The Infamous Yarn

Well, Loulou discovered yarn! Yes, she is 2 1/2 and just discovered a ball of yarn can be a load of fun. With two front paws and a mouthful too, she gracefully ripped the entire ball to shreds and then trailed it all over the room! Who needs the expensive store-bought cat toys!!!

Thank goodness it wasn't my knitting project.

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Accomodations

It was pretty obvious to us that Dr. Ann was playing avoidance because she just plain did not know what to do. Next one of my nurses came in for a check up and explained that I would be moving again because they needed my room for someone actually needing palliative care. I was in that ward because they did not have another bed in a more appropriate ward. If you do not ‘fit’ into the function of their ward they don’t want to keep you because they don’t know everything they need to know to look after you. They want to put you in the ward where they can better look after you. Makes sense I guess. Now I was waiting for the next move. Flowers started coming and Get Well cards and phone calls. I did not even think of that being distracted with pain and accommodation issues. It was soooo comforting to receive warm thoughts and beautiful flowers to cheer up the room. If you happened to be one of the persons sending these wishes then a super ‘thanks’ to you

Queen Loulou for the birds!

At my bequest Hubby hung a hummingbird feeder outside my bedroom window. Hummingbirds are so dainty and beautiful. It is a challenge to figure out if its a returning bird or a new one as some of the markings are so similar.

Loulou, who loves to perch the window sills guarding the house as our resident dog you know, discovered the new feeder. When she is in the sill it is about eye level for her. Her first reaction was a double take, leading to crouch position. Once she had her wits about her she stood up and watched intently as the little bird ate and flew away. Now she just crouches and watches happily with ears perked up. Sometimes the little birds even look at her before they leave. wow.

The humming birds even come in the rain. The feeder hangs just inside the eave of the house so it doesn't fill with rain water (a lesson we learned after having to replace the food a few times!) and spoil. One little bird perched on the plastic flower where he could reach the little yellow pistol to drink from. He shook off the rain water, looked around during the wet-free reprieve, drank some more, flicked his tiny tongue in and out, and then had company! Yup, another bird at the same time. Cool. Similar coloring, much longer beak. Answered the same or not bird dilemma. I bet the girl hummingbirds like him. " ooh look at that long beak.....think of the babies with long beaks we will have.....". I am told the prettier ones are boys.

We also have one with a very shiny red neck. I call him the redneck who always wants a free meal!!

Who knew we would have such enjoyment from a little bird feeder!!! If you don't have one I recommend it.

On the Ward

Palliative care is very interesting place! As you can probably guess there are a lot of elderly people or people with dementia and things like that. Well some of those people tend to wander, fall out of bed, etc. so they have these bed alarms that sing to notify the nurses when someone is out of bed that should not be. How many times in the middle of the night can you listen to the same nursery rhyme over and over!!!! You know some people even get naked and wander, yes, its true! AND yes, there are some dirty old men. The guys just never give up I guess, no matter what age; ha ha. It also turned out that Hubby had a friend who was visiting his mother regularly in the palliative care. So he discovered coffee and breakfast friend at the hospital. I was happy for him.

Great Project

My friend Rachel created this great little project and posted a tutorial and little contest to win on her blog. If you like sewing at all check it out at:
http://plainjane21.blogspot.com/2009/06/cute-lil-purse-tutorial-and-lil.html

Checked In.

Morning comes and its time to move to a new room. A private room, yeah! So, roll along to get settled and check it out. A private bath (very good), free TV for some reason (good again), room for visitors and a white board on the wall that tells you the name of your nurse and your whereabouts in the hospital. Mine happens to be Palliative Care! Yes, where people go when they are going to die! Next thought omg there IS something really wrong with me?! panic now..... Along comes the nurse who introduces herself, administers pain meds and explains the room situation seeing the panicked look on our faces. (me and hubby that would be). Satisfaction looms on my face either from the nurse's explanation or the needle of morphine but everything is OK now.

