Well it has been a crazy week. Larry is feeling better so we are going to bed later and I haven't had the energy to write late at night.
Sunday was crazy. I took the kids and Nathan to church. Larry stayed home because he felt like trying to go the time before was too much for him. He had had a two pound weight gain the night before and so I told him to call the nurse and find out what they wanted him to do. They say you should call with a 2lb. weight gain over 24 hours or a 5 lb weight gain in a week. The nurse told him to come in to the ER to be checked.
I found someone to stay with Nathan and the kids. Brother Ben Barlow in our ward is a single military man and he agreed to come over. As we were leaving he mentioned that he had been invited to dinner at the Montes family at 5:30 p.m. It was barely past three and I knew we wouldn't be back that soon and so I told him I would find someone to replace him. After I got Larry settled for a few minutes I had to go out in the main lobby to use my phone to call or text someone. When I looked at it he had already called Sister Montes and told her he might be late so instead of just saying okay she texted me and asked me if it was okay if she took part of the dinner to Nathan and the kids and Ben at the apartment. I called her and we talked she assured me that she wanted to help and seems how I had left Nathan and the kids with the admonition to eat what you can find I said sure. To me that is going above and beyond the call of duty. She said that her mother told her that she fixed too much food so maybe she was inspired. But I did feel bad about breaking up their dinner date.
But then started the marathon that being in the ER can be. It is so frustrating to wait for a half hour without seeing anyone while you wait. They worried about whether they should keep him or just change his medication and send him home. By the time that he went to the ER he had gained 9 lbs of water weight which shocked me. They ran a bunch of tests and took an X-ray and in the end he ended up coming home with an increased dose of Torsemide the diuretic that they are giving him to keep the water from building up in his body. That took from 3:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. to decide. I was glad that he could come home. Monday morning his weight had dropped by 3 lbs overnight and has steadily dropped about that everyday since. On Tuesday when we went to Weight Watcher's he was down to his previous weight before surgery.
Monday was Presidents day so we had a long weekend with the kids. We had a lazy morning. Isaac was invited to a movie with a friend for his birthday. They came to pick him up and then Nathan was going to come and get him and take him to Cold Stone for ice cream because he got a gift card for his birthday. Sunday night they had a huge storm in San Antonio. There was lots of rain and 4 documented small tornadoes. There was a lot of power outage throughout the area. Anyway when they got to the movie theater it was closed because of no power so they went a few miles down the road and went to a pizza and game place called Mr. Gatti's. When we picked Isaac up he had had a good time but when we went to Cold Stone which was by the theater it was also closed because of no power so he was really bummed out.
Nathan had wanted to make ice cream with a small ice cream freezer that he had that I had given him a long time ago. So we decided to make some ice cream with that to cheer Isaac up. He made all of it with a little help from me and he was really excited when it "looked like real ice cream" and tasted good. They had a good time eating that and it seemed to cheer them up.
Wednesday Larry had his 2nd follow-up with Cardiology after he was hospitalized at the beginning of the month with Congestive heart failure. This time he was seeing a pharmacist with Cardology. We thought it was at Audie Murphy Hospital but when we got there just on time we found out that it was at the Shavano Park VA Clinic twenty minutes away. So the receptionist at Audie called the Dr. and she said that she could see us in about 2 hours at 1:00 p.m. So we put the address in our GPS and headed out for Shavano Park. I was surprized to find out the Shavano Park was East of the VA. In my mind it was West but I was wrong.
We had already eaten on the way up for lunch and so we didn't stop for that. We arrived about 12:00 p.m. We decided to just sit and wait and the Dr. actually came out to get us about 12:30 p.m. She went over all the things that Larry needed to know about the disease and evaluated his records of his weight and blood pressure and pulse over the last two weeks. She determined that the extra Torsemide was working and told him to stay on it. She was not worried about him until he mentioned that he was feeling off balance when he walked since the surgery so she went to his Primary care doctor, who's office was next door and they told her that we could see her at 3:00 p.m. which was about an hour from then but we decided to stay and see her. She ordered some tests along with Dr Kim the pharmacy Dr. and said that we should come in Today to get the tests done so they could get them back before Larry's appointment on Monday. So we agreed. We got a lot accomplished but it basically took us from 10:45 a.m. until 3:30 p.m when we were planning on an hour appointment at the most.
I did a lot of laundry and dishes and such before we left and so when we got home we decided to use a gift card that Jake and Nikki had given us for Christmas to celebrate the Valentines that we didn't get to celebrate. We asked Nathan if he wanted to go but he was tired and so we got him some Panda Express and we went by ourselves. It was fun to go out and sit and eat and talk but I was really disappointed with the meal I got at Red Lobster. It was a far cry from the picture that they had on the menu. But the steamed lobster tasted really good even if they looked scrawny.
Today we started out about 10:00 again. Nathan wanted to go with us because he had some business he needed to do at the VA. I am the only one who can drive right now even though Larry is really pushing to drive but his surgeons told him that until he can be out of the hospital for two weeks and get his heart failure under control he cannot drive. Well I almost hit a car going off the exit to Babcock Rd. It really shock me and everyone up. Then I went to park the car with the valet and was watching him and drove in front of a lady on the cross walk so Nathan started yelling at me and then I couldn't understand what the Valet wanted me to do to park and so I did that wrong. Needless to say Nathan and Larry were upset with me and I was upset with them and me when we got to the VA.
Nathan left us to go do his stuff and we went to the Blood lab. Then we went to Radiology and got Larry's x-ray and started the scheduling for the MRI. Then we went down to Prosthetics to get Larry measured for some support stockings and Nathan was there. After a few minutes he came out with a worker with a new Manual Wheelchair. It is much nicer and built to fit him better. He has been waiting for it for 18 weeks he said and they told him that it would come in 6 weeks. It really made his day. After Larry was fitted and got his stockings and Nathan was fitted to his wheelchair we were able to go home.
Larry wanted to take Nathan to a Taco place that we found on Babcock Rd that we liked called Wapo's Tacos. The food is pretty good and it has a clean nice atmosphere. So we went to lunch there and then came home.
This evening we took the Mercedes Van to pick up the kids and Nathan took his new chair to show them. It was nice to have room for everyone and it drives smoother. We went to Subway and then Nathan and the kids went to Target to look for a slinky for Isaac, because his from the party Monday got tangled up. Then for fun they went to Pet Co and looked at the animals. Larry was too tired to walk around and so he stayed in the Van while we did that.
When we got home my granddaughter, Taylor, called me and wanted to talk to me because her mother was talking to a friend and she didn't want to play with the friends daughters because they were younger. She was really animated and told me about not being able to go to school yet and how her dad felt about that and which Dr. would not let her go. She talked for a good 15 minutes. One of the funniest things she said was, "Grandma it must really be hard for you to take care of Uncle Nathan and Grandpa right now". I admitted that is was kind of hard and she said, "I understand. I have been having to take care of my Mom all day while she has been throwing up" So out of the mouth of Babes come the most interesting things.
No comments:
Post a Comment