Robert's OTHER surgery

 February 2, 2022

That's right, a week after he had his second surgery on his left arm, my poor husband had to go back on the operating table and be cut open again. What happened is this. The surgeon, Dr. Fox, came by to look at the arm that he'd "fixed" on the 20th and as he changed the bandage, he dislocated Robert's arm. Just by touching it gently. He'd warned Robert not to jostle that shoulder, and he'd been VERY careful not to, but clearly something wasn't right. So they scheduled another surgery for Saturday the 29th to take out the long implant against the humerus and replace it with a longer one that would fit the socket better. Robert had been in the hospital the whole time.

After the second (really third) surgery, Robert came out feeling pretty good, with minimal swelling/pain and with no neuropathy in his feet. They cleared him to go to rehab and yesterday, February 1, they moved him into the PAM Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Overland Park. When I spoke with him tonight, he was very tired, but in good spirits. He'll have three hours of PT/OT and other therapy to help him manage with one hand while the other one heals. 

In other news, Ethan finally got approved to get his Entyvio infusion (three weeks after he should have had it). There was a whole snafu with the Sabetha Hospital not sending in the request for approval back in November, when we gave them the new insurance. Dr. Datti's office have been fighting with BlueCross/Blue Shield since then, trying to get it approved. I called yesterday and bingo, bango, bish, bash, bosh (as Ethan says), it's all approved! I didn't even have to threaten to call a lawyer, which was my next step. Poor Ethan's been in pain for so long--it sure would be nice if we could get him into remission! 

One more thing about Ethan, he's been having great fun DMing two D/D games on Tuesday and Thursday and participating in one on Saturdays. It's really helped take his mind off his pain and has alleviated some of his loneliness. God bless his therapist, who pushed him to check into it!

Cathleen is doing pretty well, but I do think the stress of teaching is getting to her a bit. She can't seem to clear up the excema she keeps getting and it keeps spreading to new spots. She'll be happy to have Spring Break and then summer vacation. I'm so proud of her and her confidence in her teaching ability. The school and kiddos are so lucky to have her!

Robert's Surgery

 January 25, 2022

Robert had surgery this Thursday (01/20/20222), so he and I drove to KC on Wednesday night so we'd be ready for his 8:00am surgery call. His procedure lasted five hours, then he had a two hour recovery. When the surgeon, Dr. Fox, came to talk to me about it, I had him draw what he built, and am including it below.

The bone, in black, is still broken, but is being held together by a plate (the blue oval) that is screwed into the bone. The blue rectangle is cadaver bone that is cinched to Robert's humerus with metal bands in the hopes that his diminished bone would meld with and be strengthened by it. Dr. Fox had to remove both previous implants and replace them with new ones, though he had hoped to reuse the socket implant. 

When I was able to see Robert in his room, he complained about not being able to feel the bottoms of his feet. At first, we thought that was temporary (and it was) as a result of his upright positioning for the surgery, but as it went on, it impeded his ability to stand and walk. Finally, by Saturday, he began to have some feeling in his feet and was able to stand and shuffle a few steps to the chair nearby so that he could sit upright for a bit. 

I went home Saturday evening and drove back Sunday to visit, leaving in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Robert's social worker was preparing to find him a rehabilitation facility (at the recommendation of his PT/OT team) so that he could gain confidence in walking and moving before coming home. The social worker has been calling places since yesterday (Monday, 01/24/2022) and is having some difficulty because she needs to find a place that will accept bariatric patients. So, he's still in the hospital. The house is very quiet without his cheerful laugh and dad jokes. I miss him. 

So, here we are in the future . . .

January 11, 2022

Well, here we are in the future. It’s mostly the same as the past but we all got older. Profound no, but I’m finding life is rarely Insta-worthy. Ethan is still sick, skinny, hurting all the time. He went to see his internist today and while I hoped for miracles, I can’t see how he found any in a 25 minute visit. I look forward to hearing what happened tonight. Cathleen was gracious enough to take the day off to drive him to his appointment as I have very few days off earned as of yet. I’m still two days away from my three month mark, and I’ve been using my sick/vacation days as fast as they are earned. Next year will probably be better that way—at least I hope so. 

Cathleen’s boss did a “gotcha” observation yesterday, right at the end of school during a transition from an activity to math. She came home mad, of course, but calmed down after she had a chance to vent. Honestly, I’m not sure how some people get to be supervisors! She is getting great feedback from her students, their parents and the community, so I think her job is safe. She says several teachers are thinking about leaving, no surprise after the sh*tshow this school year has been. 

