Well, the dude has c-diff again.
He didn't feel that great this morning, then was complaining about achiness all day. He thought he might be coming down with a cold. I'm thinking, "All this fuss for a cold....typical guy. You think you're achy NOW? Old age is coming quicker than you think, mister. Just wait to see how achy you get THEN." He stayed home and was the King of Mopey. Around 5 o'clock he comes over to me and says he thinks he knows what the problem is....the c-diff is back. He's been in the bathroom three times in the last hour. So I tell him to page the gastroenterologist in Philly right away and try to get some more flagyl out of her. He's got a follow-up appointment scheduled for Monday anyway but he can't keep going in that condition like he did last time. So she wasn't on call tonight but he got someone else on the team to return the page who asked him a few questions and then said one of two things is going on: either he needed to take the flagly for a longer period of time or they might have to try another anti-biotic. Jim stumbled over the name....v-something....van....vuh..., so I chime in, "Vancomycin!" and he says, "Yeah! That's it!". Damn, I should have been a doctor. But I'd be the first person to fall on the floor watching a surgery...I'd probably barf....so that's not for me.
So I picked up his drugs tonight...they're double to dosage for double the amount of time. I'm going to hurry up and schedule his manometry study before he's off the drugs and God forbid gets sick again. I've read that some people can take a year to get this crap out of their system.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Wednesday July 18, 2007 10:00 PM
Jim's pretty much back to work now. He's working this crazy shift where he gets on the helpline from 7 to 8 a.m. to support the Keasbey warehouse because they're on summer hours now. Then he hops in the shower and goes into the office. Once in awhile when he has a doctor's appointment he works from home. Now we're in the process of slowly rescheduling all the procedures he missed because he had the c-diff and was in the hospital. He got his carotid duplex (which is a kind of sonogram of his arteries) and his chest x-ray rescheduled for next week. After that I've got to get him in for his manometry study in Philly. That's where they're planning on checking the muscle stength in his throat. From that the ENT will come up with a bullshit diagnosis to get him back into another 60 days of vital stim therapy. He was also supposed to get his teeth pulled last week, but that got put off too. Since his local dentist who was to make the overdentures bowed out because she was in over her head we've got to wait for a new pre-determination of benefits to come back before we can schedule that. We need to know exactly how much this is going to cost us to make sure we have the money. The day he gets his teeth pulled he'll get his throat stretched. Maybe between that and the teeth and more therapy he'll be able to eat again.
Here's a sample of stuff that Jim can eat. He can;t have any bread or anything that's the consistency of bread because he can;t push it down. So he can scoop the contents out of an egg roll. He's had success with the following things if he douses them in sauce and cuts it up into little pieces: chicken, pastrami, the meat from a cheesesteak, meatloaf. He eats a lot of Cream of Wheat. Anything to drink. Chocolate milk is one of his favorites. I found these Godiva coffee/chocolate things at the supermarket. He can have macaroni salad and macaroni and chesse, but not regular macaroni with sauce. He can have mashed potatoes. Today he ate some egg salad. And he drinks lots and lots of Boost. Believe it or not, when he had his blood work done the only nutrient he was lacking was potassium, so I keep insisting he eat a banana every day. I also got him vitamin pills. But part of the problem is that he can only put teeny tiny little pieces of stuff in his mouth. So he can;t really taste anything. Think about it. When you eat you usually take a good sized bite, so you can taste your food. If you could only take a little nibble at a time you wouldn't really taste it. These things that he's eating are helping sustain what little weight he has, but they're not going to help him gain back the 40-plus pounds he lost. You can see his bones, especially the ribs across his back. I'm afraid to snap him in half if I hug him.
And I, who have been putting off everything medical I need to do, actually had a dentist appointment last night and about five minutes before I leave I remember that I now have a mitral valve prolapse and I forgot to tell the dentist I’m supposed to pre-medicate before having any dental work done. I used to think that was bullshit but Dr. Altimore was pissed at me the last time I went there and told him I got my teeth cleaned without telling my dentist this little detail. “It only takes one time to get endocarditis and die, you know,” he said. I was going to keep my mouth shut and go to the dentist anyway, because I live dangerously….I even use the public restroom without putting toilet paper on the seat…but I decided in the end I’d better say something. The way my luck is going I’ll be the one in a million it will actually happen to. So much for getting my teeth done. I had to reschedule.
I also need to make a little announcement here. Anyone familiar with Howard Stern? You know how his first wife used to bitch and moan about him talking too much about their personal lives? Well, that's what I'm getting from Jim. It's part of the story....it's part of the drama...and without it the story is just not the same. So let me back up a little. Many people who have read this have told me I should try to put this into a book and sell it. I used to write a LOT as a kid...plays, songs, poetry, short stories, and I have many an unfinished novel....a million stories in my head...but now I spend all of my time writing memos and letters to vendors. When I went to see my Aunt in Texas we were talking about the blog, but she doesn't have internet access and is not computer savvy, so I thought it would be nice to take the whole thing chronologically, dump it into a Word document, and send it to her so she could read it. Then that got me thinking. Maybe with some cleaning up, and some elaboration here and there where I had gotten a little too dry and medical, I just might be able to market this thing. What I printed for my Aunt was already about 57,000 words and 105 pages. But apparently getting your shit published doesn't work like it did in the old days. You can't submit your work to a publisher directly...you need a literary agent, and many of those won't work with you unless you're an established writer. See the irony there? But there's many that will look at a first work. If what you have fits their genre and they think they might be able to sell it, then they give you editing pointers and shop it for you. So I've found a professional literary agents' organization, gotten a list, and I've started to submit it. I've gotten two rejections so far, but there's three hundred more agents to go, so I'll keep plodding away. What have I got to lose? Nothing.
