Life Goes On

Today will be Day #3 of hanging out in the Intensive Care Unit at one of the larger hospitals here in Cowlumbus. For what it lacks in some venues, excellent health care is not lacking here in Cowtown. Access to decent and affordable health care is another rant entirely, but I'm not interested in going there right now.

My dad nearly bled to death, from an as yet unlocated GI bleed, before he got to the hospital on Thursday around 3pm. He was transferred here from one of the smaller hospitals near where my parents live.

In talking to my mom and to my siblings who live near to my parents, my dad has been having serious problems for the last two or three weeks but has been too stubborn to go to the hospital. My mother had even called the squad at one point, and my asshole father (Consensus arrived at by my siblings and myself while hanging out in the ICU waiting room. Yes, we did know he was an asshole before this current situation but determined that this was a classic example of it manifesting itself.) refused to go. As I commented yesterday to my family in the waiting room, idiocy and stubbornness run deep in the gene pool. Yes, we're a rather dysfunctional bunch when you put us all together. We've managed to have a few good and a few off-color laughs while hanging out together these last couple of days. Sort of like the holiday get-togethers only with no dishes to wash.

I'm probably going to end up losing my job due to calling off of work to be at the hospital. We just went to a revised attendance point system. Between the problems with my rheumatoid arthritis that caused me to miss two weeks of work and my dad's hospitalization, I'm probably going to point out. We have a "no fault" point policy. Doesn't matter why you have to be off, you get the points. Even though my status was placed as "medical leave" for my RA, I still got the points. I sort of figure it this way... I can get another job; I can't get another Dad. So, being there for him is my priority at this point.

It's hard to be the nurse and to be the family of the patient. Luckily, I do have my older daughter who is a nurse as well to help with some of the explanations and rationale for what is going on. When I talked to my mom early yesterday morning, the nurse had called her at 6am to give her a report on Dad's condition. They'd had to put him on a CPAP overnight and a vent was the next step. My mom had been adamant that my dad didn't want to be on a vent. I had to explain to her what the medical rationale was for him needing to be on the vent, and that a vent isn't necessarily a permanent thing. Then, I had to reassure her that if his prognosis was terminal (No, I'm not insensitive and detatched enough to use the politically correct medical lingo with my mom.), and we needed to take him off of the vent, that there are medications he could be given so that he wouldn't be in pain or suffering in removing the vent to allow him to die.

It took the medical team two attempts yesterday to get a central IV line in. When I was in the room at 6pm after they'd finally gotten the line in, the nurse went to draw the next set of arterial blood gases, and she drew from the IV port. I commented, "Oh, you put in an arterial line." (For the benefit of you non-medical personnel, that was a serious DUH moment.) The nurse just looked at me and smiled, and replied, "He's got the arterial line because he's on the vent." Me, "Oh, Duh!" She, "It's hard to be the family too."

She was a very nice nurse. A Fellow. For the benefit of you non-medical folks, it means she's in an on the job training situation to become an ICU nurse, in quick layman's terms. My dad's nurse had told me that the Fellow nurse was new to the unit and had never been given a case as complicated or where the patient was as gravely ill as my dad is. Had the day supervisor been aware yesterday morning of just how ill my dad was when she made out the assignments, she probably would not have assigned the Fellow nurse to my dad.

The Fellow did an awesome job yesterday. (There were other things going on yesterday from the "nursing aspect" as well that made it a long, hard, stressful day for this Fellow.) And, I commented to her at the end of the day yesterday that it had probably been a very long day for her. She smiled and said that yes, it had been. I thanked her for giving such good care to my dad. They have forms available where you can give "kudos" to the nurses for good care. All of my dad's nurses have given him great care, but I'm going to make sure to write one out specifically for this Fellow nurse. In eighteen years of being a nurse, I've had my share of those overwhelming days, and it's nice to know that you are appreciated for what you do when you have had one of those days. To us, it's just a matter of "this is what we do" and it often goes by unnoticed by anyone. We don't complain (except to our significant other maybe, that it was a long day because sometimes even they don't get it), and we don't get bummed-out that no one cared just how rough it was because the rough days always seem to manage to out-number the easy days. But, we still come to work every day with a good attitude, work our asses off while we're there, juggle more things than a circus clown, deal with all of the "outside stuff" that nurses get to deal with (and that's generally harder and more annoying than any "nursing stuff" that we do), go home to our "real lives" and come back to work the next day and do it all again.

Because we're nurses.

