I had to go back and read the date and the content of my last entry- it has been so long. I will be brief in my explanation: I have not had a good attitude for the past 2 weeks plus. I have been getting sicker and I de-saturate so quickly that I really cannot stay on my feet for any length of time. I have learned SO MUCH about how our bodies work during this disease- it takes what I'll call "blood oxygen" for every thing we do, such as: eat, stand up, talk, bend over (that's a big one), and finally, urinary continence. You have to have a high-enough level of oxygen in your bloodstream to accomplish any of those things- and they differ in terms of which one takes more. But the underlying marvel of it all is that our body compensates to keep us alive for as long as possible. All those things mentioned above are not crucial to survival, so when it gets critical, they just fall away. Before you die, you lose consciousness so that you can no longer steal the precious resource (oxygen) for something as non-essential as holding your water! Anyway, all kinds of things have happened since I wrote last, chief among them being the two strokes my cousin Susan suffered shortly after I wrote. Of course we were all just devastated when it happened, but as of now it looks like she is not only going to survive, but the doctors say she can indeed recover- but like all recoveries, it will take its own time. Susan is so smart- and she demonstrated not only her intelligence but also her love when the first little TIA occurred. She had her 5-year-old granddaughter Haidyn in the car with her, and they were going by McDonald's for a snack. All of a sudden, after she had ordered the snack at the first window, when she drove up to the "pay and get your stuff" window, she realized that she couldn't speak. She was thinking just fine (and apparently has never been anything but normal, mentally), but she couldn't form any words. She managed to give the clerk the correct change & take the snack, and she drove home without incident. She got Haidyn in the house & sitting down with her snack, and after that she quickly got everything together that she knew she would need- ID, insurance cards, etc., and she made 2 phone calls. The first one was to 911 and the second one was to Cullen. Neither one of them could understand what she was saying, but they both knew that she was in trouble and responded. Apparently, the 911 dispatcher totally misunderstood whatever it was that Susan was trying to say, because when Cullen got home, there were 7 police cars in his drive- I told him it's a good thing he has what amounts to a parking lot behind his house, because it was full! It turns out that the police were told that there were men in the house and one was armed. (Not that Susan said anything of the kind, but it went through a dispatcher who was extremely creative, I guess). Cullen said that when Susan called him, all he understood was the word "Help!" As I indicated earlier, this was a very minor "incident" compared to what happened the next day. Before she had the 2nd stroke, she actually began recovering from the first one- she could then speak, but nouns escaped her. Cullen said she could describe something all day long- with adjectives galore, but she could not think of the noun she needed. They even laughed about it. Well, it is good that she was in the hospital when she had the second one, and of course it was right after he had gone home after seeing her- did I mention that she was in Neuro ICU? And Cullen has a habit of not obeying hospital rules when the patient is a member of his family. Susan has already had 3 major "incidents" that required surgery and follow-up time in ICU, but those were all related to her heart. Anyway, when I asked him if he was getting to see her on the every-4-hour schedule, he said "Oh you know me, Eileen. I break the rules." He & one nurse were really at odds over this, and so Cullen just told her- "You girls are divided up & each of you has a few patients. I've noticed that. Just swap me out with someone else that one of the other nurses is working with, and that way, we won't have to put up with each other any more." So she did! Some nurses are real sticklers on things like that rule- and some husbands are very hard-headed and aren't going to leave because the clock says to. Once a different nurse was taking care of Susan, there was no longer an issue, because Cullen wasn't bothering anyone- just sitting where he was not in the way. Well, that all happened over a week ago, and the second stroke, as I said, was pretty bad- it left her paralyzed on the right side and totally mute. She was immediately intubated and put on a ventilator as a precaution, and a feeding tube was put in place. Things rocked along like that until at least Thursday of last week, because that is the last time I had direct contact with Cullen- he came by here to visit. He got to see Bob & Margaret Harris, our dear friends who are very enthusiastic RV-ers and who had spent the entire summer until after Labor Day "hosting" at a "primitive" campsite in Colorado. It was a paying job- minimum wage for each of them, 30 hours per week- but it turned out to be a lot more work than they first thought. So it is an experience about which they will probably say "Been there, done that". (Although it was indeed "Primitive" for the guests, as the hosts, Bob & Margaret did have hook-ups.) This is the couple with whom we attended the Broadway Show Series in Houston for over 15 years as season-ticket holders. They move you up towards front & center whenever