Saturday, February 27, 2010

Try, Try Again

SO we've been having some little medical issues around the house the last two weeks and for a change it's not my behind or neck. Although I am still see doctors routinely for both.

No, it's been Papa. Two weeks ago he told me his jaw was sore and he thought he felt a bump. Oh no! Really, I said, you'd better check in with the doctor. But as before with the "heart attack", come Monday when the doctor's office opened, he said he felt OK and wasn't calling. This time instead of calling those close to him and tattling, I started researching "things" on the internet (I know, bad, bad Grammy) and sending him what I was finding.

After only an hour or so, he calls me and said he had a doctor appointment the next day. Well on Tuesday his doc seemed very concerned and didn't see evidence of a "bump". He called it an assymetrical mass on one side and he could definitely see it. Of course, after relaying this information, Papa refused to let me see him head on for any length of time so I could investigate.

Doc sent him for a CT scan, the sooner the better, and so the appointment was made for Thursday morning. (I was just thanking God that I had bought travel insurance.)

CT Scan was accomplished and, of course, they don't tell Papa any diagnosis. Thankfully early Friday morning the doc called and said it was just a bacterial infection in his jaw and around the salivatory glands and gave him a heavy duty antibiotic to take 4x a day for a couple of weeks and a refill tacked on and TO FINISH ALL THE MEDICINE. "Oh, and how is your aspirin therapy going?" Well that was a new one. After Papa's last round of bloodwork, I noticed in addition to his cholesterol being high, that he was pre-hypertensive and wondered if they were going to put him on the aspirin a day plan but no mention of it. Obviously they did mention it and either Papa didn't pay attention or he "forgot."

Ok, fast forward to this week and Papa had a three year routine colonoscopy scheduled. His father had colon cancer and at Papa's first procedure, 10 polyps were found, five being pre-cancerous so "you must come back in three years." We checked and rechecked and the antibiotics mentioned above as well as the aspirin and cholesterol meds were all allowed to be continued while prepping for this procedure.

Papa was a little more relieved, a different prep was being used than what he had to ENDURE the last time. So long story short, no cheating on food (I was the supreme food nazi), his prep liquids were consumed and the pooping commensed and all was well, so the next day off to the doc's office we went for the procedure.

Afterward, while we were sitting in the recovery room, the doc came in with some "bad news"....could only view the bottom half of the colon because the top half was...well, you know...not empty. We discussed all this and it could be that Papa ate too heavily on Tuesday, his last day of solid food. Maybe the antibiotic caused a little stopping up. Maybe the new prep wasn't as effective as the last one. Of course, later on that evening, Papa blamed the doctor as being at fault (no details as of why this blame) but continuing on this thread my jello was also thrown in as being at fault. See what I'm dealing with!

Anyway, bottom line, we have to repeat this whole process again in SIX MONTHS and go back to using the original prep, and to limit food to soups only on his last solid food day.

Maybe I'll just stay in the tropics until September when this procedure is over and come home.

Collecting once again for a Grammy fund!
Until next time....

Sunday, February 21, 2010

OBE

Plain and simple--Overcome By Events! Sitting at Massey Gardens, yes we are back over here. Somewhat. We have beds, tvs and DISH satellite set up. Bathrooms and kitchen are coming along but the weather is really impeding our progress.

First, it snowed and snowed and snowed and we couldn't get up the road to Massey Ponds and now that the snow is pretty much gone, it's raining and the road is quite muddy. We did make it up yesterday for one truckload and one carload but that's all the progress this weekend. Oh well, we're not in a hurry and we are comfortable out here now and not trapped in one bedroom while trying to rehab the other house. That was all pretty miserable.

I've decided to do alot of deep cleaning over here as we move back and I'm getting ready to paint the front room of the back bathroom next weekend. We've had some roofwork and carpet cleaners in here to give the carpet a thorough cleaning after our "renters" left. Good riddance to that nightmare and I may write more of that story as time goes on but for now, just moving on.

We are getting ready for our big once-in-a-lifetime cruise to the Western Caribbean. We'll be there two weeks from today. Will be a whirlwind I'm sure.

I'm suffering another addiction which is contributing to my lack of writing. I've decided I enjoy reading more and from the looks of my blogroll, you'll see I have a ton more blogs that I'm enjoying. Having a hard time just trying to keep up with all that reading, let alone getting my blog written. But think I'm gonna switch around my priorities....I won't allow myself to read UNTIL I write a little bit.

All the cast of characters I've written about previously are all doing well and I'll get some updates written on everyone and some new pictures included.

But that's my short update for now.

Stay tuned....Grammy