Florida with Dad

Monday 9/20/2010 - Looks like we will be able to get the trailer sold if we can't give it away to relatives. We really just need someone to take over the monthly expenses and use the trailer periodically during the year. The problem is this mobile home park is a 55 and older community. But I have all the information and contact numbers of people here at the park who can help me sell the place. I also have the application form that the new owner needs to fill out to get approved at the park.

My asthma or bronchitis is not much better. I am still weak, tired, coughing, wheezing and stuff. I want to get back home soon. It is a little difficult working from here and I am getting homesick. Once Dad sets his mind to something, he doesn't like to wait around to do it. So he is ready to pack up his belongings and head west as soon as we can. I am thinking we can get the get some things done in the morning and then start packing up the van. Maybe I can get two days off at work and head out for Enid on Wednesday.

I am going to put Dad up at the local bed and breakfast, Maple Place, until he can check out the independent living apartments that are available.

Then we can get into a routine where he comes over to my place most days to eat and visit while Dave is at work. As he gets to know people in Enid, he might find bridge games to play or other activities that he would like. I think that he will need to get a hover-round or something to help him get around. He has a lot of trouble walking, but otherwise is in pretty good health for an 87 year old.

changes are afoot

Thursday - 9/16/2010 - I talked to my dad today. He says his shortness of breath is getting so bad he is having trouble getting around his trailer. He is in Florida by himself. His choice. But he is finally telling me that he can no longer care for himself; he needs help.

I need to go to Florida and see what to do. Do I pack him up and drive him back to Enid and find a small place for him to live? Dave and I do not have enough room in our house for another person. Or is he doing so bad that I need to just stay with him down there in Florida for a while?

I don't want to leave Dave alone. I am so torn. When Dave gets home tonight we will have to talk.

Friday - 9/17/2010 - Dave took the news better than I thought he would. He understands that I have to take care of my dad. So I will fly to Florida tomorrow and see if I can convince him to move to Enid where I can help him more with things. I checked around and there are independent living apartments were he can live independently for a reasonable price.

Saturday - 9/18/2010 - I am here at Dad's. He is amenable to packing up and moving west. I am kind of excited in a way. I think he will like it there and I will feel better knowing he is close by.

Sunday - 9/19/2010 - Kari and her in-laws might take the mobile home off Dad's hands. That will be great for Dad. He won't have to worry about the place when he moves. We might be able to leave for Enid during the week this week if it works out.

is my husband crazy?

It is Sunday. Dave finally has a day off. We can sleep in. This will be great. He got home late last night - 1:30 a.m. We didn't go to bed until about 2:30-3:00. I had mentioned that we could go to IHOP in the morning. In Dave's mind this translated to "let's get up early and get to IHOP before the church people do and it get's busy". What? Get up at 8:00 a.m.?

But we did. And it was pretty good. It was nice to get out of the house - together - for once. Now we are happily camped on our couch with our laptops and snacks and HD TV watching NFL football, our fantasy football leagues, checking emails, and monitoring FB for any important information that our friends and family might want to say.

Oh, yeah, my husband is crazy. But I still love him.

the GYM is calling

I want to get back to going to GYM. I miss my personal trainer Stephanie. So, since I felt better today I did a few exercises here in my home to get ready to go back. I turned on some Don Henley and bounced up and down on my exercise ball, held my hand weights and moved my arms in different positions 8 or 10 times, and tried the one hard exercise with the ball that Stephanie had me do. Lie on the floor, put your heels on the exercise ball, lift your hips, and roll the ball towards your behind and out again. I did that about 8 times, I think. I don't think it lasted more than 10 minutes, but it more than I have done in a while.

Tomorrow, I hope to do more. Maybe even walk around the block.

after effects of asthma attack

I thought I would post a follow up of the after effects of the stupid asthma attack. Hopefully it will clear my mind and maybe put some friends and family fears to rest that I am going crazy. Or maybe not. Who knows.