Robert’s work has finally hired a new payroll clerk—hope this one works out better. It certainly a relief to him and his co-workers as it more equitably divides the work load. Nation-wide, employers have struggled to fill positions as employees are stressed out, overworked and underpaid. Many places are still just distributing the extra work left behind by departing employees to the existing ones. Which of course, results in more stressed out workers and more employees quitting. 

The global pandemic is still rolling along with China locking down cities and hospitals all over America (and in other nations) overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. Many of them are children who can’t be immunized or adults who won’t get immunized, but some have been both immunized and boosted. Over nine billion vaccines/boosters have been given out all told and the world stands at 5,499,769 deaths from this buggerly thing that just won’t go away. Source, as always, Johns Hopkins. 

Merry Christmas 2021

 Right. So, I got Ethan out of the hospital yesterday (12/24/21) and brought Cathleen into the doctor's. Both kiddos have C-Diff which is contagious and is treated with 10 days of antibiotics. So, masking around the house, lots of hand washing and separate bathrooms. Also, the kids can't go into the kitchen, though I may need to change that when I go back to work on Monday. We were going to go to KC for Christmas with the family tomorrow, but since we're all potentially contagious we are staying home. In fact, we're not having Christmas until next weekend when we're all feeling better. I'm feeling fine, just a little sore from my cleaning frenzy yesterday. 

Robert is always hurting due to his arm, but he's got surgery scheduled for the 20th of January. Thursday, he went in to have the fluid in his left arm aspirated and to talk to anesthesia about the surgery. They are going to culture the fluid to see if and what sort of infection he has there. He's such a good sport about what must be very painful nearly all the time. 

As for me, I've been cleaning and care-taking and thanking God that I quit teaching. There is no way I could do such an all-encompassing job and still take care of all these people. I am looking forward to getting some official training at work. Hopefully soon, though no word yet. I tried a book club here in Hiawatha, but I really didn't enjoy any of the three selections, so I'll try another. I think there are two more in town--Black lives matter and a murder mystery club. I need to go back to the library to find out about what the selections are. Gotta be better than Searching for Tom Hanks, The 13th Gift, and Wildflower.  I need some conflict and expert writing in my reading. 

December 21, 2021

Capping off this year, my son was just admitted to the hospital (he’s been there since about 4:30am when he woke me) for a gut infection—no holes, thankfully!—and getting IV pain meds and antibiotics. Since there is still COVID (Delta, Omicron, fa-la-la-la-la), he had to be tested for that before admittance and they had to give him a chest x-ray in addition to the CT. This poor young man has really been through the wringer! Please, please, let the biologic (Entyvio) work so that he can go into remission. If anyone deserves a break, he does. 

Yesterday, Monday, I drove Robert to KU Medical Center to see Dr. Fox. He was referred to KU by Dr. Jake Deister, the doctor who did his full left shoulder replacement (stemming from a fall at work in June of 2019). In January of 2020, he fell and broke the right shoulder, but no surgery was necessary. Last month, November 2021, he fell when he was helping me push Ethan’s car into the driveway and broke the arm just under the implant. We took him to Hiawatha Hospital where they x-rayed and scanned him at least three times, but couldn’t really see what was wrong. 

They could tell he had a broken arm, but they couldn’t understand what they were seeing in his shoulder and upper arm. The reason for that become clear as Dr. Fox looked at all the x-rays (including the ones his staff took yesterday). The implant, he said, had come loose. In fact, it had been loose for some time and had broken the bone running parallel to it, causing bone loss and pain for Robert. Six weeks into this poor man’s third broken bone, we find out the break in November might have been a blessing in disguise—showing us why he’d been in pain so long. 

I’ve never seen a doctor so furious as Dr. Fox was after examining Robert and viewing the x-rays. He needed several moments of silence as he tried to determine what to say to us. When he told us that the implant had failed, likely due to faulty work by the other surgeon and certainly faulty after care, we were both stunned into silence. We both felt so betrayed and so angry that it was difficult to speak. Once Dr. Fox got himself into control, he said he would take care of Robert. He told us he was concerned that there might be infection around the implant, so Robert is going back to KU on Thursday (with Cathleen this time, I don’t have enough days off right now) to get his shoulder aspirated and speak with the anesthesiologist. Then the fluid needs to be cultured for two weeks and he’ll have a virtual visit with Dr. Fox to discuss the surgery. It’s scheduled for January 11, 2022.

