Poo To Tu Tu
Wow, I have to tell you that this has been two of the most stressful weeks in my life, from hobbling around to clean on my stupid ankle problems, all the way to recovery at the house with the husband after my family left. I'm not entirely kidding when I say the bedroom floor has had blood, sweat, tears, vomit, pee and worse on it in the last week.
Our family arrived and it was off to San Jose, to the hospital that is a preferred provider for my insurance. The doctor's office fubbed up, no pre authorizations were obtained, nothing, de nada, nyet! I spent a very borderline sweary sweaty hour clearing it up, and the surgery took place once I put 80% of the surgery on my AmEx as a downpayment in case the insurance company denied it.
We were told the surgery was one to two hours, they were in surgery suite for over four hours. Apparently the cancer was much more invasive than tests showed. They took his entire prostate, many nearby lymph nodes and other tissues. Jim came out with the same hipbone to hipbone incision I got when I had my hysterectomy many years before. He still has a catheter through his pubis and a pee bag. I've had to scrub and wash bedding because the catheter leaks if he rolls over on it in the middle of the night.
The family and I stayed right in the heart of the downtown San Jose area at a pretty swanky place. That made this awful time more tolerable, breakfast at the hotel, walk around the pedestrian areas sightseeing for a few before having the hotel call a cab for us to get to the hospital.
The last day at the hospital, doctor approves Jim for release. Jim is eager to go because the bed is so short, he's well over six foot and the hospital bed seems to be someone as short as I. He now has a few different bedsores from the bed.
On that last day the hospital refuses to release him, claiming they will not release him until they have the letter guaranteeing payment from the insurance company. By this point I've spoken with our insurance a half dozen times and I knew they'd emailed it over a day before. They had it, they just couldn't find it. I have a phone call with the insurance company, telling them we're being prevented from leaving the hospital, even if they have a downpayment of 80%.
It was that point I was just broken, and started crying, while the insurance company called up the hospital to tell those idiots to let us go and look for the letter. We left, but like usual, once that crying freaking out genie has emerged from the bottle it's impossible to get it back in for a few hours. Family took care of me back at the hotel. They'd delayed our leaving the hospital it was too late to attempt the five hour drive home. I was in no state to do anything but lay in the bed and try to go into my happy place to recover from the strain of the week.
One of the absolutely worst things about this week was the nosy-ass people at Jim's church, that little megachurch in the rainforest jungle, pestering the fuck out of me all week. I told those assholes little to nothing for all the frantic text messages. Every message demanding to know things none their business, like what stage the cancer was caught, or if they got it all, or pushing dried Soursop leaf tea as a cancer killer got a simple message saying that Jim was fine, he was resting and please allow us space, we were spending family only time right then. Nosy Parkers.
I saw the ahole pastor bitching and moaning on the men's group that I only shared that Jim was fine. Dude, you are not entitled to a blow by blow on what happened in that moment. Silly man didn't realize that like with all of Jim's surgerys I hang on to his cell phone, see all messages going on, and reply with my simple message. They made every medical emergency or surgery a stupid hot mess with questions. When I saw this pastor this week I was frigid to him, making the iceberg that sank the Titantic seem warm and cuddly
The day I had to take the family back to the airport was the day after we drove back from the hospital and it was a horrific day. Jim just out of bed moaning that he hadn't had a bowel movement in a week, so I had to run about and get him a mild prescription laxative, prescription fiber supplements and a fleet of Fleet enemas. Here I am trying to get family ready for the airport and Jim is insisting I use the enemas on him. He's dripping butt juice all over the bedroom.
I grab the family and we head to the airport. Now, when you fly international they insist you get there 3 hours early. I've been kicked off flights for violating that 3 hour rule, so I was in a hurry to get there. A huge accident happened on the one road in front of the Liberia Airport. Jim calls to exclaim over pooping success, and I know I'll have to be scrubbing my bedroom and bath. We finally get to the airport a mere two hours before flight time, but it turns out the family's flight is delayed an hour. Whew! I cried as they left, I wish they could have stayed another week to distract Jim.
Tomorrow I am supposed to have a CT scan of my esophagus. Started having swallowing problems and it looks like when I eat the wrong foods, things I'm allergic to or processed foods my esophagus swells damn near shut. Happened late last week, I started throwing up everywhere because nothing could get through. Freaky, but likely just another bad ju-ju symptom of my mastocytosis. So now I'm stuck in the allergy hell of logging everything I eat, which is mostly rice, butter and lamb right now. Sometimes I'll do two weeks of this when the allergies/asthma are back. Sucks so badly.
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