Catching Up

Let me backtrack and catch you up. By Sunday morning, Amanda was up five pounds in fluid retention. She was only peeing a little bit and only after taking the now heavy dose of the new oral diuretic. We knew it was time for the at-home injectable diuretic. It’s Lasix, just in a five-hour continuous injectable. They were supposed to send someone to show us how to use it, but come on, you know nurse Barkley didn’t need any help! I watched a video, read the instructions, and was ready to go. Hands all washed up and sanitized, I grabbed the Furosix On-Body Infuser, as it’s called.

Amanda sanitized her belly where it was to go while I got it ready. It had to go to a comfortable spot since it would stay on for five hours. I placed it on her belly, ensuring it was secured well. There was a button to push, so I pushed it. It was much harder than I was expecting, then a loud click followed by a scream. It was easy to know the needle had deployed! Amanda said it was painful, especially while moving. I told her well, there is a needle poking in your belly! It worked and did its job, but not greatly. We figured Amanda was too fluid-overloaded for it to do its job well enough, though. It would be suitable for maintenance and when she would get overloaded early on, but not with as much as she had. She may not have been dry enough to go home in the first place, but we wanted to go home. This is where the apartment will be great. If we lived nearby, we could have gone into the clinic to get an IV Bumex push. That will all be solved come Friday.

I was doing housewife work and stayed relatively busy all day. I think I did six or seven loads of laundry, cooked lunch and dinner, and my least favorite dishes, or at least putting them up. Those are all the never-ending things, it seems! There is still a pile of dishes waiting for me when I return home. I was still in my robe and slippers when someone dropped by after church to drop something off! I was working in some union work, and I pitifully asked Amanda if we could order Uber Eats, we are 30 miles from anywhere we could get anything delivered! With the cooler weather, I ended up making some quesadillas and caldo, usually beef and vegetable soup; ours was just veggies. By the evening, I still hadn’t gotten out of my robe and had no plans to leave the house anyway. I did wait till nightfall to emerge and take the trash to the road. I needed the darkness as a cover to keep everyone from thinking I was Uncle Eddie from Christmas Vacation!

Monday was the day; I needed to decide whether or not we’d go with the apartment. Amanda will give her input, but she gets overwhelmed with decisions. So the final decision for all the big ones, like this, fall on my shoulders. She’ll patiently, sometimes, listen to all why scenario talk. I’ll just go over a ton of different scenarios and think out loud. I think she tunes me out mostly! Monday was my cut-off. I wanted one more night to sleep on it; jumping into a lease without being listed was a big decision. I have just felt a prompting since I went to the complex. From the heart on the signal box I passed, to the leasing manager being flexible, to the fundraiser making just what we needed to get into it. I was prayed up in the decision, and I really felt God saying do it. So, when the blow came about going out of state, I was like, well I misread you on that one, God. Ye, of little faith, I can hear him say! It was Houston all along, just in the hospital next door.

We have a shared list on our iPhones for vacation. It had become our moving list, every time we thought of something, we added to it. By Monday, it was getting long. I was 50/50 whether or not we’d end up in the hospital, so I wanted to consolidate all of our things in one place. That way, if I was gone, it could easily be loaded up without me having to say what to grab from multiple places. So, most of my Monday was spent consolidating furniture from our house and our downtown place. A considerable amount between everything. We keep a well-stocked pantry, and we keep separate traveling things, too, like seasoning and whatnot. So, I dipped into that from everything to canned goods to seasoning to TP and paper towels to pantry staples. We have a great start on furnishing but that makes a lot to load, too. Tank was getting stressed out with all the loading of things; he didn’t know what to think. He is a rescue and had terrible separation anxiety when we got him, so things like this really bother him.

Amanda was feeling worse as the fluid kept building. She just starts to hurt wherever the fluid is, which is all over. It seemed increasingly like we’d be heading to the hospital before we planned to return for the infusion. She wasn’t feeling it when I FaceTimed her to ask about some decorations that were on an armoire we planned to take. I’d already asked about paintings; we have a ton, and I wondered if she wanted me to pack any. She yelled we don’t even have any up in our house! We don’t and have been living in the in-between with a house in an active remodel. Not feeling good and not wanting to spend more brain captaincy than she needed, I’d worn her brain out deciding on the apartment; she was being a pill. So I called Brittany, who was in town, to see if she’d help me pick decorations. She wasn’t sick, but her kids had been, so we settled on getting decorations another day after we had the apartment set with furniture.

I’ve been having some things weighing on me about how we got into this situation with rejection. If you’ve been following us for a while, you know this all started with an incident with someone; the catalyst for the rejection began there. I won’t go into details, but I needed to do something for myself. I had prayed over this a lot and sought wise counsel from Godly men in our church about it. Monday, I did what I needed to do, and I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders when I did. I pray God works in significant ways with that situation. This may be a terrible situation, but God has just been going before us in amazing ways lately. I had another situation that involved money I had been stressing over. What I thought would be an issue turned out to be a blessing. It’s funny how sometimes God does that. “O ye of little faith, just let me do my thing,” I heard again.