Let me preface this blog post by saying that I hate having to ask anyone for help or not being able to fully accomplish my duties at home and work. I am much happier helping others and doing a good job.

So, anyway, I finally get home from the hospital - where I will remind everyone that I didn't want be in the first place, but the doctor said I had to go and then the doctor said I had to stay - and I am feeling a little better, but I am still coughing, wheezing in the upper airways, and apparently now emotionally off-kilter from the steroids that I got in the hospital.

Do the doctors know everything?
I would say no. I went to the doctor on Thursday because I still felt bad, but not bad enough to be in the hospital. Actually, I hope to never want to be in the hospital. Anyway, I went alone, so maybe I heard him wrong, but he said he thought my reaction to the asthma attack was more than it should have been. What? You mean I was overreacting to not being able to breathe? What the heck was I suppose to do? I haven't had an attack like that ever. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. I didn't know what to do. I went to the doctor to help me. The doctor said I needed to go to the hospital. What was I suppose to do? Not go to the hospital? Then when I wanted to go home, the doctor told me I couldn't because my O2 sats and wheezing needed to be under control. Okay, now I am very confused. I guess I will have to talk to him again and see if I misunderstood.

But the steroids and the inhalers and the antibiotics are messing up my body. I think. Or whatever triggered the asthma attack is messing up my body. I still am coughing, wheezing and generally feel weak whenever I try to do anything. But I can breathe. Today, Saturday, I am much better...still coughing and weak, though.

Asthma action plan and regimen:
1. When lungs feel tingly and/or am having trouble with attacks while exercising, I will start nebulizer treatments 4 times a day for a day or so.
2. I will check my peak flow meter readings every day.
3. If the nebulizer treatment doesn't seem to work, I will call the doctor so he can start me on an oral steroid.

Things I should have remembered about my asthma symptoms
Every fall I have problems
Every four years or so, it gets worse (last bad attack was in Fall 2006)
Moving to a different part of the country can cause more problems

What are husband are for anyway?
Okay, I was singing my husband's praises in an earlier blog, but I was really mad at him on Thursday and most of Friday and okay, maybe a little today. No, I think I am over it. What did he do? It was what he didn't do or what I perceived that he didn't do. He didn't take my health seriously. He was very preoccupied with his work and didn't go with me to the doctor the first time and then again on Thursday.

When I am not feeling well I do not (apparently) make good decisions for myself and it would have been helpful if my husband, who granted is overworked and stressed from said work, could have helped me make the decision to go to the doctor, eventually go to the hospital, and later support when when the doctor was saying I was overreacting.

So I was rightfully, I thought, mad at him. But with him being overworked and stressed already, I was not about to confront him during work or late at night. In my mature, yet over emotional, mind I knew that that would not have been a good thing. Not good for him, not good for me. So I plotted in my mind. I needed a good night's sleep. Since Dave has been coming home late, he wants to stay up for a while and companionship. This has caused my sleep habits to be totally out of whack, plus the steroids have not helped either. My plan was put blankets and pillows out on the couch and close the bedroom door and try to get to sleep before he got home. But that would have started a fight. So I didn't. I cried. I called other people who would listen to me. I felt worse because I was being such an idiot. All through this Dave is oblivious to my madness. Luckily for him.

Long story a little shorter - We talked about it this morning. He felt bad. He will do better. All is well in the Ruthenberg household.

Loneliness
Being sick in Enid, OK without family around was lonely. Especially with Dave working so much. I felt sorry for myself at a certain point, not being near the people that I feel comfortable with. Also, missed having my mom around. 58 years old and still sometimes would like to have my mom around. But thank goodness my three kids all took turns listening to me whine. My mother-in-law was a peach and listened also. Even a long distance friend, Denise, who I have never met, was sweet enough to listen to my complaints.

Hopefully next week, I will back to being the selfish, productive person that I love to be. I have to walk on Sunday 9/19 in the Enid MS Walk, so I have to be better.

