It was one year ago yesterday that James had fluid accumulated in his pericardium and spent several days in ICU. He started kidney dialysis the next day, a year ago today. He came home from the hospital to three-time-a-week dialysis appointments. Despite this treatment, fluid built up again, this time in his left lung, and he was rehospitalized in April, but diagnosed as not needing dialysis so long as his bladder emptied properly (his enlarged prostate was partially blocking his urethra, backing urine into his kidneys), necessitating use of a Foley catheter for six months. The TURP procedure he underwent in October was successful in unblocking the passage and getting rid of the Foley catheter.

On Wednesday we saw his urologist. He is still worried that James' bladder retains too much fluid, but his blood tests from March 1 were reasonably good, excellent compared to last year at this time. James will have another urology check at the end of the month. It also seems he has another UTI, so we are waiting on a prescription. On Friday we saw the nephrologist. He was very pleased with James' scores, and said the only change he wanted him to make was to take some Vitamin D. After the appointment, we picked that up at the pharmacy, along with some cranberry supplement, which the urologist said would help with the UTI. On the way home we stopped at Lidl (for bread and found some really pretty lamb steak) and Publix.

One year to the day that he was in the hospital with fluid on his heart, James got up, ate breakfast, and spent Saturday at "Atlantacon," the 2019 IPMS modeling show at the union hall. He was there all day, enjoyed being with the guys, took photos of the entries, and generally enjoyed himself. I thought about going out, but puttered about the house instead listening to "Happier" [Gretchen Rubin's podcast], intending to tidy up my craft room enough to work in it. Alas, I was driven to the bathroom instead—thankfully this only happens infrequently now instead of every week, but it sure was a pain—when James called, saying he'd locked himself out of the truck. So I went to the rescue, and was feeling well enough that we went to Fried Tomato Buffet for supper and had Baskin-Robbins for dessert.

Before James left the house I'd turned all the clocks in the bedrooms and bathrooms ahead; after he left I hit the clocks downstairs and in the foyer, and the kitchen and dining room. (I had a casualty; my cute little apple clock in the dining room had stopped running because the piece of metal that makes the battery contact had corroded, and when I tried to fix it, the metal broke. It's just standard clock innards like all the cheap clocks today, a square plastic wafer powered by a double-A battery, so I'm going to see if I can get a new clockwork. The clock has screws in the back where you can take out a clockwork and put a new one in. Michael's carries them.) There were only the two clocks in the living room left on standard time. When we got home I put those two clocks ahead; it was 8:30, but we pretended like it was 9:30. Since I wasn't intending to watch television, it didn't really matter; Snowy and I listened to more "Happier" instead. James came upstairs at the usual time, 1 a.m., and we went to bed. We slept in, so we didn't really notice the fact that the sun now doesn't come up until five minutes to eight, which sucks. Monday morning James will have to start using the floodlights on the driveway again to mount the power chair. 😡

We ate a leisurely breakfast this morning, waiting for the rain to pass so we could go out and run a few errands:

• James needed insulin and could not get it yesterday when we were right near the place (eating at Fried Tomato) because Kaiser won't let you order until a certain date, so we had to go back up to Town Center, which is open weekends due to being Urgent Care
• Snowy needed birdseed
• I needed milk
• We had a 40 percent off CVS coupon and James needed BreathRights or the CVS equivalent

So off we went to Kaiser TownPark. Urgent Care seemed fairly busy, but the pharmacy was practically empty, so we got his meds immediately. As we headed to the truck, James unexpectedly said "Do you want to go to Books-a-Million?" I asked "Is someone craving a frozen hot chocolate?" Why, yes, he was. And sure, twist my arm. Make me go to a bookstore.

First we went two stores down to Petco, watched the budgies play, and got Snowy a new bag of Kaytee Forti-Diet and a new sand perch (James got Tucker some cookies off the dog biscuit bar as well), then we went to the bookstore. I found a young adult fantasy about a girl evacuated from London during the Blitz and sent to a spooky Scottish castle. James got a "Cook's Country" magazine. We shared the frozen hot chocolate (theirs being superior to everyone else's).

There was a Kroger practically next door, so I went there for milk while James waited in the truck. And I found two dark chocolate Easter bunnies. And some goat cheese on sale. And a thistle sock and a suet cake for the birds. And I picked up distilled water so we didn't have to worry about it next weekend.

Lastly we stopped at CVS for the BreatheRights and I also returned some cane tips James bought which did not fit his cane.

By the time we got home it was nearly five o'clock and I was starving. I thought we were just going to jump from store to store and be home by three, so I had not eaten lunch. I took the rest of my leftover turkey from last week and made a sandwich with my Lidl bun, eaten with a nice big glass of milk. I also sorted this week's medication and got the towels out of the dryer after them having been washed this morning. I also moved all the timers up one hour.

No more Victoria so we watched the season finale of 24 Hours to Hell and Back. Masterchef Junior starts next week!

Labels: books, errands, food, health, hobbies, illness, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:44:00 PM

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