Weary

I am tired. I am weary. I have been so busy this week. Between appointments, spending time at the hospital with my dad, treatment, pre-surgery stuff, helping out around the house, plus we have been going through our storage unit trying to get rid of as much as possible so we can stop paying an extra $200 a month on a storage unit to store a bunch of stuff we don’t need. That’s physically exhausting between the fibromyalgia and the rheumatoid arthritis. I woke up this morning fatigued, tired, ready to sleep another night. My body aches and my brain feels like cotton. I have another day of looking through boxes and moving furniture and then spending time with my dad at the hospital.

I’m grateful to be able to spend time at the hospital. But I feel guilty if I take time to myself because he’s there 24/7 alone, bored, restless, in pain. I know I need to take care of myself too, and I’m trying, but finding the right balance has been hard. Today is a week since we ambushed him. A week he’s been in the hospital. He’ll find out more tomorrow about when he can come home.

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Update on My Dad

After my dad was admitted to the hospital, I spent the night and next day with him, keeping him company, making sure he had everything he needed, listening to the doctors to make sure we knew what was going on, advocating for him. It was a long couple days, first in the ER, then in the hospital the next day. Last night I came home and slept. I just showered and I feel refreshed.

My dad’s infection spread into his muscle. The doctor said if he’d left it much longer, it’d be in his bone, and he’d had lost the leg. I’m relieved and so thankful that my family ambushed him and made him go to the hospital. He’ll need several surgeries and lots of strong antibiotics. He goes in for his first surgery today.

My sister is taking today’s shift. I wish I could be there for him, but I also know I need to rest today. I’m very sore, my fibromyalgia is flaring up from the hospital chair I spent the last couple days in. Even with my frequent walks I didn’t escape its cruel consequences.

I talk to my dad via Facebook messenger (because it doesn’t use his data since it’s over the hospital’s wifi) often. He’s, naturally, bored and restless. The next time I go up to see him (tomorrow) I’m taking cards and we’ll play cribbage.

Planned Intervention

A bit ago I wrote about my dad’s infection in his leg and how he’s believing for faith healing and refuses to see a doctor for it.

Well, my siblings, mom, and I talked yesterday. We talked about how worried we are about him and his health, and how we’re worried about losing him. So, we have staged an intervention for tomorrow. I am not looking forward to it. I hate confrontation. I don’t want to confront him on this. However, something needs to give, because I’m terrified of losing him. So, I’ll be a part of this intervention if it give more weight to the event. I assume the more people who come together the more seriously he’ll take it.

Here’s hoping he doesn’t just blow us off.

Faith Healing

I would always hear those stories about a couple whose child died because the child was sick and the couple refused to take their child to the doctor because they believed God would heal their child. They refused to believe that God could bring healing through the doctor or modern medicine, it had to come through a narrow predetermined way they had chosen to believe in and were too narrow-minded or too stubborn or too something to accept that God might just use some other means to bring healing for their child. And because of this, their child had died.

I hated those stories because I felt so powerless. I wanted to be able to go back in time and shake those parents and make them listen. I wanted to save the life of the poor child who had literally suffered to death, but I knew there was nothing I could do to help them.

I grew up in a religious home, but my parents always took us to the doctor when we needed it and gave us medication when the doctor felt is was necessary. I never thought my parents would turn into one of those faith healing fanatics who would risk their own health in their shortsightedness.

However, my dad has turned into one of those people. My dad has type 2 diabetes. My dad believes that God is going to heal him. For whatever reason, that means he can’t manage his diabetes via modern medicine in the meantime because that would be “doubting God will heal him” so he’s stopped testing his blood sugar and stopped taking his insulin. Because of this, he developed an infection in his ankle. Well, naturally, God’s going to heal that too. My dad refuses to see a doctor about it. He refuses to accept that God might heal him of the infection through modern medicine. And as a result, the infection has grown to at least 6 inches long and wraps around his ankle and I am terrified he’s going to need his foot amputated if he lets it go much longer. But still he refuses to see a doctor about it. I’m also afraid the infection is going to go septic and threaten his very life and he’ll still refuse to be seen.

I’m scared for him, and I feel helpless. And I’m mad and frustrated because he won’t take care of himself and he’s putting his wife and me through this.

More hospital updates

It’s so nice to be home.

I have bruises all over both arms from IVs and blood draws. My left hand is very swollen from where my IV blew out. That was probably my fault.

My IV looked much like the one above. My left hand is my dominant hand, and also the one I purge with. I purged every meal while in the hospital. This meant unplugging the pump my IVs were going through from the wall, taking the whole pump with me to the bathroom, and purging with tubes in my hand. Because I’m brilliant.

Yesterday, I was given potassium pills because my potassium is low again. But they gave them to me as I was finishing my breakfast, so those were purged too.

They gave me more later. The nurse asked if I was making myself sick (my history of bulimia is in my file) and I was honest with her. I got a couple lectures and concerned talks from various staff about that.

Both arms have bruises all over them. It took 8 pokes and 4 staff to get my initial IV in. I was then poked 2-4 times daily for blood draws, and a few more times when they had to move my IV. The spot of my second IV alone left me with a 3 inch bruise.

Right when I was supposed to be released, we had a tornado warning. A large tornado was spotted in the area, and they locked down the hospital. All the patients were moved to the hallways and all the doors closed.

As soon as it passed, my dad drove me home. It was still storming pretty badly.

Naturally, when I got home, I took it easy and relaxed.

No, wait, that other thing. I went shopping, then binged and purged.

Purging is more important than an infection

I spent the weekend with my brothers. We drank lots of alcohol, played lots of games, and watched lots of anime. We also watched the first two X-Men movies.

We went to bed late Sunday night (around 2:30 on Monday morning, if you want to be technical). I noticed as I was getting ready for bed that I had a small rash on my leg, about the size of a half dollar coin.

An hour later, I woke up in excruciating pain. The rash had spread up my torso and down the other leg. It was bright red and painful. I was shaking, had chest pain, and shortness of breath.

I woke up my brother and he took me to the ER. I was given IV antibiotics immediately, and they drew 10 tubes of blood.

I was admitted to the hospital and my labs showed that the infection (the cause of my rash) had gone into my blood. I received super strong antibiotics all day and all night last night.

I have to be in the hospital through tonight, then the doctor will reassess tomorrow. I am starting to feel a lot better, but the antibiotics are hard on the body.

I got to shower this morning, which was AWESOME, but I haven’t been able to brush out my hair yet. The hospital’s idea of a hair brush is a tiny, flimsy comb. I couldn’t brush my hair out with that normally, but my hair is a giant not from being in bed all day yesterday, and I had no conditioner or detangler and my hair likes to tangle if I even look at it, so it tangles in the process of brushing it out.

Despite having a septic infection (I think that’s what the doctor called it), I still managed to purge everything I’ve eaten.

Yes, I’ve been purging while in the ER/hospital for a severe infection.

Clearly, something is wrong with this.