If you were at Libertycon 35 and at David Weber's panel on Saturday, James apologizes. He's "that guy" whose phone rang and he answered it, just in case it was Kaiser (because yeah, they actually do call you when there's something wrong, even if it's late night or weekends).
It was Kaiser. James figured he'd tell them he couldn't talk and would get back to them later. Instead the lady on the phone insisted he had to get to Urgent Care right now and have an IV infusion.
He finally had to leave the room because she simply did not understand that he not only wasn't at home, he wasn't even in the state.
Tuesday morning, promptly, though, he called Kaiser and they got him in that afternoon with someone in adult medicine. She told him he did have to go for IV antibiotics for the UTI, which was still hanging in there. But no, we didn't have an appointment at the infusion clinic. We had to go Urgent Care.
Every day.
For ten days.
And, of course, since this was Urgent Care, we had to wait--justifiably!--for the urgent cases to go first before he got his infusion. What a fripping nightmare. A half hour up there, a half hour back, and many hours in between.
The first day it wasn't bad. We only were there three hours, and that included the infusion.
The second day was a nightmare. We had breakfast, went to ACC, and were there for seven and a half hours. Three of those hours were trying to find a vein for the IV. They finally had to put it in his right hand, and they decided it could stay in for the next two sessions. It had to come out on Saturday.
The third day we were only three hours.
The fourth day was a nightmare for its own reasons. Although no rain was forecast, the skies literally opened as we approached Kaiser Town Park. I got drenched just taking the power chair down off the lift and then it got stuck. I sent him inside on foot, which was a bad idea due to his bad knee and may have contributed to his later problems. He got drenched simply limping from the truck to the overhang, a distance of not even a couple of yards. The nurses got us warm blankets, and by the time we got home just before bed, I was still wet, down to the elastic on my underpants.
Day five we got a respite. The on-call doctor at Urgent Care had called Internal Medicine and they said James could have a shot instead of an infusion! So they took out the IV, and gave him the ertapenum in combination with some lidocaine for any pain.
Yes, we had to go even on Independence Day, and there were quite a few people there, so they must have not been feeling well, because who wants to go to Urgent Care on the Fourth of July? We did manage to have our nice T-bone steaks, corn on the cob, and watermelon, watch 1776, and the Boston Pops concert on Bloomberg. It was a great show this year.
Wednesday James decided not to go to Physical Therapy because his legs were feeling so weak. We wondered if it might be the lidocaine, because he had no problems until he started the shots.
On the ninth day we had to fit the shot in between James' shoe appointment and his Procrit shot appointment, but we managed it, as well as a short visit for him to Hobbytown. He was complaining more about his legs for the last couple of days, which we attributed to his getting caught in the rainstorm and also having to walk in on his own; that he possibly twisted his bad knee. On the way up the stairs on the way home, he actually slipped on the top step and got rug burn on his right knee.
But we were so happy when we went to bed; next day would be the last.
During the night James called me. When I got up, I found him in the bathroom doorway. He was trying to get back from the toilet and all of a sudden he couldn't get his left leg to move. I got him a chair and after he sat down for a while he could hobble to bed. He hobbled up in the morning, and seemed to be better, until he started down the stairs without me to head to Urgent Care for the final shot. He seemed okay, so I ran into the kitchen to put food in Tucker's bowl, since we wouldn't be home in time for supper. Just as I was pouring food in the bowl I heard a crash downstairs.
James had somehow put a foot wrong and landed on his back in the downstairs hall. I still don't know how he managed to get the bench in the foyer down on him. He'd smacked his head on the leg of the stool outside the laundry room, raising a bump, but he was conscious and embarrassed. I had to call 911 and the paramedics came to check him out (one was 30 weeks pregnant) and the firefighters had to come to get him off the floor. One of them was the probie and they even had an apprentice (son of a firefighter).
The paramedics said that he seemed fine but since we were heading to Urgent Care anyway, he should get checked out. Yeah, don't worry about that.
He got the last shot, got a CT scan to make sure something didn't happen when he smacked his head (it was clear), the doctor checked his wounds, and then we could go home. It was hell getting back up the stairs again, but he made it.
He was still wobbly all weekend, so we stayed in since we have to go see the vascular surgeon on Monday.
However, there was one more surprise in store: when James removed his right sock that night, he had a big, ugly bright red scrape five to six inches long on the front of his leg. It didn't pain him, and didn't stain, but big patches of skin had been sliced right off. I cleaned it with saline solution, rubbed ointment into it, covered it with what I had left of foam bandage, and wrapped it in stretch gauze. Now thinking maybe we should make an appointment with the wound clinic.
Labels: health, holidays, sickness
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