Category: My Tribe

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Caring for the Heart

So it’s a go. Cardiac cath is scheduled at noon for my Dad today. I’m just hoping that everything will go smoothly and all the docs and nurses and anyone that takes care of him today do the best job that they can.

Ugh. I’m feeling so frustrated right now. Mostly because there is only so much I can do for my Dad at this moment other than just be there for him. The nurse in me wants to do more to help him but yet I don’t want to overstep my boundaries. Because believe me, when working the floors I absolutely HATED when visiting family members pulled out the “I’m a doctor”- or “I’m a nurse”- card, thinking that was going to scare me into making “triple”-sure I was doing the absolute correct thing.

But other than unrealistically flying Dad out to the best cardiology center in the US, I do have faith and confidence that he is getting the best treatment possible at this hospital at this exact time. The best I can do as a nurse is be there to explain to my Dad and Mom exactly what is going on and what to expect … basically be there to translate medical jargon into plain old-fashion English. That, and advocate for them exactly what their fears and concerns and needs are as a patient and his wife.

At the same time, poor Hubby has also been sick with a nasty cold. Which, if there was only more hours in the day, I would be babying him like he does for me when I’m sick. Unfortunately with yesterday being spent at the hospital, I’ve had no time to make him soup or hot tea and just generally be there for him. And I feel like such a horrible wife for that.

I bet y’all are saying … “WTF, Em? You advocate and care for your parents and Hubby, but you don’t advocate for yourself.” The past week (and previous posts) being prime example of not thinking of what’s the best thing for my own health.

Well, I have to tell you … and if you don’t know this by now … Nurses are notorious for not taking care of their own health. I think it’s in any person who chooses Nursing as a profession to care for others before caring for themselves. For me it’s not meant to be a self-sacrifice type of thing; it’s more that I feel that others needs appear to be more important and more urgent than my own. Then throw in the whole Catholic and Asian-American thing and it’s a golden opportunity for feeling the guilt.

Yes, I know it’s not always healthy. And I know that I do need to take care for myself before I can take care of anyone else. Every nurse gives that same schpiel to any of their co-workers (how’s that for the pot calling the kettle black?). But we’re a stubborn lot. We’re definitely a “Do as I say, not as I do” group.

I’m working on it though. This past year has been an exercise of learning to take care of myself. And think of my needs as a priority to others. I’m learning to say NO when I can’t take on anymore than I physically or emotional can. And I’m trying my darndest NOT to feel so damn guilty for doing so.

Right now? All my energy is focused on taking care of my Dad. Because that takes priority. Thanks for all your warm thoughts and prayers.

And if you can, say a quick one for Hubby, too. Because, he too, deserves the best.

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Winks Wanted

This will probably a relatively short post as I am absolutely bone tired. That would be from the total of two hours sleep I had since Wednesday morning.

Last night, around 10 pm I got a phone call from my Mom telling me she was taking my Dad to the local ER. Apparently he has been having chest pain on and off for the past two weeks, mostly when doing strenuous exercise like shoveling or jogging on his treadmill or even while bowling. But when his chest pain simply started while he was lying down at rest, he finally (?!) decided it was time to call his doctor who, of course, directed him to come to the ER.

So I met them at the hospital, which is literally blocks away from my house, and sat with Mom & Dad as he got his blood drawn and and EKG and chest x-ray done. My Dad kept on insisting it was heartburn until one of his lab tests came up elevated and his EKG showed some non-descript changes … all of which was indicating that something bad was going on with his heart. The plan was to admit him to a bed on the “Cardiac Stepdown Unit” (CPCU) and do a heart catheterization (a.k.a. “cardiac cath) to look at the arteries that supply blood and oxygen to his heart. But not before seeing the cardiologist supposedly first thing in the morning.

That was at about 1:30 this morning. And because my poor Mom was exhausted, I sent her home to sleep. I planned to stay with my Dad until he got settled in the CPCU and then come early in the morning to catch the cardiologist. But it wasn’t until 8(frickin’):15 am that he was finally in a bed, rather than the uncomfortable stretcher he was on all night in the ER. I ended up staying until we found out they weren’t going to be able to do the cardiac cath until tomorrow (due to more abnormal non-heart related bloodwork). It was at that time that I went home to catch 20 winks in two hours, only to come back and sit with Dad while my Mom was at her own doctor’s appointment.