So as for the Jim-sensitivity thing, I'll keep this blog to the facts. The drama is going in the manuscipt. There's alreaady a lot in there that was not gone into in a major way on this blog. For instance, remember the asshole Jim was referring to when he came to in the ICU after he coded? That drama is in the manuscript. There's also a lot more to the insurance company fight than what was put here. There's also a lot more personal drama than what you'll see here. I asked Jim yesterday, "What are you going to do if this thing gets published? There'll be a lot more people seeing this than just a handful of friends." He said he'd be o.k. with it then because I'd be making money. We'll see. I've probably got a snowballs' chance in hell but it's worth trying. There's got to be SOME positive side to this, and I haven't won the Mega Millions yet.
Here's a sample of stuff that Jim can eat. He can;t have any bread or anything that's the consistency of bread because he can;t push it down. So he can scoop the contents out of an egg roll. He's had success with the following things if he douses them in sauce and cuts it up into little pieces: chicken, pastrami, the meat from a cheesesteak, meatloaf. He eats a lot of Cream of Wheat. Anything to drink. Chocolate milk is one of his favorites. I found these Godiva coffee/chocolate things at the supermarket. He can have macaroni salad and macaroni and chesse, but not regular macaroni with sauce. He can have mashed potatoes. Today he ate some egg salad. And he drinks lots and lots of Boost. Believe it or not, when he had his blood work done the only nutrient he was lacking was potassium, so I keep insisting he eat a banana every day. I also got him vitamin pills. But part of the problem is that he can only put teeny tiny little pieces of stuff in his mouth. So he can;t really taste anything. Think about it. When you eat you usually take a good sized bite, so you can taste your food. If you could only take a little nibble at a time you wouldn't really taste it. These things that he's eating are helping sustain what little weight he has, but they're not going to help him gain back the 40-plus pounds he lost. You can see his bones, especially the ribs across his back. I'm afraid to snap him in half if I hug him.
And I, who have been putting off everything medical I need to do, actually had a dentist appointment last night and about five minutes before I leave I remember that I now have a mitral valve prolapse and I forgot to tell the dentist I’m supposed to pre-medicate before having any dental work done. I used to think that was bullshit but Dr. Altimore was pissed at me the last time I went there and told him I got my teeth cleaned without telling my dentist this little detail. “It only takes one time to get endocarditis and die, you know,” he said. I was going to keep my mouth shut and go to the dentist anyway, because I live dangerously….I even use the public restroom without putting toilet paper on the seat…but I decided in the end I’d better say something. The way my luck is going I’ll be the one in a million it will actually happen to. So much for getting my teeth done. I had to reschedule.
I also need to make a little announcement here. Anyone familiar with Howard Stern? You know how his first wife used to bitch and moan about him talking too much about their personal lives? Well, that's what I'm getting from Jim. It's part of the story....it's part of the drama...and without it the story is just not the same. So let me back up a little. Many people who have read this have told me I should try to put this into a book and sell it. I used to write a LOT as a kid...plays, songs, poetry, short stories, and I have many an unfinished novel....a million stories in my head...but now I spend all of my time writing memos and letters to vendors. When I went to see my Aunt in Texas we were talking about the blog, but she doesn't have internet access and is not computer savvy, so I thought it would be nice to take the whole thing chronologically, dump it into a Word document, and send it to her so she could read it. Then that got me thinking. Maybe with some cleaning up, and some elaboration here and there where I had gotten a little too dry and medical, I just might be able to market this thing. What I printed for my Aunt was already about 57,000 words and 105 pages. But apparently getting your shit published doesn't work like it did in the old days. You can't submit your work to a publisher directly...you need a literary agent, and many of those won't work with you unless you're an established writer. See the irony there? But there's many that will look at a first work. If what you have fits their genre and they think they might be able to sell it, then they give you editing pointers and shop it for you. So I've found a professional literary agents' organization, gotten a list, and I've started to submit it. I've gotten two rejections so far, but there's three hundred more agents to go, so I'll keep plodding away. What have I got to lose? Nothing.
So as for the Jim-sensitivity thing, I'll keep this blog to the facts. The drama is going in the manuscipt. There's alreaady a lot in there that was not gone into in a major way on this blog. For instance, remember the asshole Jim was referring to when he came to in the ICU after he coded? That drama is in the manuscript. There's also a lot more to the insurance company fight than what was put here. There's also a lot more personal drama than what you'll see here. I asked Jim yesterday, "What are you going to do if this thing gets published? There'll be a lot more people seeing this than just a handful of friends." He said he'd be o.k. with it then because I'd be making money. We'll see. I've probably got a snowballs' chance in hell but it's worth trying. There's got to be SOME positive side to this, and I haven't won the Mega Millions yet.
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