Random Acts of "Kindness"

Posts tagged ‘Doctor’

HELPING HAND

I’ll admit that I was TIRED. VERY TIRED. We were watching our daughter’s dogs : Tessa, A King Charles Spaniel and Luna, a young black lab puppy while our daughter’s family took a much needed vacation. Luna was FULL of energy and wanted to go out about every two hours. Tessa LIKED to sleep with us. Her breed is a lap dog, very good for keeping bodies warm. Luna, on the other hand, is everything a puppy should be. Loving and full of mischief. We were able to convince her that she should sleep on a dog pillow in the room off our bedroom, NOT ON OUR BED! It worked out fine. She could find me in the wee hours of the morning when she needed to go out. The first day she was with us, we let her have access to too much water. The second day we started restricting it. By the time they went home, Luna only needed to go out once in the wee hours.

Thursday the day had begun challenging. I wanted to pay our electric bill. I didn’t remember receiving it and phoned. I had an old bill to get our account number and the phone number. When it came time to pay the bill, the old bill had disappeared. ?? I found an even older bill in the shredding bucket. Both my husband and I had doctor appointments later in the day. I had trouble paying for parking at the meter. I finally decided that walking a bit further was a good option. I was concerned that my blood pressure would be high. I knew I was already stressed. Before leaving home I had Tension Tamer Tea, then a cup of Chamomile Mint for good measure. I was concerned that my blood pressure would be HIGH! My children wanted me to ask our doctor about my knees. Confirmed — I have arthritis. I also asked about my stiff neck. He showed me an exercise to do to help loosen it and also prescribed a muscle relaxant. Thankfully my blood pressure wasn’t high. I received a few prescriptions that I needed to pick up on Friday. Since we had extra dogs, a young one that liked to get into trouble, I went by myself.

I must have looked extremely OLD and very tired. Before leaving home, I tried to boost my energy with coffee and tea. It didn’t really work. My plans called for two more stores besides Costco. At Aldi’s, I thought I picked a parking space that would allow enough room to open the door and exit. I had TROUBLE — my legs didn’t want to bend. They got stuck. The woman in the car next to me must have noticed my problems, she started her car, backed up enough for me to open the door completely, then moved back into her spot. Amazed, I was EXTREMELY GRATEFUL!

Trader Joe’s was my next stop. No problems finding a parking spot that allowed me to exit the car. Still room to get back in the driver’s seat when I returned from shopping. I decided to take the cart back. Returning to the car I realized I should have exited at the ramp, instead of the higher curb. Assessing the situation, I decided to move back to the ramp when TWO ASIAN woman came by and offered me a steadying arm to descend. Once again, I was EXTREMELY GRATEFUL. I LOVE it when I have help shopping. THANK YOU!

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SLEEPING DRAGONS

I have a very hard time coming up with titles for my thought rambles. This title is courtesy of a meditation that I listened to this morning. And it is so fitting to my life right now.

Supposedly it is Spring but the temperature and the weather is not reflecting the season. It looks and feels like winter. The flowers are not confused, they are breaking through the surface. The birds are not confused — more are arriving every day, waking Robin up with their morning song. I would love to state that my mood is lighter, happier but I dislike lying.

It feels like I am at the bottom of a very dark, deep pit. The gray skies are not helping. Recently because of either age, or weight, or changes in the measurement — my blood pressure is up. I now require medication — strokes run in my family — one of my aunts was stricken by one and lost most of her quality of life. I’m reminded regularly that I have many more years to accomplish something. What? I have no idea? But in order to enjoy a good quality of life, I need to be in reasonably good health.

When I fell backwards, down the stairs before New Years, my blood pressure was extremely high. So high that my children pestered me to go to the doctors and I received medication. Recently I accompanied my husband to the doctor for his visit. On the way we had a “discussion.” My children were concerned about my cough and wanted our doctor to make sure I didn’t have pneumonia or some other health problem. When the nurse wanted to take my blood pressure, I knew I was in trouble. I knew I was still UPSET. I was RIGHT! My blood pressure was so high she wanted me to take it the next morning and phone her with the results. Thankfully I took it again that night and it was down. I also took it the following morning and it was still in a safe range.