And now … I’m finally home. I still don’t know what time his cardiac cath is tomorrow, but I know I’ll be up early at the hospital just to make sure I catch the cardiologist again. Ugh. I just hope and pray that everything goes well tomorrow.

Okay, time for hopefully more than 20 winks …

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Hearts A-Flutter

Well, I know I’ve been pretty down for the past few posts. But I decided that today I’d try to be a bit cheerier. Especially since it’s Valentine’s Day.

Never mind that it was my day off and I didn’t bother getting out of bed until well after noon. Or that I had little energy to do anything other than to run to the kitchen and bathroom for necessary activities.

Another Sketch by
My Talented Hubby

But the wonderful thing about that was I spent the morning snuggling with the kitties, reading some blogs, and watching some great TV (classic episodes of ER with Drs. Greene, Ross, Benton and Lewis along with Carol).

And tonite, Hubby is taking me out to dinner. That’s in addition to the roses he had delivered at work yesterday. (Woo-hoo! I trumped the “I’m a new Grandma” ooh’s & ahh’s … how bad am I?) I am truly very lucky and blessed to have married such a wonderful man.

So Hubby … if I don’t tell you enough, I love you and I’m so happy that you are in my life. You are my world and words aren’t enough to express exactly how much your love mean to me. Your strength and patience with me means more than you’ll ever know. You hold the key to my heart.

Happy Valentines Day!

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Our (Mutt of a) Family

My coworker’s dog (JJ) has cancer. She and her husband had been treating him holistically through supplements and a special diet. JJ was doing so well on it that during his last check-up, his cancer all but disappeared. Unfortunately, he recently went in to the vet for a random visit and it was found that his cancer is back.

This is our “baby,” Yami

Naturally, my coworker and her husband were very upset. This was their child, their first dog together. They, too, weren’t able to have any children of their own and therefore treated all their pets as if they were their kids. So they took JJ to a “doggie oncologist” to determine what their next course of action would be. The options this specialist presented to them were three-fold; give JJ chemotherapy, do surgery to remove the tumors, or do a combination of both. All those options would be expensive, as one would expect. While their final decision has yet to be made, (based on success rate and life expectancy) they are leaning towards solely doing surgery.

While my coworker and I were discussing the different options, it brought me back to a similar situation I had about four years ago. Hubby had called me at work one afternoon and sounded panicked. He told me that he thought something was wrong with our cat, Rain. She kept meowing and wouldn’t get off the couch. When he went to pick her up, she would howl whenever he touched her hind leg.

And this is our “teenager,” Rain

To give you an idea of how much Rain means to me … she, is the oldest of our three pets (two cats, one dog) that we currently have at home. If she was human, this November she would be able to vote in the presidential election (while she wasn’t eligible to vote in the MI primary this past January), that’s how old she is. She is older than my husband and I have been married. She is my first cat. Ever. She moved in with ME when I got my first apartment. And Hubby moved in with US in that apartment after we got married. And just like my co-worker, Rain is by all means, one of the three pets that Hubby & I call our “kids.”

So when I got that phone call, I rushed home to look at her and promptly called our vet who directed us to the “Pet ER.” As we sat in the waiting room, all I could think of how much pain my kitty was in. And how every time she looked at me, it was as if she was telling me to make it better. Eventually we were taken back and x-rays were taken. She had somehow shattered her femur. At that time we were given three options: have surgery to correct her fractures, amputate her leg (cheaper than fixing the fracture), or put her to sleep. Thank goodness the vet had enough sense to give Hubby & I a moment alone to discuss these options. I remember looking over at my husband at that time and just feeling completely overwhelmed. He smartly said at that moment, “We will do what needs to be done.” And that meant having the surgery.

Oh, did I fail to mention that during this exact time Hubby & I were in the midst of our one and only IVF treatment? Uh … yeah. So not only were we spending massive amounts of money in drugs and tests, etc (again, no insurance coverage in MI. Grr …) but we were going to drop another couple grand just to have our cat’s leg fixed.

