I'm in Galway

Got messages on skype that Craig needed me down in Galway so I took the next bus out there which was last Friday evening.  I was starting to get scared.  He was in the HDU (High Dependency Unit) where he was hooked up in the machine, and tube through his nose.

I ended up staying at the hospital that night and slept out in the hallway waiting room.  The next morning quickly looked at a B&B but took the first that was available for 3 days.  Had to dip into the savings.  He was eventually transferred to St Teresas Ward.  When the 3 days were up I told him that I had to leave to go back up to Letterkenny.  He started to get emotional because it meant that he was going to be alone.  I told him that I will dip into savings again to spend another 3 days in the same B&B (Abbey Lodge) so he was relieved about that.

Update on Craig

Craig's in Galway hospital

I tell ya, this has been the longest time that I have been without Craig because he has been in hospital, 13 full weeks this year he has been in there so far.  And now he is in Galway for who knows how long he will be in there for.  I'm getting tired and depressed all the time he is away.  A friend of mine tell me that I should had gone down with him.  Its not that easy when you have to rent a room at the hotel for who knows how long he will be in hospital for, so I have to wait at the house.  If I had the money I would be down there, just can't afford it.  Perhaps whenever he is finished there they could take him home.

He knows that I don't like being alone.  I've been so used to being around him 24/7 for taking care of him that I got used to that and now he's not around I have to live on my own for a while until whenever he gets home.  To be honest, I miss seeing him around.  I'm so tired of seeing him going into the hospital and wish they would just help him and stop pumping him with antibiotics because they will wear off.  I am not sure what will happen after the antibiotics stops working to the person.  All I want is to have his life back and we could do things we used to do.

Another trip to the hospital

Its been a bumpy road so far this year for the both of us.  Craig is landed in the hospital as of a weekend and a half ago.  So I have been going back and forth visiting him every day.  He was having breathing problems again.  After all the tests which coming out clear they did all they could do.  But I did find out that he has slight pneumonia on his upper right lung.

Tomorrow morning he is being transferred to Galway Hospital where there is a better system there and better bigger machines which they don't have here in Letterkenny.

I am concerned on seeing him go down there on his own by ambulance without my presense.  I wish I could go but we just could not afford a hotel room for the duration and we don't know how long he is staying down in Galway.  So I guess I have to wait and see.  All I want is him to be alright and be home. 

craig back in hospital (video)

Back in Hospital

Friday I was so happy to see Craig come home from the hospital after being in there for 4 weeks.  When we walked down the corrider in the hospital he had to stop half way to catch his breath.  I knew something was happening.  Perhaps he wasn't ready to be released yet.  We continued to go home.

It was really nice to see him home.  He was happy too.  It was a stressful month that's for sure.  We ended up ordering chinese food since that was what he wanted.

Later on that night he wasn't feeling well.  He started having that weasing sound again.  We both were worried about that was going to happen.  By midnight the ambulance was called and we went to ER to see what was wrong with him.  Turning out he has pneumonia and we both laughed when we found out we were going back to the ward where he left from.  Quite a few nurses weren't nice to him.  It annoys me that they are claiming he got the pneumonia from the time he was discharged to the time he was readmitted to ER.  I think they are trying to hide their asses.

I stayed with Craig from ER until the time he got his bed (12.30am-6.30am).  I was very tired and my eyes were burning.  So we are back to square one him back in Medical 5 in the bed when he left from.  This is very frustrating to him and me.

I stayed until he got all sorted out.  I know he wishes to be home.  He kept apologizing for being in the hospital and would understand if I left him for another person.  That got me upset.  Why would I do that?  We are married.

Waiting is driving me crazy

Craig is still in hospital going on two weeks tomorrow and its frustrating because I can't do anything.  I feel hopeless and I can't make things better on him.  All i could do is take trips back and forth on visiting hours to see him and its burning out my wallet with cab rides.  He knows this too. It wasn't too bad going down there because I walked and it was a nice day out and everything was down hill to Letterkenny Hospital. 

