Thursday, April 05, 2007

Well here we are,



( he is lovely isn't he??)
Only a little over a
month from our daughter's wedding here in Port Macquarie (Australia)... today Don's doctor came to the house with all his notes and Xrays and a very serious look upon his baby face...and I tell you I felt like laughing at him when he came in all sympathetic and "caring" but I couldn't because we need him.
It appears now that Don has had a lot more fluid build up in his lungs, also new infection ...hm wonder did that come from when they tapped the lung in early March...and then forgot about us...
Don literally begged his GP for another CT scan which he finally had done on Monday although the GP said "wait another couple of weeks" Duh!
So this scan showed up lots more fluid, infection and lso a pocket of air which the Gp believed was caused whe they tapped the lung ...in early March.

The upshot of this is they now need to get Don down to Sydney next week by Air ambulance (he is too frail to go by car or commercial airline...) but before they do that there will be a day in the local hospital draining fluid and getting rid of that air pocket so his bloody lungs cope with the bloody pressure oin the air ambulance...
So! Back to bloody filthy Royal North Shore Spinal Unit...the capital of Golden Staph and infection... The capital of aircondtioning vents with threads of something alien hanging out of them....waving in the breezes of air I worry about breathing. They have whole wards of the Spinal Unit given over to MRSA
(Golden Staph) and so much so that the docs don't even bother to wash hands any more.
I used to be a hospital cleaner (one of my first jobs) in 1972-73...in a Catholic hospital where Ajax was used, Metho was used, and we scrubbed and had adequate time for proper claening and almost no cross infection so I know what I am talking about. Modern big city hospitals are filthy...filthy beyond belief and proper hand washing is a joke...its all wipe wipe wipe with miracle solutions which are supposed to kill everything but germs are now immune to...
Don's not saying much but I know he is upset...there is a bit of concern that some of the results of that CT scan and blood tests point to lung cancer....so we are just hoping...he wants sooo much to be at Melissa's wedding, to escort her down the aisle and say something nice to her, about her later on...hopefully he will and hopefully he willstill be alive when the youngest marries...
the doc wrote us up a letter for this holiday weekend just in case there was an emergency and we needed to go to emergency... he said it was possible/likely...hope not.
I guess I am on auto right now...

(Melissa, Don and I in March)
But tonight when we go to bed, I will lay beside my lovely cantankerous husband and put my hand on his forehead, chest and neck (he has no feeling past there) and he will use his arm to draw my hand up into the hollow of his neck and we will sleep without worry as we do often.
He will talk in his sleep and I may snore a little (I do not snore he says I do but I do not)...old Thorn the red Kelpie will sleep quietly near our door and all will be right with our world and thats all we can effect... later on things may get out of our control...but now is all any one of us have got...and it is better to live now, draw comfort now, be stupid now, silly now, angry now whatever...
tomorrow takes care of itself I reckon.

8 comments:

jin said...

Ahhh...I've been thinking about you all day & hoping for a post when I got online!
Wondering how everything was going & hoping for the best for all of you.

I know my hospital experiences pale in frequency & comparison to yours...but I can still read your last paragraph and understand just what you mean.
I think the more a good, caring, enlightened person deals with cold medical professionals the more we appreciate the smallest of joys. I notice myself smiling genuinely more than I ever have, even though my life has been more difficult than it ever has been before!

Those are wonderful pictures of all of you!

Oh, I know just what you mean about those 'spray foams' everyone in the hospitals use...they do the same here. I have a semi-thin pair of pink dressy winter gloves...every time I went in that hospital I kept them on (It was cold outside so I didn't look that out of place! LOL!). I don't care how weird they thought I was; in 3 months I did not catch any cold or flu that was travelling the hospital halls even though most everyone I came in contact with was sick.

I'll be thinkiong of you the next few days. Please take care!!!
:-)

rosemary said...

What a beautiful family....of course you don't snore, women are not capable of that type of bodily function. Your last comments about going to sleep is a lovely passage.

mirk said...

The hospitals here are just as filthy MSRA and all that. Once again we hope all goes well!!

Cazzie!!! said...

Impending swear words coming up...
well, those fuckin doctors need their heads RED!!! This is pissing me off, sorry to say, I know I am not living there with you but I can FEEL what frustration you have, I have it sometimes and I am like the handwashing NAZI at work. I even make visitors wash their hands too!!! Chemicals hurt the hands and make the skin that is suppose to be the envelope of the hands to which bugs cannot penetrate...makes you get dermatitis..so what good are they. You are right!!!
When I did a stint of work in a RAAF Hopsital, they cleaned top to bottom, left to right, upside down and changed the curtains weekly. THAT is cleaning!!
I dread walking onto a ward with yellow bins at doorways. I have been on the other side of it too, being a patient with a superbug infection. It is no fun speaking to visitors with a mask on their face and gown over their clothes.
Anyway....back to Don.... what a lucky man to have such a gorgeous family. You are just beautiful :)
I will send positive thoughts all your way for a safe trip and timely recovery. You all deserve the best.
Take no prisoners... tell them creeps like it IS!! And go hugg Don now okay :)

Sling said...

There are heroes,glorified in story and song MC.
That's a good thing,because we all need something greater than ourselves to aspire to.
..and there are they that inspire us with their courage,and fortitude.Meeting adversity with personal strength and integrity,and simple human nobility...Thanks to you and yours for your example.
A blessing on your house.

Middle Child said...

Thank you all , Jin, Rosemary Cazzie Mirk and Sling... what a luckky little vegemite I am to have such good mates.

Sometimes i fine more kindness and scompassion here on this blog than I find in real life...


We are just taking each day as it presents...like putting one foot behind the other...

thank you Jin...will be around here till Tuesday hopefuky...


thanks Rosemary fr reinforcing my knowledge that I as a woman do not snore...

MRSA ...Mirk its just a disease of the airheads...it could be fixed by real cleaning up...but oooohhh no...we need super drugs instead.

Middle Child said...

And Sling thank you so much for your understanding... its appreciated very much and rests easy

Pat said...

I have been thinking of you and Don, MC. Have not said...but am thinking, continually. Too many parallels...peace and strength to both of you.