My learning from this experience is that I have to be in better control of my body. I’m not saying that I shouldn’t get angry because there are many times when that response is called for. My husband knows the right buttons to push to get a response. I just need to be aware — a sleeping dragon is within. I don’t need to awaken the beast! I need to be able to take action to quiet it back down. Many memories from my past don’t always bring warm thoughts. Throwing them out instead of dwelling on them is appropriate. I can’t change the weather outside, maybe I can change the weather inside of my own body. That will continue to be the challenge.

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TUESDAY

I would have thought it was a Monday — starting a new week — unexplained things happen. But it was TUESDAY — ALL DAY. It began when I was trying to go back to sleep, somewhere around 3:00 AM.
I don’t know if I was asleep or beginning to drift off. I SAW a man running through our back yard with a black mask on, wearing yellow stripes. He reminded me of a BEE? The sight woke me up — it took awhile before I realized that the alarm was on, the front and back gates to our house were locked. We were safe, no one was running through our yard. ??

I was still trying to sleep when I heard this repeating noise that kept getting louder. Car — I thought, but I got up to investigate. It was a good thing that I did. Our son left for work but forgot to turn off the alarm. It’s a Monday — masquerading as a Tuesday. I wash clothes on Monday, but the day before was too busy, so I was washing clothes. When I went to put the clothes in the dryer I found a balled up mess. Somehow, the string from my joggers caught under the fin and since it couldn’t move, it wrapped everything it came in contact with into a ball. I have washed many loads of clothes in this washing machine. I have washed many pants that had strings hanging and NEVER have I had that happen to me. It took awhile to unravel the ball.
New question — Did I want to go back to bed and start the day over?

The forecast promised a lovely day — temperatures in the 50’s and sun. My husband needs to renew his driver’s license. I thought it would be a lovely day to go downtown to the express facility. THEN I looked at the letter, actually read it and realized that going downtown would be a wasted effort. He had to take a driving test.

Okay — maybe it is Tuesday and I don’t need to go back to bed. When we went to the VA in November, I realized my husband had only one refill left for his insulin. My husband has both a doctor that is not affiliated with the veterans administration and one who is. The VA doctor has to prescribe the insulin order. I sent the VA doctor a message asking if he needed an appointment to get a refill. I received a return message from the VA doctor reminding us that she needed to be updated by the outside doctor when my husband had an appointment. I sent his outside doctor a copy of her message. It was still Tuesday — a lovely day and the doorbell rang. A UPS driver had a big box for my husband. The box contained 3 months of insulin refills. ?? I’m not sure how this occurred but “Thank You” is not a strong enough word.

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FRUSTRATED

I noticed that when I was driving our car, it seemed to hesitate when I was waiting for a light to change. At first, it occurred only once or twice when I was stopped at a light. Sometimes it didn’t happen at all. I first noticed it in the summer, when my husband was driving. It reappeared in October and didn’t seem to happen when I was driving. But whatever is wrong with the car — happened more often. I was concerned. I was afraid that our car would stop when we were in the country and we wouldn’t get it started again..

Since my husband has signed up with the Veteran program — the hospital that he will use is more than 30 miles away from home. It is mostly express way or toll way driving which is why we chose that particular place rather than something in the city with its traffic problems. He had an appointment on Tuesday and I was concerned that we might get stuck on the highway. He took the car into the garage on Monday, which was our only free day for the week. (The rest of the week was extremely busy — my plans, God laughed.)
They determined the problem was caused by the ignition module and changed it. Tuesday morning, the car was worse. My husband had an appointment with a doctor in North Chicago. There was NO WAY we were driving that far. I canceled the appointment and rescheduled. The car went back to the garage — this time it was a fuel injection part. I had planned to ask about my husband’s prescription for insulin at the hospital. He was on his last pen and refills hadn’t arrived. The VA doctor had informed me that she had ordered the medicine.

