The Big Valley

So ironically, the time I needed to be writing I didn't. The largest valley of my life started in the January of 2018 with my dad having congestive heart failure. His kidneys finally gave out from that, and he started dialysis. After three weeks in the hospital, he was released to rehab and after three weeks there they let us know he couldn't go back to living in his apartment alone. We had to scramble to find him a senior living home in a few days. Luckily he could handle an independent living place. Unfortunately, the only dialysis times available at first were 5am Monday-Wednesday-Friday. So I was up at 4am to take him for a few weeks until he was able to get a different time slot. Thankfully by then he was also strong enough to drive himself since in April, DH had hernia surgery.

It should have been a simple outpatient procedure, but due to the opioid crisis, the pain meds he was prescribed were less than he needed, and he ended up having a vasovagel episode at home resulting in my having to call 911 while he was unconscious. After three days in the hospital, he finally came home. The silver lining to his experience was a greater appreciation for the three C-sections I had.

That was followed in May by my own trip to the Minute Clinic due to severe abdominal pains. They were concerned it could be appendicitis so they refused to do a diagnosis and sent me on to Urgent Care. FYI, Urgent Care will also not be able to help in that scenario, you must go to the Emergency Room. I tell you that to save you the other two co-pays if you're in the same situation. The fun part was that we saw our favorite ER doc who usually was there to check Dad in, but this time it was me. Basically, it was a wasted trip. It was just stress.

Oddly enough that wasn't our last appendicitis scare for the year, though the one we had in the fall was legit. This time, it was DH, so he had his second abdominal surgery in a less than six months. He had been training for the Marine Corps Marathon and was devastated by this setback. But he had much better pain meds, and bounced back much more quickly so was able to get back on track.

October 24, 2018 my dad passed away.

It was strange because he'd been so sick in the spring but he was doing so well over the summer - using his walker to come to the kids' activities, enjoying life at the senior community. When he went to the hospital on October 22, it was because he'd been at dialysis and his blood pressure was too low for them to let him leave. He still felt good - in typical fashion, giving the ambulance driver directions on the best way to the hospital. They gave him a blood transfusion, which wasn't anything new. When I went to see him Wednesday night, he was crabby, but I thought he was just tired. I kissed him goodbye and told him I'd see him in the morning. When I got home, DH and I were talking about his upcoming trip to Washington, DC Friday when he was finally going to get to run the Marine Corps Marathon. And then 20 minutes later, the hospital called. The nurse said they had started chest compressions and asked me if we had talked about what his wishes were. I said,"No, stop - he has a DNR!" She frantically told them to stop. I couldn't believe it. He'd been in that hospital for 3 days on this visit, but had been so many times over the years that several of the staff members knew him. Regardless, he was an old man - wouldn't that have been the first thing to check? He would have been so pissed if they had brought him back.

Anyway, DH was going to cancel his trip, but I told him that was ridiculous - he'd been through so much this year he had to go. Besides, my sister was in NYC and still had to fly home to STL before coming back here so it wasn't like the funeral was going to happen for a few days. He didn't want to leave me, but the upside to having a parent who's been on the verge of death most of your life is that while it's still terrible when it  happens, you aren't as unprepared as someone who hasn't been through that. DH completing the marathon was the bright light we needed in deep valley we were in. And he was my rock when he got home and we had the funeral.

Things went back to a new normal, though for Thanksgiving we just went out for Mexican since it was the first holiday without Dad. Then December 22, my father-in-law had a stroke. Luckily, DH and my mother-in-law were with him. They were all helping DH's Aunt P move. My FIL and Aunt P's boyfriend were following each other, and her boyfriend noticed that my FIL pulled the car over. He came back to check on him, and when my FIL said he couldn't move his right side, he called 911. Luckily he was able to quickly be treated at the nearest hospital to prevent the stroke effects from getting worse. Then they decided to move him to a hospital downtown to have his carotid artery cleaned out.

DH waited til they got settled in, then ran out to get some lunch. On his way back, he was sitting at a  stoplight, and a truck coming the opposite direction came across the median and hit him head on. The driver had some kind of episode and passed out behind the wheel. Thankfully, DH had minor injuries, but the brand new Explorer we'd only had for 6 months was totaled.

And because we needed an exclamation point to finish off the year, I threw out my back for the first time in my life December 30.

I kept thinking things would turn around after the first of the year. Surely 2019 can't be as bad as 2018? Unfortunately, it took some time for that to happen. The accident happened on the Missouri side of the city, and they took over a month to get the police report completed. It ended up requiring a lawsuit to get enough money to cover most of the bills we incurred which dragged out for a couple of months.

In the meantime, I'd started having really heavy periods the previous summer, and they'd just gotten worse and worse. To the point that I had to leave work one day in January. So finally went to the doctor about it. She thought I might have a polyp so had me come back for a possible in-office procedure. Unfortunately, it wasn't just one small one, she saw 2 very large ones that almost were the size of my uterus. So in April it was my turn for surgery. She found another polyp while she was in there and did an ablation to help keep them from coming back. So far so good!

Things (kind of?) started getting better after that. It's a weird time right now, of course. Counting our blessings.