Tuesday, May 14, 2013 update. Well, what now?

In  regards to looking for a job, do I look for that full time teaching position or do I sub next year?

The hubby is talking about a possible layoff coming this summer with his job.  If he is a part of that company plan then he will be coming home to live and we will not have insurance.  That would probably cause a problem with coverage for him and the kids and a problem with my second surgery.  There is always the chance that if he is a part of that he can put in for a transfer or what they call bump someone with lower seniority than him.  That location could be here at home or anywhere. 

Remember, this news is not something news.  It is always a topic and always a possibility about every 6 months.  As long as the hubby works for his company and they have a union contract then on the money front we might be okay because of the contract pay for a layoff, okay for a while.  But it is that looming insurance coverage that is the issue.  Especially now with me going through what I am going through. 

If I find a district that will hire me as a full time classroom teacher I will hopefully get insurance coverage, but will that cover my second surgery if the hubby does not have it? 

You know life is not like movies and TV.  There is not a scrip to read to know what is next.  There is not a team of writers asking input on where the characters go next.  There is not a path laid smooth and covered in precious stones and metals to ease our way.

On the child front, the dear daughter can not wait till graduation!  Here announcements are out and dinner reservations are made for afterward and she is excited.  I am too.  My baby girl is growing up and moving forward with her dreams. 

The dear son is going to be 16 the end of the month.  He is such a great young man, I wish he would understand how much I love him and want only the best for him.  Whether it is his hormones for the age or there is something medical and mental going on with him and most likely a combination of all.  I want to fix it all for him so he has emotional and spiritual hope and enthusiasm for life and learning.  The arguing we have, his only wanting to play computer games, not wanting to Scouts because he is afraid of hurting someone there, they get very loud and act like boys and pick on him to piss him off and get him angry. He ends up acting on his anger and he is the one that gets in trouble.  I am scared for my son.

On the health front, the nurses are still happy with my healing incision.  For two or three weeks though they have been saying they think I will be out of the wound vac in a week.  I am still restricted from driving, doing more than very basic things and the information that the second surgery won't happen till September to December was a shock.  I still see the second surgery getting in the way of getting a full time position.  But I will move forward and on.  Yet, I know where my son gets his fear of moving forward from. 

May 7 Doctor appointment happenings

1, the visit was short, and went well.

2, the wound vac stays on for two more weeks.  Not because I am not healing but because the bandages for my wound and the colostomy bandages overlap.  She does not want to risk any infection in my healing incision.

3, the reversal surgery will probably not be for 6 months.  Not sure if that is 6 months from original surgery or 6 months from healed incision.  I can be patient.  Mr. Colostomy and I will be best of friends :)

4, the next appointment is in 2 weeks.  The wound vac will probably come off then if not sooner.

So, I still am not officially released to drive since I still need the visiting nurses to change my bandages and I am not released to work. And the sun is out today and I wore real clothes for the first time since March 25, 2013.  Woot!

Healing check in

Well I am healing and the visiting nurses are happy with my progress.  So to everyone that is amazed and shocked that it is taking me "so long" to heal I am told my progress is normal.  And don't forget I have one more surgery to do, God willing, and then a healing time with that one too.  Before the second surgery I have to have another CT scan to make sure my insides are healed or healing properly.  I go to the surgeon on Tuesday May 7 and hopefully she can give me some news and dates then.  I will have to wait and see.  BTW I am told normal healing time is 3-4 months from surgery to release, so i am 1-1/2 months (approximately) in.

Yon know, when there is work to be done and you are avoiding it being lazy at home is much more fun that being ordered to do nothing so a person can heal.  I am so aggravated with not being able to do anything that I don't have the motivation of the positive attitude to do what little I can do.  Oh and my headache today!  Just makes it all worse.   

Happy to alive and can't wait till I can take part in the world again. 

Healing update

This past Tuesday I had a follow up with the surgeon.  She says my healing incision looks good and is healing very well.  She told me that I should continue taking an antihistamine if I have a reaction to the pain medication I take before a dressing change. I also rub on an anti itch cream. I go back for the next followup the  first full week of May.

Today I have been having some pain in my lower, outside abdominal area (pelvic) region.  It is close to that time of a woman's monthly cycle for me.  I am hoping that is all it is.  I did drink a BIG glass of water quickly today too and felt very painfully bloated in my stomach. 

I get little pains like electrical shocking in tiny tiny areas.  My nerve endings healing.  I've gotten the same feelings in every cut that has resulted in a scar. 

I went out in the backyard and walked some today.  The weather was great today and it felt good to get out in the sun.  I walked over and talked to a neighbor to say hi also.  She didn't know what happened so I gave her the short version.  I also folded two loads of laundry.  Doesn't sound like much, but it was exhausting. This sedentary life of recovery is putting all that lost weight from the hospital stay back on me.

The kids are helping, I wish more, they wish less.  The daughter is getting ready to graduate high school but she is not doing well in algebra.  She needs that class to graduate.  The son, well he just doesn't have the desire right now to even do his school work, go to scouts or take care of his area at home.  I know of nothing that encourages him to do anything but play computer games with his internet friends. 

I am alive.  Saved by someone who loves me and the medical profession for a second time due to my body having a flaw.  I am not asking for what purpose, it may show itself or maybe it won't and I will just do what I am to do. 

I will try not to nag on my children as I have been.  But in return I hope they help without me nagging.

I don't want to die, not yet.  Not for another 40 or more years, as long as I have my wits about me.  Why?  Twice now in my 52 years I have had emergency surgery to save my life.  Once when I was 5 weeks old and recently, 5 weeks after my 52nd birthday.  But how can I be so selfish when last Friday a friend passed from a sudden massive heart attack?  He had no time to make such a request.