Yes, that statement deserves its own paragraph. You'd have to be a nurse to understand exactly why, but trust me, it does! LOL Just FYI, National Nurses Day is May 6th. So, even if you don't "get it" do something nice for a nurse that you know. He/She will really appreciate it and probably be very surprised. Nursing is a very visable profession, but the practice of nursing is an unnoticed art.

I talked to Mom this morning before she left home to make the drive down here to see what the overnight report was. He hasn't turned the corner yet, which I knew and expected. She said the nurse had told her about a couple of lab reports but that she had no idea as to what it meant. I told Mom she should have asked the nurse to explain what that meant; the nurse would have been willing to answer questions.

I told Mom I'm going to come up later today and then stay for part of the overnight shift. I want to meet the night shift nurses, too.

So, I need to get on some things before I roll out of my neglected house again today. The cat box needs cleaned. Trash needs taken out. The shower needs cleaned. I need to make a gauge swatch for the sweater that I'm going to start knitting while I'm hanging out tonight.

Life goes on.

I have been sufficiently chastised for the internet social faux pas of not posting blogs on a regular basis. I will try to improve upon my shortcomings in this area.

I've been occupying my nights awake with eBay and a wonderful little program from Ambient Design called ArtRage2. My nights awake when I'm not at work, that is. At 45 and with a chronic illness, I've decided that it's far too much strain on my body to sleep at night half of the week and during the day the other half of the week. So, I find myself doing dishes and sorting laundry at 2am. This new sleeping arrangement of mine is working out quite well for an insomniac friend on the west coast. He now has a chat buddy available at 2am PDT. Invariably, I come home from work at 7:30am EDT to an offline IM asking if I'm awake. He just can't seem to get my work nights quite straight yet.

The current sleeping arrangement seems to be working out well so far. We are just entering into week three of this program. I was able to sleep during the day during spring break for the public school students. Summer, and the incessant barrage of noise has not arrived yet. I have one of those waterfall and sound machines in the bedroom. I may have to opt for a window air conditioner as well in order to provide a bit more background noise.

The German Shepherd has not adjusted to the new sleep schedule yet. She frequently reminds me that it is dark outside, and we should be in bed. Well, me in the bed and her on the floor to be tripped over when I get up to pee. She also frets over the nocturnal activities of the feline occupants of the house and frequently reminds me that they are bad! Most bad indeed!

When to take my medication has become an interesting affair. It just seems sort of wrong to be taking Lexapro and multivitamins at 9pm and melatonin and muscle relaxants at 9am. I still haven't figured out the best time for my Prilosec and my Allegra. And, trying to remember at 2am that I need to be taking the Neurontin that I formerly took at 2pm.... oy! It should all come together eventually, though. I'm still not quite sure what I should be eating at 8am, though - Kung Po Chicken or muesli.

On Being Catholic....

The title of this post came to me a few weeks back. In spite of my best attempts to dislodge it from my brain, it has remained there. I figured that I would just go with it. In my own obtuse and round-about way, of course.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have sat down four different times and attempted this blog. Each attempt has met with online disaster before the entry could be saved or posted. So, I guess you'd have thought I'd have gotten a clue by this time, wouldn't you? LOL

I think it stems from the fact that I have a friend who is supposed to be vacationing in Italy later this spring. Last I heard, she still hadn't gotten around to getting her passport.... She had mentioned her upcoming trip on one of the internet forums of which she and I are members. I told her to visit the Vatican and be sure to wave to His Holiness The Pope. However, how many fingers to use I left entirely to her discretion. In her reply, she said she had laughed when she had read that but could never be disrespectful. Me, on the other hand.....

I believe that attitude could be the very source of my problems with getting this post posted.

Nonetheless, I remain firm in my resolve to blog on this topic and find myself saving to draft frequently. LOL

There are two schools of thought among Catholics themselves that differ widely in their views of the faith and the practice of it. I have wonderful friends who will tell you that being Catholic is the very essence of what it means to be a follower of Christ. These same friends are also the ones who will make sure that they go to mass before going to gamble in the casinos when vacationing in Las Vegas. There are other Catholics who will tell you that the religious rituals of the church are stale, out-dated, devoid of meaning, and offer nothing to the condition of the soul of those seeking a relationship with Christ. Yet, you will not find them without rosary or novina candle.

In some ways, Catholicism in humorous. All of the angles are covered. How many religions do you know of that offer for sale a product called "All-Purpose Blessing Candles." C'mon. You cannot help but love that one! In the film Dogma, it was the Catholics who found the loophole! I rolled! Believe me, if there were a religion to be able to find a loophole, it would be the Catholics.

