucking gun. That useless piece of shit had the fucking audacity to walk Through MY FUCKING APARTMENT BUILDING and steal from us at gunpoint. I hope he ends up somebody’s bitch in prison some day and gets passed around for a fucking pack of smokes.
As I write this, he’s still finishing recovery. The second hospital stay was about a week, followed by more treatments as outpatient – including a failed try at Bariatric – daily IV infusions that I had to do at home, wound care, etc. It’s finally almost healed. He’s walking again. Soon, for the first time since June, he may actually get to wear a fucking pair of shoes. And I will cry like a baby. Because we deserve this.
I got a new to me car at Christmas, and ended up snowed in Ohio for a few days. They got a record storm – Erie, PA got 65+ inches in under 48 hours. That’s a pile taller than me. We got about half that much. That’s more than enough. We’re still waiting for him to get his replaced. Soon, I hope. Because reasons.
I’ll post about the first part of this year in a different post. I’ve surpassed 1500 words already and I think that’s enough for now.
*edited because I’m a dork. One week in CCU, two weeks in hospital total.
Mandi M. Lynch 