They found out he has a swelling in the back of his eye or something which causing him to have burry vision.  Also they found lung infection.  So he will be in the hospital until the end of the week.  So now they could do something to work on getting him better.   Hopefully he will be out by the end of next week.

He had gone down to Galway on Tuesday and he had panic attack down there because they couldn't find his name in the computer and was strapped down and he was getting hot and sweaty and couldn't breathe and went into panic mode while the ambulance crew went on their lunch break.  But glad he is home safely as I was worried about him being down there.

Can't wait until he gets back home again.

Back in the hospital again he goes

Well Craig has been in hospital all week since Monday due to complications with his breathing in the middle of the night.  We were suppose to go to Galway that day and sleep over at a B&B so he could go to his appointment the next morning.

The hospital had cancelled the appointment and reschedule it for next Tuesday.  I have a feeling that he will still be there and it will be their responsibility to take him down there and back again.  I guess I'm sort of concerned about what will happen there and hoping he doesn't get stranded down there, but like I said, I mean at the end of the day he's their patient and its their responsibility to get him down there and back again.

Since all the tests are coming out clear, they checked his heart rate and there was an extra beat, and they are wondering why that is and also why his legs are swollen like they are. 

Going back and forth to the hospital frustrates me because it means taking cabs back and forth when we could use that money for something else.  So I am trying not to cab it on the way down to the hospital because its down hill.  Try and save money that way. 

Trip to hospital

Yesterday we suppose to go to Dartmouth Hospital in Lebanon New Hampshire to see our doctor but we woke up late, so we had to rescheduled it for another time. 

Craig was complaining about his back bothering him and the pain was getting worse.  We went to Gifford hospital in Randolph into the Emergency Room.  They took xrays and there weren't any broken bones, which was a good sign.  Not really sure why he is still feeling pain in his back along his tailbone and hip.

I really hate hospitals as they make me sad and seeing Craig being laid up I bed was depressing me and it was giving me flashbacks when I nearly lost him a couple of times when he went into kidney failure twice a couple of years ago.  I was brave enough not to cry which I normally do because I am very sensitive that way. 

We waited for 3 hours for the doctor to say that there wasn't anything on the xrays that showed up.  He then said that he would be right back and give him a second to do something.  A half an hour passed and we just had it.  We were so pissed off because he left us with no choice but to leave the ER because he never came back.  But he caught us on time and gave Craig a prescription of Tramadol to help him with his pain, which is a good thing.

Head Split

Well, I was awaken with a big thump and a yell "OW" at 3:15am in the morning.  I sprang up because I knew Craig hurt himself.  He was laying on the floor beside the bed.  I was helping him up when I saw a pile of blood on the carpet.  I knew right there he split open his head.

I immediately put some peroxide on his head and then have him sit on the sofa to apply pressure on his head.  I then called 911 and the ambulance came within 20 minutes.

I had followed the ambulance behind them to the hospital and waited int he waiting room until my name is to be called.

He ended up having 11 staples in the back of his head and luckily there wasn't any broken bones in the xray.  I was hoping they would check out his skull in case it was injured but they didn't think it was necessary.

Coming home from the hospital

Present Day: 2/24/2013

It has been very frustrating going to the hospital and back home and riding taxis left me with barely any money left.  Well Craig is finally home from the hospital as of yesterday.  The past few days they kept postponing him going home because his potassium was low.  Then once his potassium went up, it was then his magnesium that was causing trouble and was low so they had to keep their eye on that.  Quite a few people were saying that he needs to start eating bananas because they are very high in potassium.  He actually has been eating bananas.  I have been making him some nutribullet drinks with bananas and mixed fruits.  I am sure that would help too. 

His body has been swollen filled up with water so he has been taking water pills.  Hopefully all the swelling will go down and everything will go back to normal.  Now that he’s out of the hospital, maybe they will listen that he does need a caregiver and I’m the person for it.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.  He’s going to talk to his doctor and counselor about it. 

