Today's News
The big news for me now is that we have decided to sell our house. We just can’t afford to keep it anymore. Taxes, water, oil, upkeep are just more than our income can handle and still live reasonably comfortable anymore.
We’
ve been living there for 10 years. My aunt (Dad’s sister) owned the house for many years. As she got older and Alzheimer’s began to take its toll, Dad asked us to move in to the second floor apartment to help take care of her. She passed away in December of 1999, 11 days before my Dad succumbed to cancer. He was her sole heir so my Mom inherited the house in Dad’s stead. We bought the house from Mom in the summer of 2000. Taxes were about $1,000 a year less than they are now. Oil and water were both about half of what we now pay.
Over that time, I’
ve been out of work 3 different times and it’s been a struggle to keep up with paying the bills and still live comfortably. We are actually about 6 months behind on the mortgage payments, oil bill and water bill. Selling the house is our best option to get out of this hole.
Thank God that our mortgage is through a very friendly local bank and they are working with us to allow us to sell. That way, at least we’ll get something out of the investment we made. If we sell for market rates (anywhere between $250k and $325k) we’ll make out pretty well even after paying off the mortgage and the bills. My best guess is that we’ll have somewhere between $45k and $90k left (even after putting some money away for the boy’s schooling). I want to invest about $10k to $20k of what’s left for future consideration and keep the rest for liquidity.
I told my Mom that we had to sell and she was cool with it. She told my brother and he called to tell us that he wants us to move in with him. He and my Mom had bought a very nice 2 family house last year that is two blocks from where we live now. It has an attic space that can fairly easily be converted to a loft apartment with the addition of some heat, a bathroom and a kitchenette. So he decided to offer us his apartment, he’ll move up to the attic space and we’ll have the 7 room second floor.
I’m very grateful to my brother as his offer solved a ton of problems for us: We won’t have to look for an apartment (with our credit issues that could be very tough). We won’t have to move out of town to find something we could afford. We won’t have to switch my son to another school since we’ll still be in the same district. I know my brother will be reasonable on the rent. We’ll be there to keep an eye on Mom (she’s 75 and not that mobile).
A few immediate concerns are that first, we have to keep paying the bank something towards the mortgage (not that hard and we are doing that now). Second, we have to pay the oil bill so that we at least get an oil delivery to get us through the summer (we use oil to heat hot water). Third, we missed one home insurance payment and the company canceled our policy so we have to get a new one. These are the most pressing issues and the one I am most concerned about is the insurance.
Other than that, life is not too bad. I think the temp job I’m currently holding may turn into a permanent gig. I like it there. My boss is cool, the office is great and the commute is pretty easy. The job is almost a no
brainer, too.
The boy’s hockey has settled down for now. We had no option but to have him tryout in other programs since the program he played in for the last two years is collapsing. He made a B team at the program we wanted most but it’s is a fair distance for us to go. He’ll do well there but it’s gonna cost us about $700 more a year in tuition. The new program is better managed, larger and dare I say a better class of people involved as well. The best part is that we are going back to Lake Placid again next season! We had so much fun there this past year and we are excited to go back. I definitely have a number of things I want us to do there this year and number one on the list is the bobsled ride!
My health has settled down. My blood pressure is good and I have had no chest pains at all. Besides having to remember to take 4 different pills at different times each day my recovery has been good. I have been going to my exercise program almost religiously but I have had trouble staying on my diet. That’s the hardest part but I am resolving here and now to get better at that.
My relationship with the wife is a bit odd lately… She’s been bothered by some of her own health problems and it’s caused her to be testy and short with both the boy and me. We’
ve argued a few times and they’
ve been serious enough that I stopped talking to her twice. She gets so worked up sometimes and then she just lashes out at us for little things. What I really don’t like is that she curses and calls us names. I never, ever do that to her or the boy and I really don’t want her to do that to us. She makes me angry when she does that and when she acts like the martyr in a situation or an argument.