I am the mother of the child, who during her fifth grade year in Catholic school, was able to argue the priest to a theological deadlock as to why offering prayer to a statue of a saint or of The Blessed Virgin constituted idolatry. I know parishoners who would be absolutely scandalized to even think of arguing such a point. These same parishoners, however, have no problem with the clusters of troll dolls on tables at bingo. I just found out that they play bingo on Monday nights at one of the gay bars. A few of us from work are talking about going soon, and I am planning to surprise everyone with troll dolls for our table! (Oh, I am so going to hell....... Just some programmed and ingrained Catholic guilt there. LOL) When she was in sixth grade, I rented Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life" for my daughter and me to watch one weekend. Of course, "The Life of Brian" was required viewing somewhere in her upbringing, as well as Mel Brooks' "History of the World: Part 1." "Spaceballs" is still one of her favorite movies. Yes, my child is just a bit warped, but she's much more fun. Can you imagine an accountant with no sense of humor at all? She also has five children and is hoping to adopt more. I joke that the children are my return on all that tuition invested in Catholic school. I have Catholic friends who are so envious that, in this day and age of one or two children in a family, my daughter has given me so many grandchildren to love.

I have my rosary and my Virgin de Guadalupe novina candle on my desk. They sit right next to my deck of tarot cards. My running joke is that I like to keep all of my idolatry together, centrally located, and easily accessible. The fax machine in the nursing office at work is broken more than it is functional. We've traded machines, had the phone line checked, and on and on and on; still, the intractable problems continue. I've threatened to bring in my rosary and holy water from Lourdes and set them loose upon the beastly machine. (Have I mentioned that I'm going to hell?)

I refer to myself as an excommunicated catha-holic (hyphen added only for emphasis), but I have also willingly taken part in a family rosary with some close friends when a child of one of their family members had fallen ill and was hospitalized and the doctors could offer no explanation as to what was going on with the illness. I know of a couple, married for nearly twenty years and childless, who had a child one year to the day after a family rosary. I lived in Tucson. Tucson has the only Catholic shrine in the world dedicated to a sinner.

One of my patients makes me absolutely crazy. Her problems and issues are more psychiatric in nature than relating to mental retardation. We believe that she may be developing a form of dementia/Alzheimers due to some of the repetetive speech and short term memory deficits that we're seeing. She has not reacted well to the medications that we have tried to this point. At dinner time in her apartment, she will often say the prayer for the meal. I was in the apartment one night when she offered the prayer in Latin. This is the woman who cannot tell you what act she just completed, but she can remember her catechism. I have used that as a tool to redirect her from many an obsessive episode. "What is the first Holy Mystery?" She can recite those lessons learned more than fifty years before without missing a beat.

Several years ago, the father of one of my daughter's school friends died. He was a younger man but had suffered for years as a brittle diabetic. I sat with my daughter's former school mates, now young women, at the funeral home. The service was small, intimate, and very personal. There was no priest with vestment and censer and liturgy. The prayers offered, however, were Catholic. My daughter's friends were very surprised that I actually knew the Hail Mary, for when they were growing up, I was consistent in my unrepentant uncatholicism. Offering those prayers for Ron was a matter of respect for his convictions.

When my older granddaughter was born, her paternal grandmother insisted on having her baptised at their Catholic church. I refused, even though the argument was, "This is the baby's soul we're talking about." I refused not because it was a Catholic church or because I was not concerned about the soul of my first grandchild. I refused because the paternal grandmother had not voiced this same kind of insistance on baptism over her grandchild who had been born with cerebral palsey. Was his soul less valuable? I have shared several holiday celebrations with this family. My grandchildren still do share in those celebrations, and I encourage them to be respectful of their grandmother and the traditions of the church which she always includes at those holiday gatherings of the family. Those are as much a legitimate part of their heritage as is their geneaology.

There are evangelical Catholics. Of the different sects of Catholicism, I would have to identify most closely with this group simply because I lean towards being an evangelical and not necessarily towards what I see as dogmatic ritualism within the Roman Catholic church. Ritual was established to bring us closer to God, not to take the place of God. I believe that is why so many of the churches, of all denominations, are stale and dead. There is no spirit, only ritual and dogma and the traditions of men. There is no love.

Love would have to be the hallmark of the ministry of Christ. And, it is that basic commodity which is so lacking in many who claim to be His followers. Over the years, I have encountered many people who have no issue at all with Jesus or His teachings. Their issue rightly lies with those who claim to be His people, who have no compassion, no mercy, no depth of soul beyond themselves whether they go by the title of Catholic or by some other title of their choosing.

This certainly is not where I had envisioned this post of going or of where it was headed in my previous attempts at writing it. I guess it just needed to be done in a timing that was not my own. Oh, but He does have a sense of humor! LOL