Monday, I was called to work later than expected. I fell into an Olive Garden soup, salad, and breadstick coma, to the sound of rain pouring outside. I was pleasantly surprised to be called at 5 in the morning. The plan was to leave Amanda on the drips, both of them. They want to see how well she tolerates it. The order is for 24/7 drip, she’s not even allowed to come off if it’s for a shower; so tied to an IV pole she is. Amanda thinks, from looking at her chart, that they are going to use that as ammo for the list upgrade exception. Well worth it if it gets her bumped up on the list.
The doctor we saw for the evaluation and liked, Dr Sacks, started her rounds on Monday. She is a singer-songwriter, as well as an assistant professor of cardiovascular medicine and a transplant cardiologist. In a quick Google search, I found an article on her. She’s Dr Sacks, the cardiologist/professor, for two weeks of the month; the other two weeks, Suzie Brown, the singer-songwriter. And has been in People Magazine and on CBS This Morning. I told Amanda that when she is out and feeling better and won’t get in trouble, we have to go to one of her shows! When she walked in the door halfway across the room, she exclaimed that Amanda looked so much better. She noticed the drastic fluid loss, even though Amanda was still above her base weight.
Dr. Sacks had a new PA and was teaching as she examined Amanda. Being very thorough, looking at Amanda’s carotid artery and showing the PA how Amanda was retaining fluid because of how high it was. Amanda said it was a much more thorough exam than the other doctors who’d looked at her, not just a glance. She also checked her brachial pulse near her elbow; this was a first. Teaching as she went, saying that the pulse should feel like a pencil eraser, not the tip of the pencil; Amandas was in between. I’m guessing it should look like that in an ekg line as well. She told the PA, “This is cardiology 202.” Amanda said I would have had fun with her, and she’d probably stayed all day to answer my questions.
Off the newer sleep med with both drips going, Amanda’s BP was back up, and she was feeling better. She said one of the nurses later on said she was worried thinking they were going to have to send her to the ICU there for a bit when her BP was in the tank. Amanda said if they had just listened to us, she would have been doing fine with he double drips all along. I guess they just needed to learn for themselves. This is the caveat of starting fresh with a new hospital.
I waited forever to get to my train. I was called too early and could have taken advantage of my food coma a couple more hours! I’m going to chase a squirrel here for a second, but this is a sweet and funny story, both. New had a Mexican Uber driver who had a heavy accent and was from Mexico City, but had been here in the state for a long time. We got to talking about things, and he was worried his English wasn’t good, but it was fine. Plus, living on the border, I pick up a lot of Spanish words and can piece a bunch together, and I’m used to mispronounced and misused words. He began telling us of how his grandkids speak no Spanish, even though his son grew up with it and speaks it. Then he told us of how, when he was first in Houston in the early 80s, they started out living in awful apartments with people shooting up and regular deaths in the complex from fights and whatnot. When his son was born, he realized they needed to move to better the boy’s life. So, he got a second job, then a third to afford a better apartment, eventually, they bought a home. They even put their kids in a private catholic school. Telling us very proudly that his son was a bombero, looking at the English word for firefighter, and now a captain. My engineer said a firefighter, and the driver proudly said, “A captain.” Speaking of the horrible apartments, they started in he mentioned that if they had not moved from there, he wasn’t sure if his son would be where he is today. I just got a warm and fuzzy feeling from that heartwarming story. Now that’s the American dream!
As we sat outside a nice area in Houston, waiting for our train to arrive, he told us an Uber driver story. There was a bar not far down from where we were, close to the tracks. One night, he was called to get a lady from a bar. The bartender had responsibly taken her keys and called an Uber for her to get home. She was a very well-off woman who lived in a high-end neighborhood near the bar. When she got in the Uber, she quickly asked him to give her the car keys and let her drive herself. He said No, No in his heavy accent. He had principles and wasn’t about to do that. He came up with a plan, though: he would drive her car with her in it if the bartender would get him an Uber back to his car. So, they went with that plan. He drove her car, and she directed the way to what he described as a mansion. It had a sprawling, tall, solid fence around the gigantic house and multiple outbuildings. To his surprise, the gate was open, and he inquired about it. The lady said her husband was a lawyer and would just shoot whoever he found inside the fence and “ask who they were later.” He was trying to say Shoot first, ask questions later. She then said her husband had been worried she was cheating, then asked him to park the car in the garage. He exclaimed No, No, your husband will see me and shoot me! She assured him he was okay since she was with him, and he said no, he would see me driving and “choot” first and ask who I was later! He did not drive the car into the garage and probably got the hell out of there unscathed to tell us the story! You have to imagine that story in a thick Mexican accent with broken English. It was too comical and I just had to share.