Labels: bills, boy, brother, dad, debt, heart, hockey, house, mom, money, move, recovery, sale
Recovery
Recovery from catherization with angioplasty and insertion of a stent starts as soon as the procedure ends. The patient (me of course) has to lay flat on their back for a couple of hours. During that time the staff gingerly helps to transfer the patient to a gurney for transfer to a room. Once in the room, vitals such as blood pressure, temperature and pulse (along with a telemetric heart monitor) are monitored every 15 minutes. Basically, a nurse sits by your bedside and watches you. I actually wore a blood pressure cuff and that little light thingy on my finger most of that day. In my case, I had a male nurse that was joking the whole time. He made the whole experience much easier for me with that and by explaining everything in detail along the way.
One of the things he explained was that if I had to sneeze, cough or laugh I had to place my hand where the still inserted catheter was in my leg and hold it. This was to minimize its movement and to aid in its removal and sealing the incision later on. The problem was that the way he joked around, I had to grab the thing every couple of minutes! Obviously, that was intentional as it helped me to remember to do it.
All this time, I was still hooked up to a fluid IV and it caused me to want to urinate very often. I don’t know about you but it aint easy to pee lying flat on your back – try it some time. I actually had to have my wife hold my penis and aim it into the jug they give you to catch it. As hard as that sounds, it’s even harder when there are other people watching. I guess I had a form of performance anxiety. At some point, I had to give in and let the nurse hold my penis while I peed! I have to say, that was humiliating but when you have to go and there is no one else but the nurse to help, you’d do it too.
Along the way, your body starts to hurt from lying in one position so long. I really felt it in my lower back and butt.
About two hours after the procedure, the worst of the whole thing has to happen, the nurse removes the catheter! That may sound like it’s a good thing and it is, but it’s painful.
Two nurses teamed up to remove it. They began with removing the temporary dressings over the tubing and prepare the more permanent dressings. Next, they pull the tube out and use direct pressure to seal the incision and stop the bleeding. I have heard other people tell me that this is usually done with sandbags but not in my case. My male nurse stood over me with straight arms pushing down on the wound with his palms. I can’t tell you how painful this was – I almost blacked out in the beginning. I actually used breathing to get me through it (sort of like Lamaze techniques for childbirth). I also had a death grip on the bed rails. All this while naked with my penis hanging out, and I still couldn’t move and had to lay flat. THIS LASTED FOR 30 OR SO MINUTES!
About 20 minutes into it, the male nurse was perspiring and his arms were shaking and he was red faced. He removed the direct pressure to check the wounds and all seemed fine but the other nurse resumed the pressure since protocol dictates that they must go 20 minutes plus another 10 minutes to be sure.
When it was all over, they bandaged the wound with a tight pressure dressing and told me that I had to continue to lie on my back for 4 more hours as they continued to monitor my vitals.
That ended right around 1PM or so and shortly after, they finally let me eat something (I had not eaten since about 8PM the night before). The male nurse fed me two tuna salad on white bread sandwiches with sips of ginger ale in between. He literally fed all of this to me by hand (I was still flat on my back, remember).
The next toughest thing was when my wife brought my son up to see me. Poor little guy was very upset (I guess I did not look that good!). I did my best to reassure him that I was fine – especially since the doctor fixed what was bothering me – and that I would be around a long time. I have to say, it’s very hard to explain this kind of thing to a 10 year old. He got through it OK if not a bit scared and shocked by the whole thing.
Through all those hours on that bed, my back hurt, my butt went numb, and my hips and legs were very stiff. It was not even remotely easy to endure.
Finally, at about 7:30 that night, I was able to sit up in bed and even get out of bed to use the bathroom. I was sore all over and it was painful to stand up (my back and legs were very sore and stiff.)
After a fitful night of sleep, the hospital released me the next morning and I went home to recuperate. I had hoped to go back to work on Monday (my procedure was on a Friday and I went home on Saturday) but I was still a bit tired and decided to take one more day to rest.
One of the weird things that go along with this is that the area of my leg that the catheter was inserted is somewhat numb now and all the hair growing back has been itchy! Also, after the procedure, you have to take a blood thinner (in my case – Plavix) for basically the rest of your life. The Plavix made me feel really odd. Almost like I did not know what to do with myself. It even felt like my skin was crawling. In fact my body had to get used to the increased flow of blood and I ended up back in the hospital with chest pains. They did another catherization a week and a half later to make sure everything was OK. It was and there were no other blockages.