Oh, if you want to sponsor me at the Walk, click here. www.nationalmssociety.org/goto/dlruthenberg_enid

last day at the hospital - yippee!

I am home now and am feeling better and better.

That was last night. Now today, Monday, I still feel better than I did at the hospital, but nowhere near where I need to be to function normally. Still wheezing a little bit and very tired. I think in my mind I thought I would be all better when I got out of the hospital. Of course, I didn't realize how bad my asthma was and that was what got me in the hospital in the first place. So I had better listen to my body more I guess.

But I still wonder what I did wrong. How did I get so bad so fast? Is my house not clean enough? Did I have too much stress, not enough sleep, not eating properly, etc?

Guess I will have a lot of questions for the doctor when I see him in a week.

2nd half of day 4

Still short of breath and having attacks even with all the steroids and breathing treatments. The doctor said that my body is just taking a little longer to respond to the medication. But my O2 stats are looking good and my lungs are sounding better.

They don't have the results of the CT chest scan. They want to be sure there isn't an underlying problem that is preventing me from getting better. But it is probably just me being slow.

I haven't had severe problems with asthma except for when I have had bronchitis or pneumonia, although in retrospect, the bronchitis/pneumonia might have been caused by the asthma. So whenever I got sick, it would last for months on end. But I thought I was doing better at staying healthy, staying cold free and if I was short of breath, I would take small measures to fix it. This time, no cold/bronchitis symptoms, so it kind of surprised me when my breathing seemed to be compromised so quickly. But in looking back the last few weeks, even two months, I should have paid atttention to some signs that something wasn't right. At night I was having trouble staying asleep and getting up 3-4 times a night, with lots of snoring and restlessness. I would have thought I would be sleeping better because I felt very tired and weak during the day. A consequence of not sleeping was that my concentration level was getting worse. I was having trouble completing projects at work. But all this was happening very slowly.

One thing I can do in the future is to use a peak flow meter daily and track how I do on that. If I start doing poorly on that, then I can talk to my doctor and see if I need to change my medications for my asthma.

I am not sure if I am feeling better tomorrow and the doctor still doesn't have the CT chest scan results if he will let me go home. I know that they don't want to send me home and then have me get worse and have to be admitted again.

We will see what day 5 brings tomorrow.

On another note: My husband is the greatest. He is having to work overtime at work and still he has made time to come to visit, call and make sure that I have the things I need. He has provided me with clean underwear, socks, some extra clothes, food from outside the hospital, and he loving and calming personality. He sat with me this morning for a bit and almost immediately I relaxed and was even starting to fall asleep. I noticed he was dosing off also. For some reason we have that affect on each other...to put the other person at complete ease and even calm each other down. I love just holding his hand because his hand is warm and comforting. I don't think I have ever held anyone else's hand has felt that way to me. I am so thankful I have him in my life.

4th day in the hospital

It is early morning at St. Mary's. I have been awake since 4.m. when the respiratory guy woke me up to give me a breathing treatment. It is 7:00 a.m. now. My breakfast order has been put in.

I have mixed feelings about wanting to go home. Don't get me wrong. I love my home and it will be great to get home, but I am still short of breath when I walk around and have this weird dry cough. I wonder what I will feel like when I go outside - will it be better or worse. I had the CT chest scan with contrast last night and I wonder what there results are. My O2 stats are still around 94-96%. So do I hope that they see something on the CT scan so that they can fix whatever it is, or do I hope there isn't any thing wrong other than asthma and hope they send me home today with instructions on how to better control my asthma symptoms. I am torn.

So later this morning the on-call physician for Family Physicians, Dr. Shelton, will bring me the news and make the decision. Of course, I will FB and the blog the results.

asthma update

It is 10:00 a.m. and I still don't know if I am going home today or not. The nurse doesn't think so. I am feeling a little better. More like I feel when I am at home when I have the problems with my asthma. The nurse thought I might have bronchitis and still need IV antibiotics.