they can if you renew, so we are now 5th row Center Orchestra- deemed among the "best seats in the house". Bob & I worked together at Entre beginning in 1987, and then they had moved to League City from Groves shortly after they retired because they have a son, daughter-in-law & 2 grandchildren there, so we already missed them & didn't see them as often as before, but this was like 4 months, and I was so happy to see them. Margaret is an RN, and they are going to work together as my Caregivers during part of the time I'm having to "live" in Houston. Oh- and on that score- we are back to selecting a hotel or apartment from the ones on the list, because if Cullen's former employer has one available, he is going to need it! I didn't finish my story while ago about Susan- she was taken off the ventilator last Thursday with no trouble and is breathing on her own, so once they determined is she could swallow, they were going to remove the feeding tube. And after that, even though she remains partially paralyzed & still cannot speak, she will be considered medically stable and can be moved to a rehabilitation facility. I think Cullen wants to take her to Houston to the TIRR that is associated with Memorial Hermann. Anyway, he & Steve will both be in Houston as chief Caregivers to their wives. As I've said before, in the Paxton Family (my dad & his six siblings, one of whom was Cullen's mother), everyone is very close-knit, and Susan is on everyone's prayer list. For those of you who put people on your church's prayer list, her name is Susan Ramsey, and in addition to your continued prayers for me, I will appreciate it very much if you will also pray for Susan.
I ended the previous entry be saying "I need to tell you about by visit with Sandy Londa." OK- Sandy & I became friends through our mutual friend Kay Johnson. Kay is a United Methodist clergywoman who just retired in June and moved with her husband Ron to Ft. Worth because all three of her children live there, all three are married, and among them they have popped out six beautiful grandchildren, the last 5 in very rapid succession. So, like so many people who can do so, she has relocated in order to be nearer them as they grow up. Kay & I go back to the fall of 1962, when we met as Freshmen at Southwestern University in Georgetown, going through rush. We pledged the same sorority, became very close friends, and roomed together for the last half of our time there. So Sandy is another UMC pastor- and right before I met her, which has to have been over 10 years ago, she had begun preparations to migrate from being an associate in a large church to being a hospital chaplain. In the Methodist Church, it is necessary to obtain a special certification, or degree (I'm coming right off the top of my head here- I don't know exactly what it is called- but she had to return to seminary for a few years while she was still working at the local church). The good thing is that our primary seminary, Perkins School of Theology, now has an adjunct (or branch) in Houston. Since Perkins is located on the SMU campus in Dallas, everyone refers to the branch in Houston as "Perkins South". So now Sandy is well on the other side and has been on the staff of chaplains at Methodist Hospital for several years. I knew all this, and I knew that once I became a patient at the hospital, that Kay would alert her & she would find me, but Steve & I ran into her (literally) in the hall on Tuesday the 19th of September, when we had driven over to attend one of our six (required) Transplantation Classes.
And now, dear friends, I am going to close for this evening- hoping that I have redeemed myself somewhat, in a small way at least. I will send a short email to each of you who registered as a follower plus several others who did not register but told me you were reading it. What you will see when you log in the next time, whenever I post again, is a new blog entitled "The Adventure Continues", because it appears (and I do hope this is so) that my surgery will occur in Houston. After everything I went through, I still have not been listed in Dallas!
I began tonight by apologizing in a way for leaving you for almost 3 weeks. I feel like I have dealt with my attitude problem now to a degree that I won't come across as feeling sorry for myself. No one EVER wants to read a tale of woe from someone who seems to be saying "Poor sad me" in every sentence. If this does become a problem, please do me a favor and call me on it- OK? Nothing has changed about my status except my Lung Allocation Score, or LAS, and it is now 42. I will continue to climb assuming nothing else changes just based on the additional time I have been waiting. I've found some neat tables online that are specific to Methodist Hospital- like the number of lung transplants they have done since January 1, how many were for Blood Type A, etc. But this data has not changed since I found it in June- and I know they have been operating. So I need to ask my girl Kelley to see where I can get the "real-time" data. One thing is for sure: they do perform more lung transplants at Methodist than anywhere else in the country. That is good because it means that they have had more practice, and it also means that they have seen more of the weird complications as well. Steve is not very likely to hear "Mr. Garrett, we're sorry, but we ran into something that we have NEVER EVER SEEN before, and we just couldn't save her." Will do spell check & publish- I'm about to fall off the bed, I'm so sleepy!
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