Busy, busy, busy…

I haven’t posted much recently. Last week was crazy. I worked the kids’ vacation bible school at our church every morning, and then tried to cram everything ELSE into the rest of the day.

Over the weekend, I shut down to try to catch up on rest. Long naps on both Saturday and Sunday.

Then this week, I’m trying on a job for size. I won’t go into details, but I was “at work” yesterday morning and will go again today. Big Sis is at Vacation Bible School with a friend, and I’m leaving Little Sis with Grandma Chiquita for the morning.

This afternoon, Little Sis has swimming lessons (weather permitting), then we’ll take Grandma Chiquita to her kidney doctor. After we drop her off, we’ll come home and host a sleepover for 5 little girls.

Tomorrow, I’ll take Mom to the kidney clinic, then get my hair done for BlogHer. I fly out to Chicago on Thursday night, you know.

After a couple of weeks like these, I could USE the break!

I’m so Fried-day

Crazy week this week. Today was the culmination. Here’s the rundown:

Up at 7 am to preside over a new, improved morning routine (we used to stumble out of bed at 7:30 and wonder why we couldn’t get out of the house by 8:00 am). The routine thing (I’ve posted about my difficulties with routines before) was an assignment from Big Sis’ counselor, so it’s like a prescription I’ve had to fill. It’s working well so far though.We started on Tuesday and are still going strong. The key is showering at night (I know, duh…but Big Sis, who hates showering seems to hate it a little less in the morning) and letting the kids have screen time if they complete their morning routines in a timely manner. We’ve been ready to go at about 7:40 am almost every morning.

If only I had the time and energy to pull together after-school and bedtime routines. Maybe next week.

We left the house to go to the bus stop only to be greeted by the sight and smell of hazy white smoke. None of the neighbors seemed to know where it was coming from, so since danger was not imminent, we moved on with our day.

Back in the house to wash Little Sis’ wet sheets. Of course, the washer and dryer were full, so I had to clear them out first. Then, I promised myself I’d exercise at least 15 minutes, but I was already running late to pick up Mom for her doctor’s appointment. I worked out anyway, considering it a deposit toward not having my kids drive ME to the kidney doctor when I’m Mom’s age.

By the time I’m showered, it’s 10 am. I call Mom to tell her I’m on my way. She reports that the smoke I smelled earlier was from a fire in a nearby apartment building; she saw a news report. Apparently some guy on the third floor was making eggs, and some grease caught fire. He threw water on it. Two hundred firefighters and 15 road construction crew-turned-rescuers later, the building was lost, but everyone got out safely. Also, I’ll have to wash my coat to get the smell of smoke out of it.

I picked up Mom. The intention was to go out to eat before her 11:30 am appointment (because Lord knows I have plenty to do without taking Mom out to eat afterward), but we didn’t have enough time for a sit-down restaurant. Activate Plan B: I ran into Panera and picked up bagels and coffee (organic chocolate milk for Little Sis) to hold us over until afterward. Twelve dollars later (!!), we were off.

We made it to the kidney clinic 20 minutes early. Fortunately, there’s a TV in the waiting room that Little Sis usually watches. Unfortunately, the volume no longer works (and hasn’t for two months).

It was a long wait.

Forty minutes later, we went next door to the kidney doc’s office. Mom was called back. I read 5 Disney princess books and played more rounds than I care to remember of “Can You Find A Picture of THIS in the Waiting Room Magazines?” Plus, the kidney doc complimented Little Sis’ boots.

Finally, Mom was done. A good visit; Mom was expecting the doc to start prepping her for dialysis, but her labs have looked good lately, so not yet. Whew! But now I have 3 new appointments to run Mom to: More dialysis clinic, another kidney doctor appointment, and a new rheumatologist (even though I REALLY like Mom’s old one. Don’t ask. I don’t get it either).

We let Little Sis pick the restaurant for lunch (she wanted the one with “the big chicken“). She ate spaghetti and Mom & I split a salad. By now it was 2:00 pm. I still had to stop at 2 stores, drive mom 20 minutes home, and get to the bus stop by 3:45 pm. Panic starts to set in.

Boom. Off to the pet store. Cat food, cat litter, and dog food (did I mention that we were so low on dog food this morning that the dog ate cat food for breakfast?).

Boom. Off to Sam’s Club. I had a LONG list of things WE needed from the store, but all I had time to get was Mom’s stuff. Grrrrr.

Boom. Back in the minivan to fight rush hour traffic (at 3 pm already?!?) back to Mom’s.

“You know,” said Mom, “I think YOU were the reason we’re running late today. You didn’t take a shower until after nine o’clock.”

I turned to stare at her.

“You mean after spending the entire day doing things for everybody else, I made an error in judgment spending 15 minutes on my elliptical machine this morning?!?”

I huffed, “Feel free to look for another ride next time. I guess you get what you pay for.”

I tried not to let it bug me, but obviously, it did.

Didn’t bug Mom, though. She’s hopped up on so much Lexapro that she’ll giggle like a schoolgirl at almost anything.