If there is any fortune to be had in this whole mess it is that since the original surgery caused the damage, this will still be covered under worker’s compensation. My boys are not doing well and I am heartbroken for their pain. If I could take it, I would, but that’s not the way the world works. 

Weather or not . . .

 The news has been much about the weather lately. There were severe tornados in Kentucky killed many people and wiped out several towns. Today in Kansas, on December 15, the temperature is expected to be in the 70s. No, that is not a typo. 70s with rain and extreme winds up to 70 mph. I didn’t even bring a coat to work today. Reading National Geographic lately, the melting of glaciers and icebergs has been much on my mind. With the technology we have now, you can see before/after photos of the ground previously covered by those massive sheets of ice now laid bare as fields or melted into rivers or ponds. Global warming deniers will soon have no alternative but to accept the reality. Too late, I fear for any change we humans make to save what we’ve destroyed. If I use myself as an example, I do recycle paper, metal, plastic and glass, but I still USE those materials, which means that they are being made for me to use up and throw away. I’m truly a bit disgusted with myself. I’m just as much a problem as anyone else on the planet. I drive to work and to visit family in KC, contributing to greenhouse gasses. I eat meat daily, I shop at Walmart and Amazon. Even with things as bad as they are, there’s no incentive to change. Our government hasn’t mandated or incentivized a switch to electric vehicles or public transportation. Not that I think the government can solve all our environmental problems. Even if everyone on the planet stopped consuming, the overall effect would not be seen a long time. Really, the only good thing for the planet is if people suddenly disappeared. Something like that happened during the pandemic’s first wave when whole countries basically shut down for weeks. Skies cleared, water ran pure (ish). Such a tease! Then we went right back to our consuming ways and dirtied things up again.

 

My own internal weather has been pretty cloudy lately. Quitting my job freed up some emotional room, but caring for my family has filled that space. I am overwhelmed with caretaking duties more often now. Robert’s broken arm/shoulder means he is virtually useless at helping around the house, nor will I be able to ask him to help me outside after he heals for fear that he’ll fall again and break something else. So far, it’s been shoulder/shoulder/arm. What might it be next time? Ethan is still struggling. He can make himself a meal and take his own shower, but he’s so weak and sick that he can’t do much else. It’s a constant worry. His doctor believes that the Entyvio is working (at least a recent blood test showed that he’s not developed antibodies to it) but his body is metabolizing it too fast. They are wrangling with the insurance to get him infusions every six weeks rather than ever yeight. I am cautiously hopeful. Cathleen has her own issues, and she’s been as helpful as she can be, but that first year of teaching is so, so stressful. She’s been sick frequently, not uncommon. She is starting to think about getting her own place. I will be delighted to help her move this summer. Perhaps an apartment will open up, but if not, she has enough money saved up and enough income that she would surely be able to get herself a house here in town. It would be nice for all of us for her to have her own place.

 

To the good, I like my job and my coworkers. I’m still grateful that I quit teaching—the release of worry and stress is still awesome to me. I’m in good health and I can see my immediate family every day. I’ve still got both parents.  

Missing KC

 The holidays are upon us and my, they make me miss being near family. Sunday (12/12/2021), I drove down to KC to have dinner with the Beards on the Plaza. It was a nice meal with Nancy and Brianna joining us from South Carolina, Annette, Madison, James and their two kiddos and of course mom and dad. My family was too ill to go. Robert’s broken arm is still in a sling (six weeks later!), but we’re going to KC Med for a consult on the 20^th, so maybe not too longer. With our luck, he’ll need surgery and he’ll be in a cast. 

Ethan finally got news from his doctor that he’s reacting well to the Entyvio, but will have to have it every 6 weeks instead of every 8 because he’s metabolizing it too fast. Cathleen had a whopper of a cold last week and taught through it, so pretty much was down this weekend. I love my family very, very much, but sometimes I want to run away. I won’t, don’t worry. 

On Saturday (12/11/2021), I finally went to see Hiawatha’s Tuba Christmas, put on continuously (except for last year—COVID) since 1984. It was really something—9 tuba and euphonium players and Christmas songs. With the deep bass of the instruments and the two-story entry of the courthouse, you could literally feel the music in your body. Professional it wasn’t, but I enjoyed going. Wish some of my family could have come with me. It’s been really hard getting into the Christmas spirit this year, but I persist. I’ve been watching The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which is pretty Christmassy