Chapter 604 - Anxiety and Stress

 A Zoom meeting with a financial advisor planned for last Wednesday made me a shattered wreck because I procrastinated telling her that the aim of the meeting was to plan one of us entering Residential Care. A few hours prior to the meeting I summed up the courage to tell her, she made a non-committal reply. She did not react. I set up for meeting on her machine rather than mine in my dungeon. We were ready on time, the advisor wasn't, more tension, I thought she would become restless but she didn't. She just sat in her wheel chair passively waiting and I don't think she spoke during the 45 minutes of discussion and made no comments afterwards. I had expected her to be quite negative but instead was just mute and did not speak about it afterwards. I learned our SMSF was not set up for the funds to be readily used as a Refundable Accommodation Deposit. Years ago we must not have been contemplating institutional care. The advisor is now how to get around the difficulty and I have supplied additional information about our lifestyle budgeting. And then CLink has queried my carer status as if they thought I was no longer going to be her carer. Kafka like coercion.The advisor wants an idea of my living costs if/when I am on my own. We spend more money than I realised on on-line subscriptions, books and music. Small amounts add up to quite a lot of money.

I'm trying to break our going to bed early habit. Saturday night in bed from 1900, awake from 0000 to 0300 stressing, listening to Insight Timer, Radio National and reading a novel trying not to think about the tasks to be done. I decided everything had to be done on Sunday. This one above, responding to CLink by the requested Due Date, contact West Beer again about Duodopa pump error messages and the ongoing stoma problems (see below). I began with a load of washing and put a previous week's washing away. Make an appointment for a medical check-up for my driving licence renewal and several other things obviously of no importance now that they are actioned.

For most of her time last week she pulled threads out of a pink hand towel which now looks as if it has the pox or mange. There seems be no purpose to this endless task, although I suspect the task may reduce the amount of dyskinesia. Our small hand held vacuum is very handy for picking up the loose threads tracked all over the house, She had been knitting thin yarn on very large needles, the effect being  quite pretty but something went astray, she incorporated a third needle, the whole thing became a tangle and yesterday she asked me to throw it in the bin.

This morning as I cleaned her stoma area prior to the Wild Dog carer arriving to shower her, a trickle of blood dribbled down her tummy. I feared it would not stop. Several wads of tissue dipped in cold water eventually brought the flow under control just as the carer arrived. I feared the bleeding may begin again during her shower but it did not. I almost panicked, not knowing what to do, who to call. Mid morning I rang West Beer to speak to the clinic nurse who was unperturbed by my description of the bleeding. She decided that the intestinal tubing needed replacing, having been fitted in April 2015, and deterioration occurs to cause stoma issues like we are seeing. I wonder whether this is a recent discovery because our problem began at the beginning of the year, causing me no end of anxiety and pointless visits to doctors and useless antibiotic treatment. She told me that there is a knowledgeable gastroenterologist down in Hot Air City who is able to do the job, since Big Smoke is in COVID lock down. (tell me, why "lock down" rather than "lock up"?) She gave me the words to ask our local GP to write a referral to the gastro man. I emailed the words back to her for verification. Supposedly day surgery, although I'm sure only after an initial consultation, so two day trips at least and at a private hospital so I had better cancel ideas of cancelling our private health insurance. So another GP appointment for tomorrow for the referral.

I completed the Census on line a short time ago. All this typing exercise may have been beneficial for my right arm which has been freezing in pain as soon as it hovers over a keyboard. Too much pulling, lifting and shoving in my carer roll.