I dropkicked dropped Mom off, cramming the basket of her walker full of her purchases. She has a history of calling me and insisting she’s out of something and NEEDSITRIGHTNOW. Hopefully it’ll save me an emergency trip within 48 hours.

Back across town, fighting school bus traffic now. We made it and picked up Big Sis.

Now for the fun. Big Sis has her regular daily homework (which usually manages to fill up two hours on a good night), her science project (optional, been working on it for three weeks, and due Friday morning), an optional homework assignment (something about inventing a musical instrument out of household materials; she’s been harassing us to borrow pieces of my $2000 trombone and Mr. Hoagie’s flute and recorder), AND a Girl Scout Brownie meeting.

Somehow, she managed to pull it all off.

But it was a hell of a day. Capping off a hell of a week.

In comparison, tomorrow’s gonna be easy. Drop off Big Sis’ science fair project, volunteer at her school, pick up Little Sis, take my midterm exam for my online class, bake brownies for the science fair, pull a homemade meatless dinner out of my @ss, go to the science fair, and spend the rest of the night consoling Big Sis and rocking her to sleep when she doesn’t win (she has issues with competition).

Piece of cake.

I’m so fried.

There’s something about potassium…

It’s been a busy couple of days. Let me see if I can get you caught up:

Friday: Seven swans a-swimming

Mom insists on Christmas shopping for the kids. usually my sister and I do her shopping, but I took her to Target once last spring to shop for their birthdays, and she remembered it.

However, I’ve learned (the hard way) that anytime I take her out into the world, it increases her chances of an “incident” that may result in another hospitalization. The woman is just so fragile…it could be any ONE of her ailments that causes it.

So I put my foot down: I’d take her, but ONLY if she was prepared to shop at 8:00 am. That way, the store would be much less likely to be packed, and it’d make my job easier. Mr. Hoagie was off from work, so he handled getting the kids to school (thanks, honey!).

I picked Mom up at her place at about 8:30 am. We headed to Target–in the POURING RAIN. I pulled up front, unloaded Mom (thank heaven for the golf umbrella), got her a motorized cart (thank heaven for the Target guy who showed us how to use it), and sent her off to shop while I parked the car (I have GOT to get me a handicapped placard).

Mom worked her way through girls’ clothes (thanks for the Christmas dresses!), the toy department, and swung back to pick up new dance leotards. Almost two hours and $200 later, we were done.

I pulled the car up (it was still POURING). I came back inside the store, collected Mom and our packages, and headed back out. As I took out the packages, a gentleman appeared from nowhere with an umbrella. He shielded me just long enough to throw the bags in the trunk and grab my own umbrella. I looked behind me, thanking the nice man profusely, and saw Mom hobbling toward the car with her walker, shielded by a lovely woman with another umbrella. I swooped up with my golf umbrella (thanking HER profusely now) and got Mom settled into the car.

Usually when strangers offer to help me, I’m uncomfortable with letting them. I can do it MYSELF, I think. But this time, it didn’t bother me. I was just plain GRATEFUL, and I really felt that someone upstairs was watching out for us.

So leaving Mom in the car with the hazards flashing, I darted back inside Target to the Starbucks nestled within. I ordered a couple of light peppermint mocha Frappuccinos and a couple of soft pretzels. Back out to the car…where Mom reminded me that she’s not supposed to have chocolate on her kidney diet. Or dairy. Something about high potassium.

CRAP.

She drank it anyway. We headed to her 11 am hair appointment. Then to the post office, to pick up my Amazon.com package full of Christmas presents (couldn’t pick that up with kids in the car), then off to lunch at a new pizza place. Mom’s dietician had said that she could have tomatoes and cheese in moderation, due to their high potassium level, so we ordered a white pizza with a few tomato slices.

So we’re sitting there at lunch when my cell phone rings. It’s the nurse at the kidney clinic. They just got her labs back from two days earlier, and her potassium is a little high.

“Really?” I asked, as I grabbed the last bite of potassium-rich slice number three out of Chiquita’s hand and threw it down on the table.

“Do you know if it could be because of her diet?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t eat with her at EVERY meal….” I’m terrified that she’ll somehow be able to peer though my cell phone and see what’s laid out on the table in front of us.

“We’ll need to test her potassium again…do you think you might be able to get her to a lab?”

So I made arrangements to take her to the local Vampires R Us–I mean, lab. We paid our check and I loaded her up into the car, grumbling about potassium the whole way.

“So what did you eat before that test, Mom?”

“Wasn’t that the day you brought me that bagel with cream cheese?”

CRAP!

AGAIN.

We go to the lab, and Mom bets that it has to be a fasting blood test. So I hike up the stairs to see if they’d gotten the faxed order and to see if Mom could have it done that day.

Yes, and yes.

So back down the stairs, collect Mom and her walker, back up the elevator and into the lab’s waiting room.

Cue the Muzak. Pierced occasionally by the screams of a 13-year-old boy who’s CLEARLY terrified of needles.

*sigh*

He comes out after being successfully and painlessly stabbed in the arm. Chiquita’s turn.

