Healthcare during COVID

It's been said the pandemic is affecting just about everyone, and affecting different folks in different ways.

I think that's pretty accurate. As Older Son has said, we are all in this together, but everyone is not in the same boat.

For him and his wife, they've juggled two full-time jobs and caring for a two-year-old whose daycare was closed. Countless others have dealt with similar circumstances, and others have dealt with differing ones.

We finally had a partial family get-together last weekend, with everyone except Younger Son, and it was wonderful. We know where they have all been and what they've been doing, and they've been careful, so we felt it was a minimal risk.

Unfortunately, however, last weekend took an unexpected turn and we're still dealing with it.

Saturday morning, Wife woke up with a sharp pain in her lower back. She said she felt it during the night.

As the day wore on, it got worse, and by Saturday night it was unbearable. At midnight I took her to the Emergency Room at a hospital about 15 minutes away.

Following the COVID protocol, I could not go in with her. I parked and waited. Some three hours later she emerged with a diagnosis of a kidney stone. I had suspected as much because I have had several. The things cause god-awful pain.

They sent her home with pain meds, telling her maybe she would pass it, and with a recommendation to see a urologist.

Monday morning, Memorial Day, the pain was worse. I took her back to the ER and after another three hours, she left with stronger medication.

We saw the urologist Tuesday morning and a procedure was scheduled for Friday (tomorrow as I write this). But things deteriorated to the point she was admitted to the hospital yesterday, had one procedure today and will have another tomorrow. She has been very, very sick.

I'm leaving out a lot of details, including a couple of pretty severe miscommunications from hospital staff or the doctor's office to me. The most difficult part has been the fact I cannot go in the hospital with her. All the information I get comes from her conveying information given to her, phone conversations with hospital staff and one phone conversation with her doc.

In today's healthcare system, you have to be your own advocate, or you have to have someone advocating on your behalf. With the heavy medication Wife has been on, it's been difficult for her to advocate for herself. And it's hard for me to do it without being there.

But this afternoon some progress was made. Wife called me early in the afternoon and told me a nurse had told her she would be discharged this afternoon, but would return tomorrow for the next procedures. 

I got on the phone with the doctor's office. I did not get mad and I did not raise my voice but I very firmly stated I thought it made no sense whatsoever for her to be released from the hospital only to go right back there tomorrow, especially given the amount of pain she is still in and how sick she has been.

I got a call back a few minutes later and was told the doctor had canceled the discharge. I thanked the person who told me this, but told her I still had great concerns about communication throughout this ordeal. And I still do.

More than anything, I want Wife to be OK and to come home well on her way to recovery.

I have the utmost respect for folks in healthcare and I know the stress they are under right now. I'm not finding fault with anyone here. But when it's over, I think I'll send a nice letter to the hospital and the doctor's office, simply offering my observations and how this might have been handled differently or better. Maybe we can all learn something.

Notes from Isolation: Final Installment

Our neighbors in our mother city to the north (Nashville) are still under stay-at-home orders. But a few miles south where I live, we're slowly coming out of quarantine.

For Wife and me, things aren't changing that much. I'm still working from home and we are both not getting out much, other than to take our walks and drives. We run into a grocery store, drugstore or hardware store here and there for provisions, and those visits are planned so they are quick. We wear masks.

In each of our cars we keep a bottle of hand sanitizer. They are also strategically located throughout the house, although I much prefer plain soap and water when I'm not away from home.

We have scarcely had anyone in our house for going on seven weeks. We now attend virtual church and our small group meets that way too.

Several times during this time period, we've had friends come sit on our back deck with us for late afternoon visits. Those hours have been precious, and for minutes at a time we forget how the world has been turned upside down in less than two months' time.

Although we have enjoyed some things on TV here and there, Wife and I have learned we are not the binge-watcher types. Instead, as some evenings have stretched before us, we've pulled out some old games and refreshed ourselves on Yahtzee, Chinese checkers and Mancala.

Wife also has a computerized bridge game and I'll sit beside her and we'll play with a virtual partner.

And of course we are both voracious readers.

To be sure, we miss our family. We are getting closer to seeing them, however, and I see that coming in the next week or so.

Some close friends have a lake house in north Alabama, about two hours away from here, and it has a guest house. They have told us, should we want a change of scenery, we are welcome to use it. We have decided to take them up on that, and later today, after my workday, we will drive there and stay a few days.

It's fully equipped with Wi-Fi and it's in cell phone range, so I can work from there as easily as here.

I told Wife last night I feel like we are escaping from something, and half-wonder if we'll be stopped at the border! (I'm kidding . . . . but I do feel somewhat subversive).

In many ways these past several weeks have done a number on me. Some days I've felt downright depressed. Many mornings I have awakened feeling anxious.

But early on, as Wife and I discussed it, we agreed this is a faith-testing time. We have to draw on that, and decide if we really believe what we've always professed to believe. It's so much easier to do that when things are more stable and certain.

There is a verse in Proverbs that says to "lean not on your own understanding." I don't think it has ever been more applicable for me.

As I've previously written, I don't want to get COVID. And I sure don't want to give it to anyone.

So I am choosing to lean not on my understanding and trust the scientists and doctors who know about this kind of thing. And I'm trusting the One who has never failed me.

Because it's all I've ever known.

Do they make 'em like they used to?

You might surmise by this post I have some time on my hands.

Wife is making salsa today. It's one of her signature recipes that most people love. She usually makes it at Christmas as gifts for people, and occasionally during other times of the year just to have on hand. Our entire family loves chips and salsa, so there are never any objections when she decides to make a batch.

She has been making some to take to friends and neighbors during this quarantine/isolation time. We'll ring their doorbell and stand back or, in some cases, we'll just leave it on their front porch and send them a text to let them know it's there.

Anyway, Wife keeps her blender in a cabinet in the laundry room. She asked me to get it out for her earlier today, to use as she was making salsa, and I marveled at the age of this device. We have been married 36 years this July, and she brought it into our marriage. She estimates she had had it for at least five years at that time, so this blender is more than 40 years old.

It runs like a top. It's dependable, and she loves it. About ten years ago, her parents gave her a new one for Christmas. She received it graciously, but I could tell she wasn't all that excited about it. Kind of those "if it's not broke, don't fix it" things.

And the new blender wasn't worth a flip. It didn't satisfy her blending needs near as much as the one she already had.

I can't remember if that one played out, or what, but today we are back to the 40-plus year-old blender and Wife is as happy as can be with it.

So is it true? They don't make 'em like they used to? Anyone else have a valued old machine/device/appliance they won't part with?