Wednesday, we had planned to go to the clinic for an exercise and nutrition class. We drove three stop lights when the original problem occurred AGAIN. Sadly, we drove the car back to the garage. I phoned the clinic and cancelled our class, inquiring into the prescription for the insulin. I learned that the prescription was on hold — it hadn’t been approved yet. Nobody told us. Arriving back home, I placed an order for a refill with his non VA prescription. It will cost us more money but we will have control. I won’t have to worry about the mail delivery.

It is Thursday. The car is STILL AT THE GARAGE! They haven’t figured out what is causing the problem. Thankfully we can go to the songfest scheduled for today by walking. I can take a bus to get my husband’s prescription. With our unexpected free time, I baked cookies and put up more Christmas decorations. I am really praying that the problem with our car will be resolved. Even though it has more than 200,000 miles — it was running without any problems. We can’t afford to replace it right now.

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VETERAN

When my husband first retired from work, he thought about signing up for veteran’s benefits, but at the time our combined income put us above the financial limit. Time has passed and so has our resources, the year we were visiting a hospital on a regular basis because of the ulcer on my leg, he decided to investigate veteran’s benefits again. The VA center we visited was able to sign him up for enrollment via the computer. Even though he no longer had his dog tags and his military cards disappeared somewhere along the way, he was enrolled. He planned to get hearing aids but time passed and visiting the veteran’s office didn’t fit into our time table. I stopped in one time to inquire and left with a business card with their phone number. The last straw occurred this year when his company dropped health insurance and his prescriptions put him into the GAP. We were pleasantly surprised when he called for an appointment. He was given an appointment within two weeks of calling.

I’m sure one of the reasons he put off going for so long was because he remembered the waiting time when he was in the service. After getting the appointment, he had enough time to get copies of his medical records from his primary doctor. Since the VA hospital is more than 30 miles from our house, he is able to keep his doctors. That was one of my concerns. He has a good relationship with ALL of his doctors and it is important to me that we can reach medical assistance in a timely fashion if it is needed.

When we visited the VA clinic, the doctor determined that he needed to see other specialists besides his hearing aids and ordered various tests. She said we might not hear anything before a month passed. It was a VERY, FAST MONTH. The next day we had appointments scheduled for two of his tests. Sadly, all of the medications that he takes is not on the VA recommended list. We have an appointment with his primary to discuss our plan of action.

My main reason for sharing this information is to help anyone who is sitting on the fence wondering if they should sign up. We went to the VA on Tuesday, Thursday of that week we were at the lake enjoying the last 70 degree day — letting Robin play with other dogs. My husband sat on a bench talking to another veteran who had NOT signed up for health care. The man had heard good things about the hospital that is in our network. The gentleman didn’t know where his paperwork was and was happy to hear that because of the computer age, he didn’t need it.

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PRESSURES OFF AGAIN

Who am I kidding? It sounds good — but it is a big, fat lie. Yesterday my weight was UP — by 3 pounds. I blamed it on sodium — too much salt in the pickles. I told myself not to worry, the little bit of salt wouldn’t hurt me and it would be gone soon. MY WEIGHT IS UP MORE TODAY. My feet were swollen last night, my face feels swollen today. I haven’t exercised in four days — okay, I’m still walking 9,000 — 10,000 steps every day. I just haven’t made time for the morning exercises and there is no time today.

A loud bang woke me at 4:00 am from a sound sleep — thunder overhead, followed by a downpour. Our skylight has another leak. Hopefully not only will we find the leak, but we will be able to fix it. Our car needs more work. The flappers in the dash are stuck, we are only able to get heat from the engine, no cooling from the air conditioner. My husband doesn’t do well with heat and I don’t do well with drafts.
Buying a new car is not something we can do right now.

Two doctor appointments are scheduled this week. Hopefully all will be well. Pressures off? REALLY?
Now I know that if I exercise, I will work off some of the stress. Deep breathes help too.

Vacation is on the horizon — I still have to pack. My husband is staying home — he will need food in the house to eat, so will Robin. We are planning to go to the camper when I return, I’m trying to gather stuff for there too. Originally, I thought my husband would go out to the camper while I was gone but plans changed. I didn’t have the time to stock the camper either.