It is 12:40 - still no sign of the doctor telling me if I leaving the hospital or staying another night. I think I feel better. But if they want me to stay another night and I am to get more IV drugs, I need to get a PIC line. The IVs keep collapsing.

Hopefully he will show up soon.

1:15 p.m. - Dr. Lawrence, a wonderful doctor, showed up. He reviewed my labs and stuff. My O2 sats are still not where he wants them. My white blood count skyrocketed to 22,000 (I think that is what he said). A review of normal WBC tell me that it should be in the 4,000 to 10,000 range. This can be caused by the steroids that I have been getting. He said my lungs are clear, but I am still short of breath and weak when moving around. So he wants to do a chest CT with contrast to rule out a pulmonary embolus and/or pulmonary fibrosis (although this is hard to detect, but can sometimes be seen). To be able to do the contrast CT he has to give me more steroids and IV benadryl, because I have had reactions to IV contrast before. Also, my veins are not handling the IV ports, so they will put in a PIC line for easier access. Since I will have the PIC line, then he will give me more IV antibiotics. Otherwise, I could have started taking the antibiotics by mouth. Other stupid thing my body does when taking steroids is I get thrush (yeast infection in the mouth). So medicine for that. If I feel better tomorrow and the CT scan is good, I might be able to go home. But I will be seeing another doctor, Dr. Shelton, who I am told looks like Tom Cruise.

It is worrisome for me about the shortness of breath and stuff because my mother was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis when she was about 58 years old and she died from complications of the disease at age 64. I do not want to follow in my mother's footsteps. I know that I am a little healthier than she was. She was a smoker for a very long time. I just lived with my smoker parents and was exposed to secondhand smoking during my early development years.

Now with years and years of asthma symptoms, bronchitis, pneumonia and just a general decrease in lung capacity ever since the birth of my third child in 1979, it is hard to stop thinking about my mom's problem.

So I have the PICC line and will be getting the CT chest with contrast and will update everyone later.

Asthma sucks

A couple of weeks ago I had to quit going to the GYM because I was having problems breathing while working out. Then I started having problems with coughing up gunk almost every day. This is usually a sign of my asthma symptoms, but I don't usually have the problem every day, maybe just once a week. I take my allergy pill regularly. Take Aciphex to control gastric reflux which can cause asthma. I try to eat right. But sometimes (in the late summer - fall time of year) I just can't control it.

Today was one of those days. Funny thing about not being able to push the bad air out of your lungs - it makes you not think straight. I can't even make the decision for myself to go to the doctor. I keep thinking it will get better. It didn't. I finally went to the doctor. I was coughing, tight chest, and I guess the doctor couldn't really hear the air leaving my lungs. They did a breathing treatment. I wasn't very improved. Only improved enough for the doctor to hear the wheezing as the air was trying to leave. So she wanted to admit me to the hospital so that I could be put on every 6 hour breathing treatments and IV antibiotics and steroids and a chest x-ray in case I had pneumonia.

So off to St. Mary's I went. I am feeling anxious because I was leaving a lot of unfinished business at work. My boss was counting on me. I feel like I am letting everyone down.

But right now I guess I need to do everything the medical staff says so that I can start breathing better. Tomorrow morning I will have the results of the blood tests and chest x-ray. Maybe I have pneumonia and didn't know it. Maybe I just have a bad case of asthma.

After about two hours of trying to start an IV, I finally was able to complete a dose of Rocephin and Zithromax and got a dose of Solu-Medrol. I have had three breathing treatments also. I am still coughing a little, have a tight chest and wheeze on expiration. Hopefully after Dave visits tonight I can sleep and feel better in the morning.

I also feel bad that I am adding to Dave's stress. He is already working long hours and now he is probably worrying about me (a little).

At least he doesn't have to take care of me in the hospital like I took care of him back in August of 2000.