I woke Tuesday to Amanda saying we needed to go to work. She had weighed and noticed a continual gain, then called the team and had just got off the phone with them. It was a surprise, but not really. I was lined up for a train in the evening. I’d had a co-worker want to swap. He’d get out the next day, but I wanted to be back Thursday to load up early for our Friday move day, so I turned him down. Once Amanda told me the news, I asked him if he still wanted to. That would give me time to get Amanda there, maybe stay a bit, and then return home. He initially agreed, then crawfished on me. I was worried, not wanting to take off another trip. I thought of our heart friend in Katy, Jenny. I wondered if she could possibly meet us halfway. So, I got ahold of her while loading the car. She could, and we’d planned to meet at Buc-ee’s in Luling, which is almost exactly halfway to the tenth of a mile, but closer for her since she’s on the west side of Houston.

I was lining things up as I left. With all the things together, it would be easy to load up in case I didn’t make it back, and I had a friend all lined up with that. He was already telling me not to worry, and they could get everyone loaded up and bring it up if I didn’t make I it back. I called another friend to help me with the Suburban. I needed to get the oil changed and have the tires rotated. He was already getting his truck ready, so he said he’d just do it in his driveway with his. See, I’m asking for help with things; you all should be proud of me!

Amanda was packing heavily as if she might not come back. Before we rolled out, I needed to drop some things off downtown with my moving consolidation pile, and Amanda needed to do a few things for work at church. Then we hit the road, no bad traffic, I went my new way this trip! Jenny must have hit the road early because we were over an hour out when she said she was 20 minutes from Buc-ee’s. She kept on trucking, and we ended up meeting in Seguin at a StarBs we frequent. I transferred the precious cargo and immediately hit the road back home; I had a train to catch that night. I missed all the rush hour traffic coming through San Antonio, but the girls hit a little while getting into Houston. 

Once home, I needed to clean out the back of the Burban; we’ll need it to pack stuff in. But I didn’t want just to walk in and grab my keys with Tank freaked out. So I fed him and then went downtown to drop things off there. I was in the shop, which was completely trashed with stuff I’d been stacking in there. I noticed some TV boxes; I’m a box hoarder! One of the TVs was going with us, so it was perfect. The other was a TV we mounted on a swing-down mount under the gazebo; bingo, a second TV. The apartment is coming together. The day before, a couple, David and Renee, came by to drop off a Sonic drink for Amanda; I was loading a trailer, so David stayed with me to get a few things moved. As seasoned movers from thier own experience, they will go with me on Friday to get our vehicles up and get us all moved in. You know you have good friends when they help you move, especially since none of us are in our twenties anymore! I ended up calling David to come down to help get the very high-mounted TV down, too tall for me even. We boxed both TVs up and also got a bed broken down. With that done, we had everything all in one spot, ready to be loaded. On the way home, I dropped linens from the bed we’re moving off with someone to wash. Another pat on the back, I’m still letting people help!

As we packed the few things up, my phone was dining; it was Jenny with updates. She was a one-line texter; no paragraphs from her, so my phone was a ding, ding, ding! She was like a sports announcer, with every move of the doctors and nurses right on my phone. I was in the know, way better than Amanda’s text updates! Jenny was being fiery with the nurses and doctors where needed, too. It was five hours before Amanda got the IV and any pain meds or Bumex. That ER is so slow sometimes, it was busy, they both said, too.

Amanda texted early in the morning that she had a room, but they needed to clean it. When I got off after an all-night trip, on duty at 9:30 p.m. and off around 8 a.m., I called Amanda. She was just then going up in the elevator to her room. I said my nite nites and promptly went to sleep when I got to the hotel. I woke around one in the afternoonn with a sleep hangover, a common occurrence for me when sleeping late after an all-nighter. 

Once up, I got all caught up on things from Amanda. The “keep it up” transplant doctor was rounding with the PA we like this week. When the doctor was looking to see how distended Amanda’s jugular was, the PA said she could see it across the room. This is a sign of high pressures caused by fluid retention. They’d already started her on a Bumex drip in the ER, but he mentioned the heavier diuretic, which always tanks her kidneys, that were already trending in the wrong direction. I’d already told Amanda to fight that, and she did, but he said we may still need to use the heavier diuretic. As the coordinator mentioned, I can see why they do kidney transplants along with the 2nd heart. It seems you get stuck between a rock and a hard place. Hopefully, we won’t need a kidney, too.

With the Bumex drip, I knew Amanda wouldn’t feel good. When it strips the fluid off, it makes her hurt. She confirmed when I asked about it and said she was hurting. The cardio doc mentioned a device the size of a paper clip they can implant in her artery to read pulmonary artery pressures at home to help be ahead of the curve on fluid retention. Dr. Nair is in India this week, so they would like to wait till his back to do that; if not, this doctor said he could do it. I’ll get more in-depth into that when that time approaches. I’ll likely be silent for a couple of days as we get busy and move. I’ll try to post quick updates as time allows, though