Under the Weather

It’s been a crazy couple of days here.

Little Sis has had a terrible cough for weeks (on and off, mostly at night). Plus we’re trying to break her of Pull-Ups overnight, so nights have been rough lately.

I spent most of Tuesday (Inauguration Day) glued to CNN, NBC, and Twitter, basking in the radiant glow of hope and brotherhood.

Wednesday was a whirlwind of errand-running and general catching up. Mom called to let me know that J., the aide that helps her a few days a week, checked on Mom to find her with a fever. J. picked up some Tylenol in the gift shop for Mom, but needs me to pick up a full bottle, plus some cough medicine. I dropped it off that afternoon.

Wednesday night, around 9:45 pm, Mom calls. It’s a little late for her to call to chat. She reports that she’s feeling “a little weak.” I offer to come over, but she declines, saying that she was almost in bed anyway, but just wanted to let someone know. She did mention that the kidney clinic had called to let her know that she’s anemic again, so she’ll need more Procrit (or whatever the equivalent is that they’ve been giving her at the kindey clinic). Apparently the nurse is mailing the prescription so I can pick it up from Mom and hand-deliver it to the pharmacy. Annoying.

I call to check on Mom the next morning. She needs me to come over. Why? Because she’s so weak, she can’t get out of bed by herself. I pack up Little Sis and head over. I get her up, bathroomed, dressed and breakfasted before I head to an 11 am appointment. Then I went to my haircut, where my stylist tells me how sick she’s been, with a 102 degree fever.

It’s going around, I tell her.

Afterwards, I swing by Wendy’s to pick up lunch for Little Sis and me, plus a Frosty and some hot tea for my stylist. We deliver them, then check out a nearby tent that’s selling (bootleg??) Steelers gear. Nope…nothing good.

Off to Sam’s Club, then to two more stores in search of Steelers gear. Three Steelers tee shirts, a case of Sprite and two boxes of diapers later, we stop back at Mom’s, make our delivery, fix her some food (she hadn’t eaten since I last fed her at 10:45 am), and leave to get Big Sis off the bus.

Fast forward to sometime in the middle of the night. I am awakened by both kids up to use the bathroom. I check Little Sis’ bed: soaked. I sop up the worst of it, then find a sleeping bag for her and lay it out on the floor.

This morning I was awakened by Big Sis, who was awake and miserable at 6 am. She was in the bathroom with diarrhea, and freaked out about it, too. I sat with her through four bouts of it over the next hour and a half, then called it: I’d keep her home from school.

But Little Sis still had school. So I got her up on the early side, because I was following doctor’s orders. Her pediatrician recommended that when she has an accident overnight, SHE should wash her own sheets. By hand. So we did. In the bathtub.

I’m not sure it had the desired effect, though. This kid LOVES to wash stuff. Stuffed animals, Barbie dolls, my kitchen sink…all of it. She seemed utterly tickled that I was letting her do this.

But I did make her strip the bed HERSELF, which she wasn’t so keen on, and lug the full laundry basket down the hall to the bathroom. She put all the wet linens into the washer before school and transferred them to the dryer afterwards. Then she took the clean, dry linens back up the stairs to her room. She’ll finish putting them on tonight.

Hopefully after a few days worth of this, she’ll make more of an effort to get to the toilet at night. If it doesn’t kill me first.

Did I mention that I ALSO am not 100%? Sore throat, headache, runny & stuffy nose. Nothing to head to the ER for, but it’s no picnic to take care of EVERYONE else when you’re not feeling good.

I can’t get any sympathy around here….

*sniff*

*honk*

*cough*

*blow nose*

The One-Year Mark: Part 4

The rest of the drive from Sandusky to Pittsburgh passed uneventfully. Chiquita had no further chest pains, and Big Sis was extra tired that day, but had no more episodes of vomiting.

The next part of the story lasted nearly three weeks. We thought that Mom’s moving truck would arrive by the end of the week.

It didn’t.

It didn’t arrive the following week, either.

To make a ridiculously long story short (okay, I know it’s WAY too late for that), my sister’s friend’s dad ran a moving company. We went with them because they were family friends, yadda yadda. Mom’s stuff was now on a truck with other people’s stuff, and they were all due to be delivered first. Now, granted, Mom’s stuff was by far the smallest shipment on that truck (it was just a one-bedroom apartment), but by week two, we were tearing our hair out (mostly me).

Where was Mom staying, you ask? Oh, right. With us. In a guest bedroom on the second floor.

Did I mention there’s two flights of stairs between the garage and the second floor? Or that she’s not so good with stairs?