Another side effect was that the palms of my hands and my feet itched like crazy. I thought I had a bad case of athlete’s foot or something. Evidently, sometimes the Plavix can cause rashes in the hands, arms and feet. I did not get the rashes but the doctor speculated that with the better circulation due to the stent and the Plavix, the capillaries in my hands and feet were reacting to the increased blood flow and that caused the itching.
After going home from the hospital, I had to begin a regimen of cardiac rehabilitation. This is basically an exercise program at the hospital. I go to the rehab unit for a 45 minute or so session 3 days a week where I exercise for 10 or 15 minutes at a time alternately on the treadmill and pedaling a stationery bike.
I will have to keep up the exercise and I'm on a diet (I'd like to lose a substantial amount of weight). My life has really changed. It has not been easy and I have a lot to get past before I am fully recovered.
Labels: boy, catherization, diet, exercise, heart, nurse, pain, pee, recovery, son, stent
It's been awhile...
So much has been going on in my life that I just have not had time to post...
A few days after my last post, I started feeling
occasional pressure in my chest and a couple days after that I started feeling numbness in my left arm. I had my wife take me to the hospital at that point.
I was admitted from the emergency room after about 6 hours at about 2AM. The next day they ran tests like an EKG,
Echo cardiogram and blood tests. No heart attack was indicated and the EKG and
Echo cardiogram were all fine.
At this point they were ready to release me but they scheduled me for a
Catherization. Now just the thought of that one scared me but the Cardiologist and my GP all figured that it would be clear and just wanted to do it to be sure since this is the third time in the last six years I've had this type of attack.
So along comes March 30
th and my wife and I show up at the hospital at 6:15AM in the same day surgical unit. They hooked me all up, wheeled me down to the Cardiac
Catherization Unit and I was given an explanation of the procedure and that I was going to be part of a Johns Hopkins University study of doing
Catherizations at "community" type hospitals. Filling out the forms for that felt like I was buying a house!
After all that was done, I WALKED into the operating room which was a smallish rectangular room with the table in the middle and a bank of video monitors behind it. I was surprised how small the room was (my living room is bigger). The male nurse asked me to hop up on the table. The table was under a big
xray type machine. The nurse began to prep me for the procedure. That included binding my hands so I would not move them during the procedure, shaving my groin area from my penis to my right side and from my navel down to the top third of my thigh. All through this, he and I were talking about his fantasy baseball draft!
The next thing they did was spread the gown over the "Field" and then washed the "Field" with some kind of cold liquid (
betadyne was my guess). The nurse then said that they were going to medicate me just so I would be somewhat awake during the procedure (to help the doc with comments on pain and such). When he injected whatever it was I felt the best I have ever felt! I have never taken drugs but I have done some drinking in my day and I have never felt that good in my life. They could have told me that they had to cut off my legs and I would have said "Oh well".
The doc came in next and began. I felt pressure in my leg as he inserted the catheter into my thigh just below the groin. In my haze it felt like only moments later that the cardiologist was telling me that I had a 70-80% blockage and that he was going to do an angioplasty and insert a
stent to open it up. I think I replied something like "fine" or "sure" in the drug induced high I was in. Next thing I noted was just some pressure in my chest as the doc inflated the balloon to open the artery and a few moments later it was over.
It could have been 10 minutes later or so and they brought my wife in and the doc showed us the before and after pics of the blockage. It was really amazing to be even somewhat awake during the whole thing. Think of it, I just had a wire inserted in an artery in my groin, passed up to my heart, then a balloon was inserted and inflated to open the blockage. Next, a
stent (something like a little spring) is inserted and placed where the balloon was inserted. All in about 20 minutes.
One thing though, they really don't emphasize enough that recovery from this procedure, whether it's a straight
catherization or a full blown angioplasty, really is 10 times worse.
I'll get into the recovery and the aftermath in my next post.
Labels: catherization, chest, heart, pain
