Sunday, January 22, 2017

Frustrated and discouraging week….

Last Monday after feeling so bad all weekend, I called the doctor’s office.  The nurse said it was symptoms of dehydration.  I needed to come into the infusion center, and they would give me a liter of IV fluids.  They said this was quite common.  So, we emerged from the ice storm, hoping we could get there without a problem.  The biggest problem was getting to the car with the icy driveway.  The roads were pretty much clear – not dry, but clear.  When they anticipate ice or snow here, they treat the roads ahead of time.  What you see are these stripes over all the roads.  We had no trouble getting there at all.  It took about 2 hours to give the fluids, and I left feeling like a different person.  Amazing how quickly I got into that situation and got out of it.  The nurse told me that it might be a good idea to come in each Friday for a while to receive extra fluids. She said they give a lot of IVs, on Friday because no one wants to end up in the ER or hospital on the weekend.

Tuesday, I went back in for my 5th chemo infusion.  My lab counts were adequate, although, little by little they keep dropping each week.  This visit to the office was rather fun – if you can say chemo is fun!  There were student nurses there from the community college – the program I helped develop some 40 years ago.  I taught there 10 years before moving to Alabama.  I was more than happy to have a student.  The nurse said most of what the student needed was to interview me.  She was just the sweetest young lady, pregnant with her first baby and graduating in the spring.  She asked about how “my story”.  That’s all she needed to do – I think I wore her out telling her all that had happened to me!  I think the class she was in was psych, but she didn’t have to use any of her “therapeutic communication skills” to get me to talk!!  Anyway, that helped me to pass the time, especially during the premedication time.  When the Taxol started in, I stretched back in the recliner and took a much-needed nap since I had had no sleep the night before.

That evening, I had Guy get out his electric razor and finish off my hair. 

It had gotten to the point where, my shoulders and clothes were just covered, along with my pillow at night, getting in my mouth as I would turn over.  Now Guy and I are twins!!  It’s much easier this way to keep an eye on the current spots and to see if anything new develops – which, so far, has not, thank the Lord.  The three spots I have around the flap have sloughed their black tops off.

I didn’t sleep well that night, waking at 3 and not going back to sleep – I know it is the Dexamethesone, and I so dread taking that each week.  I can never seem to get caught up until it time to take it again.  It does help me feel better during the day (really just a false sense of good), but plays havoc on my sleeping.

Wednesday, I went to the ladies Bible study.  Since my birthday is Jan. 5th, they had a birthday cake with candles and a card!  Actually, it was a Boston cream pie, and it was soooo good!! This is the first time I’ve been here during my birthday, so it was fun to celebrate with them.  They always sent me a card when I was in Alabama.  Such a sweet group of ladies.  I just love them!!

In the afternoon, we went to McPherson to meet with the banker that loaned us the money to buy this house here in Little River.  We told him we had found a house – a 4-bedroom, 3-yr old house that had just been placed on the market by the owner.  

There is a new development area here on the outskirts of this tiny town that has 4 houses on the street.  We called and went through the house, falling in love with it.  It has a nice open concept with living room, kitchen, and dining room all one big room. 
There are three bedrooms up and one in the basement.  
There are 3 full baths.  We really thought that we could make this little 2-bedroom, 1-bath house work, but it has become terribly crowded for us, and since we are about half unpacked, it is frustrating not being able to find anything.  Part of the reason we wanted to move here was to be in between our kids and grandkids.  We wanted them to be able to come and visit and not have to stay in a hotel to do so.  If we got this house, we would have plenty of room for everyone!  It seemed reasonably priced to us (other than astronomical taxes – which you can’t seem to avoid here), so we made an offer contingent on our Alabama house selling.  They countered, and we accepted.  We were supposed to meet with them last Friday to sign the papers, but they had both been sick, so didn’t want to expose me to anything.  Now we are to meet with them Monday afternoon.

Anyway, meeting with the banker, we were easily preapproved.  Now that 1st domino in Alabama just has to fall.  When we moved here we agonized over adding onto this current house in LR, but we would have ended up with about the same amount of money in it, and still had an old house.  We couldn’t get anyone to bite on the remodel job, so I guess there was a reason.  And if we had sold the AL house early, we might have done something foolish with that money. 

Just this afternoon, the owner of the house we want to buy texted me that she knows someone who might be interested in our LR house.  WOW!  Wouldn’t that be something?    We were just going to deal with that when we had to, because it is costing us so little here.

Mark had texted me that he will be coming through with Chris on his way to soccer tournament in Dallas next week.  I really wanted them to be able to stay here, so Thursday, we worked on the 2nd bedroom to get the bed up in there.
We got it with room to spare, but I probably over did it. It’s just hard not to want to do too much when you feel a little better. 

Friday morning, I woke up pretty shaky, but it evened out as the day progressed.  I never know – some days I feel a lot better as I moved around more – other days, it causes me to feel bad – how in the world am I supposed to know???