And at that time, we began to notice Mom’s fatigue increase. Understandable under all the stress, sure, but mostly because her anemia returned. She was due for a Procrit shot.

And did I mention that she didn’t yet have a new doctor? (Though the old one was good enough to tell us that Chiquita was in bad enough shape that the trip alone might kill her.)

So let’s recap: two flights of stairs a day (for an undetermined amount of time) for a weak, anemic, stressed cardiac diabetic who was not, at that moment, under a doctor’s care?

This was gonna be rough. I didn’t want her to kick the bucket the first week on my watch!

Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5 • Part 6

Love of Procrit

I believe I’ve mentioned before that my mom is anemic, so she needs a jolt of Procrit every now and then. We figured this out about four years ago, when mom fell at her home back in Illinois and couldn’t get up on her own. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance…and never went home again. She sold her home and moved without ever going back again; my sister and I got her moved out (don’t ask me about 1-800-GOT-JUNK; I was physically ill at the sound of my mother’s wineglasses crashing into the trash bin). Anyway, she was diagnosed with several maladies, one of which was anemia, which contributed to the fall.

So she had her last shot of Procrit last December, shortly after she moved to Pennsylvania. We’d gotten her set up with a new medical practice here (no small feat since her medical records are like phone books), and she saw the nurse practitioner. We’d tried to get her in to see one of the doctors in the practice, since her case is so complicated, but they assured us that LeAnn was wonderful.

And she was. Took lots of time with Mom and me, made tons of notes, wrote new prescriptions, and set Mom up with referrals to all the right specialists.

Cut to about a month ago. I notice Mom’s getting tired faster than usual, and she’s a little wobbly on her feet. “Maybe it’s time for another shot of Procrit,” I venture. She calls the pharmacy later that same day for a refill.

The pharmacy calls back. Seems that Mom’s prescription drug insurance company has changed, so they’ll need to get it approved by them first. Should take a couple of days.

A couple of days later, we learn that the doctor’s office needs to submit paperwork to the drug insurance company. Several phone calls ensue over a few more days, and we are eventually assured that the doctor’s office will handle it and get back to us.

The doctor’s office submits the paperwork…TO THE WRONG INSURANCE COMPANY. Argh! More phone calls. They resubmit the paperwork to the right company. We wait.

And wait.

Mom calls.

We wait.

She calls every day that week. Lots of conversations.

One of which involves the line, “We have other patients, you know!”

On Tuesday, I stop into the doctor’s office personally to inquire about the status. After waiting for about 10 minutes, they check Mom’s chart and assure me that the paperwork was faxed and they’re waiting for a reply.

More waiting. It’s been over 3 weeks.

Finally, Mom calls and tells the person on the other end of the line that if she ends up hospitalized because she couldn’t get her medication in a timely fashion, she’ll make sure the bills are forwarded to their office.

BAM! That got ‘em. The doctor’s office calls the insurance company to follow up on the paperwork.

Guess what? The insurance company NEVER RECEIVED THE FAX! They resend. The office calls to ensure they received it. They did. So we wait again.

This morning, Mom gets a call from the doctor’s office. The drug coverage was DENIED. Apparently, the office left a couple of spots on the paperwork blank, so they’ll need to be filled in and the paperwork resubmitted.

It turns out that the empty blanks were for blood test results. “Which doctor have you seen?” they ask her. “Neither,” she replies, ” I saw LeAnn.”

“Oh, she’s no longer with us.”

So now there’s no one on the medical staff familiar with Mom’s (complicated and detailed) health history.

She needs a current blood test, which Mom has never had in Pennsylvania, so now MY phone rings. It’s the nurse who’s been spearheading the process. She sounds really apologetic, so I can tell Mom’s ripped her a new one. It was justified, I guess, but I felt sorry for her anyway. I’ve been on the receiving end of Mom’s anger…it’s awfully chilly on that side of her cold shoulder.

The nurse tells me that she has an order for the appropriate blood tests, but is hoping that I can pick it up and deliver it personally–after all this, she doesn’t want it lost in the mail, for the love of Mike. Mom’s preference (and mine, actually) would be for the test to be done Tuesday morning. Someone from the assisted living unit of my mom’s senior apartment building can come to her apartment at 5:00 am and draw blood. That way, I don’t have to transport her, and she doesn’t even have to be dressed. Easy peasy.

But Tuesday is 5 more days. That’s a lot of time to wait. So I guess, gentle readers, I’ll be picking Mom up early this morning to shuttle her to have her blood drawn. This simple task will likely take at least four hours. Meanwhile, I still have a house full of in-laws.