And here’s is our 10 year old “puppy,” Kozzy

Were we nuts to do that? To spend that much more money on a cat that wasn’t “technically” our child? Especially since I was (at that time) by all means, pregnant with two embies inside of me?

While I still wonder to this day if the stress that I was under during that period of time was what caused me to lose our babies, I do NOT regret having made the decision to have the surgery to correct Rain’s leg. She is, by all means part of this (mutt of a) family and I wasn’t going to amputate her leg or put her to sleep over something that was easily correctable. And, honestly, if we had made any other decision, I think that even if our IVF attempt WAS successful I would have felt complete and utter sadness for Rain.

As it stands right now at this very moment … just like me coworker, our pets … our Yami, Kozzy & Rain … ARE our children. The miracles of life that we weren’t able to produce on our own.

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Tagged

So I was officially “Tagged” by kcmarie waaaay back at the end of December. I figured I probably should finally get around to doing it. Apparently there has been some “rules” that have been posted since I initially got tagged, so I figured I would add it to my post as well.

The Rules:

  1. Link to the person that tagged you.
  2. Post the rules on your blog.
  3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
  4. Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs.
  5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
  6. Let the fun begin!

Ummmm … Let’s see. Six non-important quirks about me.

  1. I brush my teeth with my left hand. Which would not be any big deal except that I’m right-handed in everything else. I’ve tried switching hands many times, but for some reason I always revert subconsciously to my left hand.
  2. I always have to sleep with one foot, preferably the right (told you I was a righty), outside of the blanket. Even if I’m lying on the side, I always have to have a foot out. It could be freezing cold in our bedroom to the point that my head is even under the covers, but I absolutely have to keep one foot on the outside. I’m not quite sure the reason why, but it’s just something I have always done. Sometimes I think that my mind is telling me that I must always be ready to move or get up at the spur of the moment.
  3. Back in high school, I was nicknamed the “Human Jukebox” because I would always know the words to any song. Friends would spit out two words to a song and I would literally know what song they were talking about. Unfortunately, that “talent” faded once I got into college because suddenly my mind had to be filled with the other “useful” knowledge it was supposed to contain in order for me to graduate with my Nursing degree. Apparently though, my “talent” has started to resurface because I’m suddenly being approached by co-workers who say I should be on that new TV show where I’m supposed to complete the lyrics. Yikes! I’d have too much stage fright!
  4. Speaking of high school, I was voted “Class New-Waver.” I mean, come ON! How 80’s could that get?! Personally, I would have thought that I would have been “Class Goth” if there was ever that category back then. But then again, we’re talking Catholic school here. I guess it was because even back then, I only wore black (Thank God no uniforms in high school at that time!) and supposedly listened to what was considered “alternative music” back then. Seriously though, I think God got back at me for wearing all that black in high school, because once I got into the Nursing program in college all I was allowed to wear was white. Grrr …
  5. I took piano lessons for close to ten years when I was young. I loved playing the piano, but I hated the lessons. Probably because I never was able to really “read” the notes as quickly as you would think someone taking lessons for that long would. Instead, I had a tendency to read the notes slowly, learn the “melody,” and then memorize it so I knew when something “sounded” wrong when I played it. It used to drive my piano teacher INSANE. What I wish I would have known then was that there was a specific method of teaching piano, called the Suzuki Method, that relied mostly on listening to a song over and over again in order to learn the tune. Then I might have found another instructor and might have continued taking lessons.
  6. I’m not a particularly active or “fit” person, but I love watching any type of sports. I think it comes from living in a city that has all the major pro-sports teams (hockey, baseball, basketball, football) and great universities with good sports programs. Hubby & I are BIG University of Michigan Football Fans and are actually pretty lucky to have season tickets every year. The funny thing is that Hubby actually is a U of M alumni, but do you think that we EVER went to any of the football games when he actually attended the university? Nope.  In fact, I never had any inkling that Hubby was a sports nut until after we were married. Which is when I really started getting into sports. Never thought I’d see the day when I actually knew what the referee’s hand signals actually meant …

So that’s it about me. Six quirky things you never wanted to know.

I guess this is where I’m supposed to tag other people. Oh geez, I don’t have THAT big a circle of friends, but I’ll tag hope548, courtney rose, and sheila. Good luck, gals!!