I walked into the pantry and reminded myself that I accomplished NOTHING over the winter. It must be the day and the rain. Raining outside, raining inside too. I recently decided to try to stop the negative talk — not doing too well today. I can usually handle stuff when it comes one at a time, it is the deluge that gets me.

It is a good thing I have friends in high places that “help” me. I got hit on the head yesterday, and the freezer avalanched. I need to pay more attention. I always say that I make plans and God Laughs. Step by step, I’m trying. Just slid back quite a bit.

POST NOTE: Before leaving for the doctor’s office yesterday, I tried to save this ramble under the name PRESSURES OFF. I was asked if I wanted to replace the ramble that was already there. ?? NO, I DIDN’T but I did want to read what was on the ramble. It is funny how as much as time passes, things change but remain the same. It was about two years ago, same time of year, preparing for vacation — weight was up, feet were swollen, etc. Today — weight is DOWN, used a pressure cooker to cook beans for chili and DIDN’T blow up the kitchen.

YESTERDAY–my husband asked the doctor about a lump on his neck. I guess I was worried because I felt relieved when I learned it was nothing to worry about, just fatty tissue.

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ELEVATOR POSSESSED

Step by step : First step — my husband made an appointment with an optometrist, his eyes were burning and tearing when he read for a long time. He learned that he needed glasses, that although he had cataracts they weren’t too bad and his retina was disintegrating. Eye sight is important — you don’t want to lose it.

Second step — we made an appointment with our primary doctor. We learned that my husband’s blood sugar over a three month period was still too high, an adjustment to his insulin was needed. Thankfully, his diabetes hadn’t affected his eyes. We also received a referral to a Retina specialist. I learned after an examination, that our doctor determined that the pain in my back was probably caused by a muscle. Another incentive to lose weight.

Third step — I made an appointment with the retina specialist. On a shopping trip we located the Dr.’s office so we wouldn’t get lost. We left early enough to arrive ahead of time, in case there was paperwork to fill out.

Fourth step — we located the doctor’s office on the building sign and determined it was on the third floor. We pressed the elevator for up, when it arrived — we pressed the button for the third floor. We descended into the basement. We pressed the button for the third floor. We stopped at one. We pressed the button for the third floor. We DESCENDED to the basement. We pressed the button for the third floor, we ascended to the fourth. When the elevator door opened, WE GOT OFF AND WALKED DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS. Arriving at office 333, the sign on the door read Diamond Health services. ??? The person at the desk said the doctor had relocated and took us down to the building rental office via elevator. We learned the doctor relocated two years ago — to Oakbrook. ?? We had been early, but Oakbrook was easily a 45 minute drive. There is no way we would have arrived close to the time of his appointment.

Thankfully I had brought the information our primary doctor had given us that had the phone number on it. When I phoned, I learned that they had relocated to a hospital that was only a fifteen minute drive from our location. I knew exactly where the hospital was since the vascular surgeon that had healed my leg was located there. We exited the building by WALKING DOWN the stairs.

Last step — after an examination, the doctor determined that my husband didn’t need treatment for his retina at this time. We have another appointment in six months. NEXT TIME we are going to a new doctor, I WILL TRY TO REMEMBER to confirm the address.

Was the elevator possessed or was it only trying to tell us we were at the wrong place? Good question — no answer.

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DETOUR

I make plans, if not plans, at least I have a general idea of what it is I want to accomplish. Often GOD LAUGHS! And it happened AGAIN. We were celebrating an early Christmas on Saturday, it was Friday and I wasn’t ready. The house wasn’t completely decorated, the cookies weren’t made and I planned to do some precooking.

My husband had a bad cough, and I was concerned. I didn’t like his color, his cough nor his lack of energy. He has emphysema. Colds have often become pneumonia in the past. Friday morning, I signed him up at the minute clinic a short distance from the house. The nurse practitioner listened to his lungs and told him he needed a chest x-ray. She didn’t have the necessary equipment but a clinic a short drive from the house did.