I don’t know whether to be put out by the blood test or relieved of my in-law duty.

Will the simple errand take all day?

Will the in-laws feel I’m shirking my hostess duties?

Will my husband avoid the phone next time the caller ID says Chiquita is calling? (Duh.)

And what about…Naomi?

Tune in next time for the thrilling conclusion of: Love of Procrit.

*********************

UPDATE: Mom had the blood tests. They came back NORMAL. Weird. So she’s not getting Procrit, although all this mess was enough to get her in to see the actual MD that’s been listed on her charts since December. All’s well that ends well, I guess.

Tax Day

Whenever we have weekend visitors, it always takes me a while to catch up after they leave. There are sheets and towels to wash, housework to catch up on (because it seems insensitive to leave the kids with visitors and go off to clean; I might never come back!), phone calls to return (because it’d be rude to be on the phone for half an hour while entertaining visitors), Girl Scout stuff to do….you get the picture.

So Monday afternoon I’m hip-deep in laundry, and the phone rings. It’s Mom. She informs me that her tax preparer called, and she needs to sign her tax forms. This is April 14. Well, it’s too late to take her out today (Mom has more energy early in the day, so I try not to keep her out much past 3 or 4 pm), so I promise to stop over after I pick up Little Sis from preschool in the morning.

“I should be there around 11, Mom.”

“Should we go out to lunch, too?” Mom is a fairly serious foodie. Which probably contributed to her heart disease and diabetes.

Just sayin’.

“Sure, Mom,” I said.

So the next morning, I stop over after preschool with Little Sis in tow (actually, NOT in tow. She was bounding ahead of me, knocking the senior residents over left and right, like so many bowling pins. At least, that’s my worst case scenario: “Oh, what a sweet little girl….aaahhhh! My hip!”).

So we get there (miraculously without incident), gather Mom up, and escort her to the car. She lives at the end of a ridiculously long hallway, so she often needs to stop and rest once or twice on the way out of the building. But today, it was more like 3 or 4 times.

We got to my minivan, which she’s lately been able to navigate just fine. But today, she needed to use the stepstool I keep in my trunk for such emergencies.

As she climbs in, I flash back to the first week after she had moved out here. It was late November, and we were on our way to see her new doctor. She had been weaker and more fatigued than usual, so I was hoping to get her a shot of Procrit, which does the trick every time. Problem was, with her so weak I needed to get her a morning appointment. I couldn’t get one. So it’s 3 pm, and we’re in my driveway, trying to get her into the minivan. Long story short, she didn’t make it. She crumpled from the side of the seat to the door jamb, then collapsed to the concrete driveway. I had to pick her up singlehandedly with a bear hug maneuver (in front of all the neighbors, who I was sure were watching the festivities). I called to cancel the appointment.

But today, she makes it. We drive over to the tax place, and Mom tells me that she’d rather not go in and have to climb back in the car. I agree, grateful that she sees things my way.

I go inside, leaving Chiquita and Little Sis in the car. The place is deserted. Weird, for April 15! I introduce myself as her daughter, and explain the situation. The tax preparer goes to pull up her return and print out the papers she needs to sign. Twenty minutes later (she had a very LONG, complicated return so the printer ran out of paper!), I take the papers to the car. She signs them, and I return to the office.

But now there’s two new people. The tax preparer I was working with is now working at another desk with one of them, presumably so she could keep Mom’s return up on her screen. She gives me an “I’ll-be-right-with-you” wave, and I sink into a chair to wait. But the other guy saw the little wave, and glares at me because he thinks I’m cutting ahead of him. Meanwhile, the second tax preparer mills around aimlessly, which seems to further annoy my new friend. But apparently my tax girl has commandeered her computer, so she’s stranded.

Ugh.

So I wait.

In the car, Little Sis has climbed into the driver’s seat. She’s wearing my sunglasses.

Still waiting.

Finally, she finishes explaining federal tax code to this guy, and comes back to her desk. We finish up, and I return to the car.

It’s an hour later. Everyone’s starved.

“Okay, here’s the deal. How about we swing by Panera and pick up something to take back to the apartment?”

“Nooooo…I want to go to CiCi’s!” wails Little Sis.

“We can go eat somewhere,” says Mom.

I shoot her a look. “Are you kidding? I don’t think you’re feeling up to it,” I try. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go AFTER you’ve had your Procrit.”

After much negotiation, we end up at Eat n Park. I’m a sucker.

By the time I get Mom back to her apartment, four hours have gone by. I’m crabby, exhausted and frazzled.

Happy April 15th…