They came to get Amanda for cardiac rehab, but her rate was in the 140s after a shower and too high for them to work with her. So she was off the hook. Planning to get her exercise, she went to get a refresher from the pseudo-StarBs on the floor above. Pushing her IV along with her, she returned with nothing; they had sadly closed early for the day. That was about the excitement of the day for her. I didn’t get to talk with her much; I worked late into the evening since we had issues with our train. We only made it halfway back to San Antonio. I ended up working over 15 hours, plus a 2-hour drive home, which I wasn’t looking forward to at all!
I was supposed to call the basement apartment owners, I thought I would be off at a reasonable hour. However, I worked later than expected. I noticed a text from them. I suppose they wanted to convey the bad news via a call, rather than a text, but it was too late. They wanted to do their due diligence and have the apartment inspected. It had higher humidity levels, which they planned to remedy with an extensive dehumidification system. We had spoken about it when I was there, but she didn’t seem concerned. The contractor who inspected the it found a breach in the foundation that was causing the elevated humidity levels. Without extensive repairs, it wouldn’t be suitable to rent. This was certainly discouraging and a letdown. It seemed to fall into place so easily, and we would have neighbors we knew. It was a blessing wrapped in a a crappy package I guess. High humidity could have easily made a recipe for disaster with respiratory issues for Amanda’s compromised immune system after the transplant. So, it was for the best that they had it inspected and found the issue early. It’s a bummer, and we’re back on the market for another place now. I have nothing in my back pocket and didn’t even look at anything else like I planned to, since we thought this one was a done deal.
I put feelers out with the Nashville people we know to be on the lookout for a place. I had already lined up all of our stuff to come up the first part of July, but now I have no place for it. I still think it’s best we go ahead and get it all to Nashville. Nothing is cheap there, including storage, but it will save a headache later, plus it’s all still loaded in the trailers. All in all, the turmoil with this apartment is a blessing in disguise. I know there’s a plan. It’s just a puzzle, and I haven’t fit it together yet, but I will.
As I got home last night, Tank had uncovered and rooted the pillows all around and was in the midst of them with his head on the side of mine. We typically leave him in the bedroom with the door shut for some normalcy since we sleep with the door shut. Maybe we should leave the door open, because when I opened the bedroom door, it smelled of dog farts!
Today, Dr. Sacks told Amanda I like you the way you are, don’t change! We’re going to try to keep you here.” Amanda still thinks she has a little fluid in her belly. It’s hard to tell since she lost a lot of weight with our whole food plant based lifestyle, she has room for it to hide in her belly area. It can be deceiving to the doctors. Either way, we’re close to where she needs to be, and we’d like to keep her there as well. Maybe we’re done trial-running things, and they’ve figured it out, even though we’d already figured it out and came up with the plan; they just had to get on board. Amanda had a quick visit from Dr. Menachem. She said she’d refrain from using my nickname for him since she was nice enough to drop in! He just popped in to say hi and check on her. He examined the room and said, ‘You’ve added more,’ looking at the pictures we put up. Amanda told him, “That’s my inspiration board.” He then took a further look at our travel pictures. After looking, he said, “You need to get out of here. We need to get you a heart!” Yeah, tell us about it, doc!
I made a trip to Del Rio today to pick up a few things for the house, run a few errands, and get groceries. I had planned to work on the house today after returning with supplies, but after such a long shift yesterday and an impending call from the railroad, I chose to run errands only. I have a train for early Wednesday morning, so I’m about to hit the sack to get some sleep.