Twenty minutes later, she returns. Apparently they only got about 3 drops out of her, and they don’t expect them to be able to test such a small quantity. We’ll probably have to come back next week.

Ugh.

We leave the lab, and I call home. Big Sis has a doctor’s appointment that day after school, and I was planning to leave Little Sis with Chiquita. It’s already after 2 pm, and I calculate that I’ll save at least half an hour in travel time if I just pick up Little Sis now and drop both of them at Chiquita’s.

As you can imagine, I’m getting tired. We pick up Big Sis from the bus, have an after-school snack consisting of a blueberry muffin, and have to leave. She’s still hungry, so I grab a cup of milk and a couple of peeled oranges and bring them to the car.

Upon discovering that the milk and oranges are her only options, Big Sis begins to pout.

Wail.

Cry.

Scream.

Plead to be taken to McDonald’s.

Folks, that half-hour drive was HELL. By the time we get her in and out of the doctor’s office, Mr. Hoagie and I have HAD. IT.

And we still have to go collect Little Sis from Chiquita’s.

By the time we get home, it’s after 7:30 pm, and only 25% of us have had dinner.

Did I mention I had a party to host the next day?

Lettuce is wilting.

Still feeling squished. Like a five-day old sandwich now. Wilted lettuce, top slice of bread getting moldy.

Yesterday morning I ran a few errands, one of which was taking the kids to a play at our local library.  While I was there, apparently Mom’s doctor tried to reach me. The one place in town that doesn’t have cell phone reception. When I called home, my husband told me that he had called.

“Which doctor was it?”

“Ummm…he didn’t say.”

“Did he leave a message?”

“No.”

Nice. Very helpful. I’ve been carrying this cell phone on my hip for days in case someone calls, and the one time they do, I’m out of range.

I call mom’s hospital room. No answer.

Did she code? Emergency surgery? More tests? WHAT??!??

I call my sister to see if anyone tried to reach her. No. But she offered to call the nurse’s station and find out.

She calls me back. They took her for a CAT scan. I remember that when I had talked to Chiquita earlier that morning, she’d mentioned that she had a little blood in her urine again. They must be looking for more information.

I sighed, and decided to continue with that morning’s plans. I met my family for lunch at Eat N Park. My husband took the girls home so I could head to the hospital. I called back to see if I could reach Mom or her doctor. No luck.

When I got to the hospital, Mom was in good spirits. I let her nurse know that I’d never connected with the doctor. He told me that her blood count had dropped that morning, and that the doctor had ordered a transfusion of two units of blood. While I was there, the weekend cardiologist stopped in. He said that it looked like she’d be scheduled for a heart catheterization on Monday. They suspect that one or more of her stents (she has 5) may be occluded due to being off the blood thinners for that week.

What he didn’t have to tell me, however, is that this catheterization may (probably will?) take out her kidneys. The dye that they use is tough on the kidneys, and she’s only operating at 50% at best.

Save the heart, or the kidneys?

Not much of a choice.

Extra Sandwiched

I’m feeling a little extra sandwiched today. Here’s the update: Mom’s back in the hospital. Took her in Tuesday afternoon (just a week after she came home from the hospital) at the cardiologist’s recommendation after she had complained of chest pains the night before and had vomited at lunch (in the communal dining room. Mortifying!) that day. Since then, they’ve found that the bladder infection that put her in the hospital the week I was on vacation affected her kidneys. They slowed down, not filtering her blood as efficiently. That resulted in a high potassium level and an elevated level of one of the the cardiac enzymes (which caused the nausea). Also contributing is a little dehydration. Not helping is the fact that they took her off blood thinners when her bladder was bleeding; she was due to begin them again the day after I took her in again.

So the idea is that once her kidneys recover from the “insult” from the infection and all the medications kick in (the blood thinners, potassium meds, etc.), they’ll watch her labs to make sure that all her docs (heart, kidney and GP) are happy with the numbers before they release her.

Whew!

In the meantime, life at home must go on. I’ve arranged playdates for the girls the last three days so I could get to the hospital. Yesterday, I took dinner to a friend of mine who’s recovering from breast cancer surgery. Today, friends from the Washington, D.C. area are coming in to stay overnight. So I took today “off” (from the hospital anyway) to clean the house. It’s no small feat, since it hasn’t had much attention lately due to Chiquita’s 2 hospital visits, the last weeks of school and our vacation.

I’m wiped out.

It feels like my summer hasn’t even started yet…I haven’t had the chance to get the girls on the schedule I’d envisioned (summer bridge workbook, reading and chore enforcement daily, swimming as often as possible, library once a week, visits to museums and amusement parks).

On the bright side, I did lose 3.6 lbs this week at Weight Watchers. I’ve been running so much, I haven’t had time to stop to eat!

I’m trying to remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint. I’ve made a point to have healthier foods around, to ask for help when I need it, to take time to talk (vent) to friends (sometimes via text message and Twitter), and to exercise (taking the stairs at the hospital) and stretch (yoga stretches in the emergency room!).