March 25, 2013 after going to dinner with the husband and son I started feeling painfully constipated.  The pain increased to unbearable measure and the husband said I looked as white as a Styrofoam cup and my eyes were as black as night.  He rushed me to the hospital.  After a CT scan the ER doctor came and told us that he was calling a surgeon to operate immediately because I was not going to die in his ER.  My response, 'Really?  Are you sure?'  Pain meds can make you say silly things. 

By the am hours of March 26 I was in surgery.  I had a perforated section of lower colon that was no bigger than the diameter of my pinkie and I was putting all sorts of nasty things into my body, I was septic.  I really don't think I need to tell you exactly what was going into my body.  So the surgeon found the bad spot, did what she needed to do to remove it and  it took her 9 liters of fluid to rinse out of me all the bad stuff.  The incision is LARGE.  God I hope she got all of the bad section and there are no more bad spots hiding in me. 

Yes I am scared.  You see had my husband not decided to take a couple of days off and come home for a visit I could very possibly not be typing this right now.  Knowing stupid me I probably would have tried to go to sleep thinking I was just seriously constipated and my kids would have found me dead.  Yes I am scared.

Between the hospital ICU stay and the rehab hospital stay I was hospitalized for a total of 17 days from March 25 to April 10.  From pre-surgery to March 31 I lived on ice chips and a saline drip.  I had wires and tubes everywhere.  I swelled up from the saline to the point that my feet were 4 times their size and one hand looked like the StayPuff Marshmallow Man from Ghost Busters.  I had so much pain medication in me my eyes could not focus and read.  But by the end of the rehab hospital stay I was walking on my own even though I was in pain and very uncomfortable.

So now I have a colostomy bag to do my business in and a wound vac attached to the packing on my incision and am constantly in pain of some sort.  The wound vac putts away stimulating healing from the inside out. I can't drive or work or reach up or down nor lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk and have in home nurse visits 3 times a week to change my dressing, colostomy and reattach the wound vac.  I could be down for a total of 3 to 6 months healing.  I am hoping the surgeon is right and that the colostomy is reversible.  So when she says I am physically able I will go through another surgery. 

I have been home since last Wednesday April 10 afternoon.  My husband had to leave to go back to work in the state (separate from us) his company transferred him to this past Monday.  We have had friends bring us food, come over and cook for the kids and I, the nephew even did my dishes tonight for me.  I have a neighbor that comes home for lunch every day and she comes over to check on me.  I have some good friends and neighbors (big smile!).

Yesterday I had my followup with the surgeon and she says my incision is looking and healing well with new granulated tissue.  She wants to see me in 3 weeks.  Her nurse had to remove my wound vac and dressing for her to tell me this of course.  I was sent home with what they call a wet to dry dressing, basically saline soaked gauze to fill the wound and then bandaging over that.  When my visiting nurse removed the wet to dry the gauze was green and had an infection smell. but my tissue looked good.  She called the surgeon and since I did not have a fever they want her to report how I am on Friday when she comes back. 

My GP called me today to let me know he is keeping tabs on my progress and that he saw the positive report from yesterdays surgeon visit.  This man has been my Doctor for probably 20 years and boy do I appreciate him doing this.  He is also aware of our families situations too.  He is a great guy.

So now I wait to go back to the surgeon on May 7 for the next followup.  My visiting nurse says I am wishing for too much for my incision to be healed or nearly healed by then.  But I am hopeful.  I know I will have to have a CT scan and maybe other tests to see how my colon is to decide if my internal plumbing can be reconnected.  No idea when all of that will take place. 

Yes I am scared, no I am not ready to leave my children or my husband.  I just graduated college with a teaching degree in December 2012, I want to go back to work, travel, live in the same home as my husband, explore.  I hope to be healthy after this until I am a burden to my children with my husband in our 90's and be a crazy woman not willing to give up on life.  So yes, I am scared. 

Now on the funny side (gross to some).  I find it laughable every time I fart out my stoma on my belly and I have to burp my bag so it doesn't burst.

First day of Substitute Teaching

I had orientation with a school district as a substitute teacher.  I was subbing for 1/2 a day the very next day on Thursday 2-14-2013.  That was FAST!  It was at a high school and in language arts. Boy was it an experience.

Even though I have two high school students myself I had a real awakening about teenagers.  By high school most of them have made up their mind if they are going to cooperate or not.  Well not many of them cooperated with the assignments that the classroom teacher left for them.

Well on Tuesday coming up I have an appointment to be interviewed for a substitute job with another district.  It is the district that I did my student teaching in so I am hoping all goes well.  But in this district I will request elementary only.

I was also offered a part time job at the Zoo.  I would love to work at the Zoo but it would be in a gift shop and not education.  Subbing in hopefully two districts and working the zoo, I don't know.  I would have to work weekends and I would not be able to help out at the two cub scout camps that have asked me to volunteer to run the project/craft stations.  But if I don't there won't be any paycheck for the summer. 

So what do I do? 

Howdy Ho!

FaceBook had destroyed my desire to blog.  It is so horribly easy to just post little happies and sads on FB and forget about actual journal writing.  I like to write, even if it just to complain about the sads in my life.  Writing it makes me feel better, empowered to deal with it, cleansed.  It doesn't make it go away, but it clears it a bit so I can see how to handle it, what ever it is. 

Sometimes I feel I was born with drama and problems to over come more than some other people but way less than other people.  But who doesn't feel like that? 

So look at what you feel is wrong in your life and remember that others have the same problems and more. 

I could give you all my woes here if you like?