Time to meet the Doctor number one. Number one, you ask? Yep. The nurse explained that my Dr. is on a special rotation where she and other Dr.s take turns doing hospital rounds by the week. So happens that my Dr. is not on this week and Doctor number one, or Dr. Ann lets call her, is "filling in" this week. That is interesting.

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So we meet Dr. Ann who is always in a hurry to get out of the room. It’s like she will catch something from you any minute. Comforting quality! Dr. Ann was suggesting more blood work to watch the haemoglobin and I think coordinating the consultation with the Internal Specialist. She came in about twice, maybe three times, that week and she would mention some of the blood work results very quickly in no less than 35 letter words and then resort to the running thing again. Finally I asked Hubby to coordinate his stay with the exact time she would be there so that he would understand what I was talking about and that it was not just the morphine thinking for me. Eventually he had to stand between the Doc and the door to get her to stay long enough for a question. When she spieled out the 35 letter words he said, “You know that we do not understand the terminology you are using so why not just spell it out to us in everyday English!” I think my jaw dropped on the floor but we did get some explanations. She was mostly concerned about the haemoglobin which kept falling as the week went on and talked about the possibilities of blood transfusion which we were all trying hard to avoid. So there it was. Stay tuned……

Queen Loulou

May I introduce Queen Loulou. You can see her photo on the side of this blog page. We call her the 'queen' because that is how she portrays herself.

Loulou was a Christmas present that came to me 2 years ago (2006 and yes that makes her 2 1/2). She was patiently waiting outside the door in a gift bag on Xmas eve while I exclaimed that it was not necessary to open any presents before the next day! Hubby brought the gift bag in anyway and I heard her faint mews before she even got to me! I instantly fell in love and she has been my baby ever since. Spoiled? yes. She came from a farm and we think she is part Siamese.

Well at the time we also had a Dalmatian who had been in the family for many years. Loulou grew up with the dog who rightly kept her in her place as bottom of the food chain. Eventually even the dog had to give it up and let her into her heart. Sharing water dishes, affection, and close sleeping proximity! This past winter our dog passed away and now my cat thinks she is a dog.

Loulou is a house cat. She wears those plastic claw caps to match her collar which is pink with lots of bling of course and a little bell. Nothing but flashy for the queen. She likes being a house cat. She crawls under the blankets to snuggle up to me when she is cold. Like the dog she watches out all of the windows to guard the house. You always know when someone or something is around because she runs from window to window to get the best view and you hear the tinkle, tinkle, tinkle through the house!

Well that is Loulou and I will tell you about her hilarious antics every once in a while.

Checking In

So, its check in time. The ER doc says we should keep you for a few days because if I let you go home than it will likely take you a year to get the tests you will need and to see the specialists you need to see to figure out the problem causing your pain. (The pain is abdominal, upper right quadrant). First reaction is what? a couple days? There are things to be done! Second reaction oh! Is something really that wrong? Third reaction owwww that hurts, when does the morphine kick in? Fourth reaction is when logic starts maybe he has a point and I don't have a nightie! All of these happening within a couple of split seconds!

So the ER doc explains that there is actually more than one problem on the table. First that I am severely anemic and have been for TWO years when he looked through my records which worries him, worries him? (I was only informed of a low red blood cell count a month earlier). This is probably a gynecological problem and to see the Gynecologist right away. Secondly that I will need to see an Internal Medicine specialist to figure out the pain.

Ok, you finally resolve yourself to staying over night then you are told that there are no rooms available! (There are whole sections of this hospital closed because they cannot staff them.) Now you have to sleep in the ER for the night and be monitored. Now the ER is not the quietest place to sleep but the narcotics kick in and help with that. Looking at the bright side, you get a lot of hospital gossip plus it is really interesting to hear other patients wailing out loud for something not even half as bad as what you are experiencing....there should be a room available in the morning. Off to sleep.