Three hours later, chest x-ray and EKG taken, the nurse practitioner was concerned. She thought his cough might have been caused by his heart. She wanted him to go the hospital — Emergency to be exact, via ambulance. I didn’t think we needed an ambulance.

Neither my husband nor I had breakfast, not even a cup of coffee. I planned to stop for food on the way. We were advised that tests might be delayed if we stopped to eat. We drove directly to the hospital, no stops along the way.

Long story short — my husband was going to sign himself out of the hospital at 4:00 in the afternoon. Another EKG had been run. The emergency room doctor was concerned about the level of oxygen in his blood. He had a oxygen treatment. She was able to contact his primary care doctor and learned that the oxygen levels in his blood were always on the low side. He was released with the promise that if he had any chest pains he would return to the hospital immediately.

Five PM and we were finally returning home. I had been on the phone with our children throughout the day. I was TIRED and hungry. I hadn’t accomplished one thing that was on my to do list.

Did we really need cookies? Saturday our family gathered at our home. Except for the family in Florida, we were all present — adults, children and dogs. What better gift for Christmas? We didn’t miss the cookies.

Monday, we visited our primary doctor. My husbands breathing was better — no wheezing. I didn’t accompany him into the office, but remained in the waiting room talking to a woman who was grieving the passing of her son a few years before. More recently she had also lost a loved dog. I told stories from my life — “help from my friends in high places.”

I don’t know why we received a DETOUR or ROADBLOCK on Friday. I don’t know why I was prevented from baking or cooking. I don’t know if there was something seriously wrong with my husband.
We are home. His color is better and so is his cough. The cookies still aren’t made.

On Friday, I kept reminding myself that God was in charge and so He/She is.

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DETOURS

I make plans, if not plans, at least I have a general idea of what it is I want to accomplish. Often GOD LAUGHS! And it happened AGAIN. We were celebrating an early Christmas on Saturday, it was Friday and I wasn’t ready. The house wasn’t completely decorated, the cookies weren’t made and I planned to do some precooking.

My husband had a bad cough, and I was concerned. I didn’t like his color, his cough nor his lack of energy. He has emphysema. Colds have often become pneumonia in the past. Friday morning, I signed him up at the minute clinic a short distance from the house. The nurse practitioner listened to his lungs and told him he needed a chest x-ray. She didn’t have the necessary equipment but a clinic a short drive from the house did.

Three hours later, chest x-ray and EKG taken, the nurse practitioner was concerned. She thought his cough might have been caused by his heart. She wanted him to go the hospital — Emergency to be exact, via ambulance. I didn’t think we needed an ambulance.

Neither my husband nor I had breakfast, not even a cup of coffee. I planned to stop for food on the way. We were advised that tests might be delayed if we stopped to eat. We drove directly to the hospital, no stops along the way.

Long story short — my husband was going to sign himself out of the hospital at 4:00 in the afternoon. Another EKG had been run. The emergency room doctor was concerned about the level of oxygen in his blood. He had a oxygen treatment. She was able to contact his primary care doctor and learned that the oxygen levels in his blood were always on the low side. He was released with the promise that if he had any chest pains he would return to the hospital immediately.

Five PM and we were finally returning home. I had been on the phone with our children throughout the day. I was TIRED and hungry. I hadn’t accomplished one thing that was on my to do list.

Did we really need cookies? Saturday our family gathered at our home. Except for the family in Florida, we were all present — adults, children and dogs. What better gift for Christmas? We didn’t miss the cookies.

Monday, we visited our primary doctor. My husbands breathing was better — no wheezing. I didn’t accompany him into the office, but remained in the waiting room talking to a woman who was grieving the passing of her son a few years before. More recently she had also lost a loved dog. I told stories from my life — “help from my friends in high places.”

I don’t know why we received a DETOUR or ROADBLOCK on Friday. I don’t know why I was prevented from baking or cooking. I don’t know if there was something seriously wrong with my husband.
We are home. His color is better and so is his cough. The cookies still aren’t made.

On Friday, I kept reminding myself that God was in charge and so He/She is.

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