We went to Hutch for awhile.  I needed to pick up some things at Walmart.  I used the riding cart and did OK.  I sure hate those things!  I feel like such an invalid on them, but they are a life-saver for me.  It was terribly cold in there – or so it seemed to me.  Later I would realize I had a fever.  We ate at AppleBees – one of my favorite places to eat.  I always get the grilled oriental chicken salad.  It was good, but one of the things I realized last week is the chemo is effecting my taste buds, and nothing tastes particularly good – it all just tastes bland – like I need to add a bunch of salt.  But my appetite remains good, and I still have had no nausea for which I’m VERY thankful!!!

After coming home, I took a long nap in the recliner and woke up feeling feverish.  ARGH!!  As the afternoon moved on, I knew I was in trouble again.  And here we were – Saturday night – again!!  My temperature when I woke up was 99.9, and by 7:00, it was 100.7.  The cutoff for calling the doctor is 100.5, so I put in a call to her.  She said I needed to go into the ER to be checked out.  OH, NO!!  I had fixed a little supper but couldn’t eat it all.  I just sat there and cried.  How could this be happening again???  We just came from there – a 30-minute trip.  Now it was dark, and we had the deer to contend with as we drove in.  I felt so bad for Guy – he was trying to do up the dishes, and we needed to go back out on the road again.  It seemed like there was a constant string of cars that we were meeting.  On this road across the country, you can often make that drive and maybe meet one or two cars.  Maybe that was a good thing – scare away the deer.  We arrived at the hospital about 8:00 pm.  I just knew that ER on a Saturday night would be a zoo.  There was no one in the waiting room!!!  I was taken back before Guy had time to use the restroom.  A giant battery of tests was ordered.  TWO blood cultures – one from my port, and one they had to stick my arm for.  Here I thought with this port I’d never have to be stuck in the arm again.  Boohoo!  I had
medicated my port so it would be numb.  An older man checked me into the room, and while he tried to me nice and kind of humorous, he was not what I would call “smooth”.  I was freezing, and he really did nothing to help that!
I got a very nice nurse, and the nurse practitioner that saw me was great!  I told her that I easily got sinus infections, and there seemed to be a good bit of pressure behind my eyes.  After looking in my nose, she could immediately see the inflammation.  She ordered a chest x-ray and a CT (with contrast) of my sinuses.  That seemed a little over-kill to me, but hey, let’s check it ALL out.  The CT scan required that the nurse start another IV!!  Yikes, I felt like a pin cushion!  The nurse apologized and said if she had known, she would have just started the IV before the lab tech took the blood cultures.  Oh, well, she got in OK.  The CT scan of the sinuses was OK, but she determined by the clinical symptoms that the diagnosis was sinusitis and prescribed Doxycycline for 10 days – after I finished the TWO liters of IV fluids. They were going to made sure I was well hydrated when I left.  My temperature was down to normal, and I did feel a lot better – less weak and wobbly when we left at 1:00 am.  My sister texted that she had prayed all the deer away from the trip home, and it was answered.  When we left the house, we were drying the sheets and blankets from my bed, so we had to wait for those to dry before I could make the bed and turn in.  That was OK, because we were both hungry by that time.  We went to bed at 3:38 am.

Here’s a big issue.  I never get rested from one chemo to the next.  The day before, the day of, and the day after, the steroids keep me awake and then something WHACKS me on the weekend to exhaust me.  That’s to say nothing of the chemo fatigue side effects.  I don’t know how to find the happy balance between it all.  I don’t want to just sit down and vegetate – and lose what strength I do have. But at the same time, I have to be careful to preserve what I do have.  Wish I could figure it out…..

Today, we were supposed to join the church here.  We SOOO looked forward to being able to go since we all missed last week with the ice storm.  Then there was a pot luck lunch scheduled.  These people here eat together more than the Nazarenes!  Pastor Ted came by Friday and visited with us.  The 29th of the month is a 5th Sunday, and he wanted me to give my full testimony that Sunday.  I sure hope I’ll feel up to that, but I’ll just have to play it by ear.

We haven’t been presented with a house contract this week even though I think they showed the house every day.  One bunch came back for a 2nd look, one said they were trying to decide between ours and one that had a basement.  *Sigh*

This is a hard one for me….

Trusting His Timing

Therefor humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due times. I Pet. 5:6

If you sincerely seek to be a woman [man] of faith, then you must learn to trust God’s timing.  You will be sorely tempted, however, to do otherwise.  Because you are a fallible human being, you are impatient for things to happen.  But, God knows better.

God has created a world that unfolds according to His own timetable, not ours…….thank goodness!  We might make a terrible mess of things.  God does not.

God’s plan does not always happen in the way that we would like or at the time of our own choosing.  Our task – as believing Christians who trust in a benevolent, all-knowing Father – is to wait patiently for God to reveal Himself.  And reveal Himself He will.  Always.  But until God’s perfect plan is made known, we must walk in faith and never lose hope.  And we must continue to trust Him.  Always.

When we read of the Biblical leaders, we see that it was not uncommon for God to ask them to wait, not just a day or two, but for years until God was ready for them to act.  From New Every Morning.

Oh, how I hate waiting…..


But as always…….i remain in His hands….

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