Appendicitis

A few days after my fall down the stairs and breaking my fibular bone, I wasn’t feeling well and started to get cramps in my stomach.  I wasn’t sure what it was and thought it was just something that I ate but Craig was feeling fine.  The second day I was still having cramps.  Craig suggested that we should go to Urgent Care.  So we did.  I really didn’t want to go because it probably was something serious but then again it couldn’t be but might as well be safe than sorry.

It was really difficult to get around in my cast.  We were at the Urgent Care and they asked me to drink some lemonade because they need to do xrays and check my cellulites.  I was kind of cold there in the Urgent Care.  After examining me, they discovered I had a ruptured appendix and I needed to be sent to the hospital immediately.  

All my life growing up I wondered about appendix and if I would ever have it, and if so, when I will have it. 

Craig sat up front of the ambulance.  They were having trouble putting the IV in me.  I was really scared that day because after the surgery my belly was really hard and it was blowing up like a balloon.  They had to put a tube down my nose and it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.  I threw up black liquid.  I also was experiencing sharp pains in my right side that became a continuous pain on and off.  I was given hard pain killers and it was really difficult moving around with the pain in my right side being there and on top of that my cast as well.  I had a couple of accidents in bed.  One of the CNAs was pretty ignorant because times I had to go to the bathroom he didn’t want to wipe my back side.  There was a male nurse that I really liked.  He was the sweetest nurse.  He came in and he made sure that if I needed something to let him know and he really meant it too.  I had one of those drainage too below my belly where the poison goes into because there was still poison in there and it needs to be drained.

I ended up staying in hospital for 8 days.  It was really long too.  I felt bad because Craig kept coming back and forth to the hospital.  When we left the hospital to go home, I had trouble getting up the first flight of stairs because there wasn’t hand rails and it was difficult for me to get up them with crutches and cast.  The driver was really nice to keep my back steady as I hoped on the steps.

A few days later I got a call from the hospital.  It was like a survey on their service.  I let them know about the CNA guy who didn’t really want to help me wipe myself because I couldn’t reach back.  I made sure that the really nice nurse was very helpful and enjoyed his service very much.  I wish there was more nurses like him.  I made sure that for them to tell him that too and thank him for his services.

The Fall

I went out to smoke a cigarette since I didn’t like smoking inside the house.  I was walking down the stairs and missed out the last two steps and fell over my foot while lighting up the cigarette (very bad thing to do).  I seemed to be more concerned on taking that puff so I just sat at the bottom step and smoked that cigarette.  After the cigarette I got up and I was having a very hard time going up the stairs so I hopped one step at a time.  I told him what happened. 

A week later walking on the sore foot, it was still very hard to walk on.  Craig suggested that I should go to ER to see what is wrong with it, so that’s what we did.  It was kind of funny because at that time Craig was still had his neck brace on from his surgery and we were walking into the ER.  The reception was cracking up seeing two guys injured one with a neck brace and the other with the sore foot.  I thought it was funny too because one of the employees there asked what did we do to ourselves to get like that.  It turns out that my left foot had a broken fibular and needed to be casted. 

Craig's neck surgery

Sometime around the the beginning of 2009 Craig had to go to hospital because he had to get a lump removed by the spine on his neck.  He was in there for a couple of days.  They had given him one of those plastic neck braces.  I went to the hospital and we took the taxi back avoiding the public transportation.  Craig was feeling droopy and dopey.  By the time we came home, he wanted to take the neck brace off.  I told him that he cannot take the brace off.  He continued to take it off and I was getting very worried about that because his neck was stitched and he needed the neck brace to stabilize.  He started to get sad and upset.  He began to apologize to me and I said it was okay and no need to apologize.  I explained to him that I needed him to stop touching the neck brace. 

I laugh whenever I look at this picture.  Craig has a wig on him which I had made from yarn.  The wig was actually too small so I placed it on his head to make him look as he has hair.  haha

Here is picture of Craig sleeping with his neckbrace on, and the girls are sleeping on his legs.