Ordinary (?) Days

I've been quite busy this week. Nothing serious, though, thank God! Just routine stuff like attending soccer and volleyball games, refilling cupboards and fridges, things like that. No hospital visits since we came home. Yey! Mark is doing okay. Not great, at all. His belly is bloated with fluid, his blood pressure is high, and his color is ... ghastly. Sort of a purplish gray. But he's able to be up and around (although he walks like an old man) and was even able to spend some time with the boys today, which they loved, of course!

Below, find excerpts copied from a recent email, written to a friend earlier this evening. (Yes, I'm cheating, I know, but ... oh, well!)

Just in from a walk with the boys and the dog. My intentions were, perhaps, less than noble. I wanted to wear them out enough to be able to get some quiet time to write to you, since we have plans (such as they are) for later this evening. Nothing much, just watching that movie with Kayte, a day later. She's off at a Beaver's game with the Sweeneys but will be home around 6ish. I'm hoping we'll be able to have a "family dinner." Brendan begs for them, and it's fairly rare--once or twice a week, at most--that we are all home/awake at the same time and get to sit down and eat together. So ... hopefully tonight. I'm not making anything fancy, just bread from the bread maker and red potato/leek soup. But it's a gray, drizzly day here, perfect for freshly baked bread, slathered with butter, and a big bowl of hot soup. I LOVE this kind of day. Sure, there's a certain appeal to summer, and spring is definitely full of beauty and promise, but this is the kind of day I like best (which is probably a good thing, since in Oregon, we have a lot of them!). My mom told me once that she heard somewhere (can't say whether it's true or not) that there is a higher rate of suicide in places where it is almost always sunny. At first that struck me as odd. Isn't sunshine supposed to make you happy? But then I got to thinking about it. Sunshine makes you (well, makes ME) feel energetic and so on, but it also drives me to do, do, do. I feel like I have to be UP. A day like today allows me to just kind of ... move at my natural pace, which (as I was told frequently during my growing up years) is "slower than molasses in January."

I had to take the pup out this morning, too, so that I could finish the last few pages of _The Ghost Writer_. I just took him out front, though, and threw his squeaky basketball, which is the size of his head. It's SO funny seeing him drag that thing back to me, over and over and over ... until finally I bring him in and he goes for a big, sloppy drink of water and ... collapses on the floor by my chair.

Yesterday ... what an "adventure"! The home health nurse had come and found Mark's blood pressure too high and his fluid retention in need of attention. So she called Mark's primary care, Dr. S. We inherited him when Mark's former doctor retired. He is ... not good. I haven't heard anyone within the system say that they like him. Of course, most people don't come right out and say that they don't. Not the medical professionals, anyway, but we've definitely gotten the idea that being his patient is not really a good thing, but Mark hasn't changed because ... well, who knows why? It didn't seem to matter much, anyway, since most of his care has been handled by Dr. Broberg and his team. Well, yesterday, we realized that it's HIGH time we find a new primary care doc. After rush hour traffic cleared up, I took the boys and drove to Newberg to pick up his prescriptions. Of what we had requested, they had gotten ONE of them right (i.e. the one that didn't need the doctor's authorization). But we got a bottle of Vicodin (which we already have) instead of valium (which Mark needs, if the pain hits badly). And he prescribed a new blood pressure medication that was put on the market FIFTY FREAKING YEARS ago! In other words, it's the "rough draft." Many newer medications have been developed since then that have far fewer side effects, the side effects to this particular drug being ... oh, tachycardia, palpitations, nausea, vomiting ... all the things he ALREADY HAS!!! And the Lasix? You know, the medication he NEEDS to get rid of the fluid that's building up in his body? They didn't send over the authorization for that one at all. It was past office hours by then. I had done my part (or so I thought) by getting everything to the pharmacist/doctor's office well before evening. And the nurse called! Hello??? Maybe a patient on home health care who is in heart failure and whose nurse has called in to say he's retaining too much fluid might NEED this medication???? GRRR. Anyway, now we have to wait until Monday and/or go to the ER, if things get worse. So far, so good. Well, not good! But not worsening. So hopefully, he'll be able to manage until Monday, when I can call BROBERG to get his prescriptions filled and find him a new doctor who knows (and CARES) what he's doing!

Anyway, deep breath ... I got Brendan down at a decent hour. Actually, he fell asleep in the recliner shortly after we got home (as in, almost instantly after walking in the door). So I carried him up to bed and sat down to relax. But then Kayte called. Mitch, the parent/high school teacher who had said he could take the girls to Shari's after the dance, had had to back out, and they needed a ride/chaperone. I said, fine. Brendan was sound asleep, and Mark seemed okay. So I drove over to the junior high, picked up five LOUD, giggly teenagers, and drove to Shari's. It was rather interesting to watch the girls. They were all giggly and goofy and being (at times) downright embarrassing. Well, nothing too terrible, but they definitely weren't being very mature! Especially Angie (Mitch's foster daughter, who's on the volleyball team with Kayte). But then, after about twenty minutes, the people at the table right next to us stood up, and I realized why the girls were being such dorks. The table was PACKED with high school boys. Once they left ... the girls settled right down. Why is it that we females tend to make such fools out of ourselves in our efforts to attract men? Well, I like to think we are more ... sophisticated, as we get older. (Do we? I hope so!)