Chapter 410 - Quality of Life
I am not in a mood to write anything tonight; or any day previously. I'm so tired, at times light headed, sometimes wobble when I walk. Most mornings after breakfast my blood pressure drops below 120/80. Our doctor gave me a check-up; standing in his room, eyes closed I maintained my balance; walking heel-to-toe was OK, my BP was OK; he gave me the last of the B12 injections begun some time last year and gave me a script for a blood test in a month's time.
On another day I took her to see the doctor to have him check her for melanomas; nothing found, although he paid particular attention to a few spots on her shoulders.
A call from a physio at the local hospital to bring her in for her left foot to be investigated with a view to having cast serial AFO's fitted if Botox was injected, seemingly at Big Smoke. We had not been advised that such was to occur. We await their instructions.
The West Beer PD clinic had also asked for a blood test and some days later when he checked her for spots he told us that the only test a little bit off was her B12 and gave us a script for it, and that reminds me, I am yet to have it filled.
When she saw her eye specialist he was pleased with her eye pressures, both were 16. However, she was not blinking enough so he prescribed eye drops 3 times each day. Damn difficult to remember to administer them. I had noticed that her eyes have been red-rimmed lately but thought nothing of it.
She has had two "falls"; on outside on the patio when she inspected something in our raised garden bed and she slipped forward off the wheel chair. Then last Friday she took herself to the loo, falling forwards onto the floor as she left the wheel chair; some "mess" on the floor as a result. Surprisingly, she suffered no bruising or cuts as a result of either.
On Tuesday last week, the day she saw the physio, she made a mess getting onto the loo, resulting in a late afternoon shower.
Most nights I hear her yelling out while asleep. Early one morning she woke me when she jammed her fingers in the bed rail; she had attempted to lower the rails in the dark. I can't remember the reason why.
She now "hums" almost non-stop all day; that tuneless grunting noise. I just ignore it. She has begun punding again, sorting things when she opens a drawer or a cupboard. She cannot be distracted from her hand sewing (her sewing machine needed more repairs) of small decorative hand towels and I lose my temper when she persists with a task in hand, humming away, as I attempt to have her get ready for an appointment. My foible in wishing to be early for appointments, or just simply to "get going", is becoming stronger than ever, and with my continuing tiredness makes me very irritable.
Each morning I wake at 0600, load a cassette and connect the pump to her without her waking, so by 0700 when I rise she is reasonably mobile, complains of lower back pain, and with difficulty gets onto the commode. So much for neuros thinking she can do all this on her own from sometime after 0500.
There have been different feelings, sensations, in her feet not experienced before. Yesterday spots on her feet were pulsating, other times there have been pains. Signs that her spinal operation has begun re-connecting some nerve signals?
We continue to make Sunday mornings our shopping day, although I'm finding pushing her around in the wheel chair a very tiring experience. I would not do it except that we both need to get out even if it's just a matter of browsing the same shops. I just remembered that I put some scripts into the chemist and forgot all about going back to collect them. I'm losing it!!
Round about now, 2120, I begin to organise us for bed; pump off, glaucoma eyedrops, Movicol when I forget to give it to her earlier, a Sinemet CR, wrap her up in incontinence wrap arounds and it's usually about 2300 when I turn the lights out, for I need to read a few pages first, and then when I wake in the middle of the night I need to listen to ABC RN on an ear bud to prevent my mind endlessly spinning circular thoughts.
What a shit of a life we have.
On another day I took her to see the doctor to have him check her for melanomas; nothing found, although he paid particular attention to a few spots on her shoulders.
A call from a physio at the local hospital to bring her in for her left foot to be investigated with a view to having cast serial AFO's fitted if Botox was injected, seemingly at Big Smoke. We had not been advised that such was to occur. We await their instructions.
The West Beer PD clinic had also asked for a blood test and some days later when he checked her for spots he told us that the only test a little bit off was her B12 and gave us a script for it, and that reminds me, I am yet to have it filled.
When she saw her eye specialist he was pleased with her eye pressures, both were 16. However, she was not blinking enough so he prescribed eye drops 3 times each day. Damn difficult to remember to administer them. I had noticed that her eyes have been red-rimmed lately but thought nothing of it.
She has had two "falls"; on outside on the patio when she inspected something in our raised garden bed and she slipped forward off the wheel chair. Then last Friday she took herself to the loo, falling forwards onto the floor as she left the wheel chair; some "mess" on the floor as a result. Surprisingly, she suffered no bruising or cuts as a result of either.
On Tuesday last week, the day she saw the physio, she made a mess getting onto the loo, resulting in a late afternoon shower.
Most nights I hear her yelling out while asleep. Early one morning she woke me when she jammed her fingers in the bed rail; she had attempted to lower the rails in the dark. I can't remember the reason why.
She now "hums" almost non-stop all day; that tuneless grunting noise. I just ignore it. She has begun punding again, sorting things when she opens a drawer or a cupboard. She cannot be distracted from her hand sewing (her sewing machine needed more repairs) of small decorative hand towels and I lose my temper when she persists with a task in hand, humming away, as I attempt to have her get ready for an appointment. My foible in wishing to be early for appointments, or just simply to "get going", is becoming stronger than ever, and with my continuing tiredness makes me very irritable.
Each morning I wake at 0600, load a cassette and connect the pump to her without her waking, so by 0700 when I rise she is reasonably mobile, complains of lower back pain, and with difficulty gets onto the commode. So much for neuros thinking she can do all this on her own from sometime after 0500.
There have been different feelings, sensations, in her feet not experienced before. Yesterday spots on her feet were pulsating, other times there have been pains. Signs that her spinal operation has begun re-connecting some nerve signals?
We continue to make Sunday mornings our shopping day, although I'm finding pushing her around in the wheel chair a very tiring experience. I would not do it except that we both need to get out even if it's just a matter of browsing the same shops. I just remembered that I put some scripts into the chemist and forgot all about going back to collect them. I'm losing it!!
Round about now, 2120, I begin to organise us for bed; pump off, glaucoma eyedrops, Movicol when I forget to give it to her earlier, a Sinemet CR, wrap her up in incontinence wrap arounds and it's usually about 2300 when I turn the lights out, for I need to read a few pages first, and then when I wake in the middle of the night I need to listen to ABC RN on an ear bud to prevent my mind endlessly spinning circular thoughts.
What a shit of a life we have.
posted by Kilpike | 9:36 pm
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