HalfAsstic.com

Hello everybody. I am, (yes, once again), apologizing for my absence. I am needing a note from my mother at this point and even she is miffed that I still haven’t gotten around to posting all the fabulous pictures of Christmas at her house.

Hey, it’s just a little over a week until February and I don’t like to rush things.

Every time I think about sitting down and posting I start off with something funny in my mind and it turns all maudlin in my head before I can get it out. And I don’t think it’s because the Lexapro isn’t doing the job it once was.

Let’s do a rundown, shall we?

Henrietta is still convinced that Gilbert, (the older daughter’s longtime boyfriend), is the devil and frequently can be overheard muttering things about diablo and then using his name under her breath. Yesterday she told John that I was trying to give her drugs that Gilbert supplied me with that were illegal. (Mucinex DM)  She also started crying a few days ago and telling John that she just KNOWS that Gilbert is bringing drugs over here and “shooting” them into him, (John). He had been to the doctor and they had taken blood and so he had a cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow. I guess I should be proud that she thinks that we only deal with the kind of pushers that use an alcohol pad and then a sterile cotton ball and band-aid after the shooting up. We be classy like that.

She is also convinced that I am a horrible person because I won’t let her go to the hospital. She has been sick with the same virus that has worked it’s way through the rest of the family and lingered in the chests and throats and sinus cavities of each of us for two to three weeks each.  She is convinced she is dying because she has a hacky little cough that bothers her a few times an hour.

I coughed like I had TB for three weeks and and had a rattle in my chest like a maraca.  On a couple of the days when it was at it’s worst I stayed in bed because there were other people here that could take care of her. I heard that woman say to John, “What’s the matter with her now?” John was obviously aggravated with her when he told her I was sick, (as if she didn’t know), and she didn’t say anything else about it. But now, she is telling me that she wants to go to the hospital because she is coughing. When I tell her it’s just a virus she says, “How do you know?”, and telling her that everyone else has had the same thing and the same symptoms does not help.  “Oh, Krissa… you don’t know!”  She asked me to call a friend of mine that’s a nurse that lives about 20 minutes away and have her come and listen to her chest and tell her what she’s got. (As if that would settle it.) I told her no, there was no way. She said, “Well, she could take my temperature!”. I told her over and over she has no fever. She started telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I RAISED TWO CHILDREN. LIKE, I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO TELL IF SOMEONE HAS FEVER!

I got the damn thermometer and took her temp. Normal. So she let that drop.  But she started crying because she wanted to go to the hospital. No amount of assurance that the hospital wouldn’t take her would do. She won’t believe it. I explained that the insurance wouldn’t cover her admittance to the hospital for a cough. She just looked away and shook her head like a small child being defiant.

But, she gave up on the waterworks.

In other news…

John is not doing well at all and I am desperately hoping we can find a new way to attack his heart problems with a new pulmonary doctor and when we see him I am going to ask him if he can recommend a new cardiologist.  He has been sick and barely able to function at least 50% of the time since he got out of the hospital. They are not doing anything different. Same drugs, same course of action. (None.)  He hasn’t been to see the pulmonologist since he got out of the hospital because we found out the hard way that he doesn’t accept our insurance. But he is having such a hard time breathing now that we both think we have to do something new. So he will be going to see him on February 2nd.

Meanwhile his present cardiologist is saying that he should maybe consider “another line of work”, that maybe he just can’t do this anymore. As if there are  all these jobs out there waiting for him to just pick one. I think John is wondering if he can do it too.  I am frightened of the future and all the terribly unsure aspects of our lives.

Meanwhile…

Kessa made a small batch of hash browns the other day for her breakfast along with an egg, ham and cheese sandwich between two slices of perfectly toasted bread. She then walked over and set the plate down on a small occasional table between two chairs in our living room and, (for some totally unknown reason), went down the hall to my bedroom to talk to me for a few minutes. Leaving the sandwich innocently sitting there. On the plate. On the table. Between the two chairs.

Moments later she and I emerged from the bedroom and she exclaimed, “Baby!”  I wondered why since Baby was no where to be seen.

Neither was her sandwich.

Baby was rather shy for another couple of hours, the guilty little shit.

Today John had an appointment with his general practitioner.  He went totally prepared with a list of things to talk to him about.

• Cough- STILL.  All the freakin’ time.

• Sinus drainage that just. won’t. stop.

• Bottoms of feet burning-(Apparently this is a diabetes thing that we are just becoming acquainted with.)

• Swings in blood sugar levels

• Still off of Lisinopril and blood pressure remains low. (Yea!)

• Xanax is doing absolutely nothing and want off of it.

• Depression.

So he whipps out the list and covers everything in short order.  We really like his doctor and he is always comforting to visit.  We walk away feeling like there is someone on this earth that is caught up to speed with all the shit going down besides us.  There were answers for some of the problems and suggestions and samples to get started on for others.

So John came home and was telling me all about the appointment and what all the doctor said and we were looking at his list and glad that it was all crossed off.  We had answers for everything we needed so far.

Then my man that I have seen cry less than a handful of times in the past 20+ years, teared up a little and I was truly a bit terrified.  He told me the rest of the story like this:

He made his way to the front window to settle up before his visit and was presented with a bill for this particular doctor from all the visits while he was in hospital for those two weeks.  It was what was left after the insurance has paid it’s portion.

It was a lot.

It was also unexpected right at that moment.

They asked if John could make a payment plan.

He said yes, he’d be happy to do that.

How much?

……..$20.00 a month?

Is that the most you can do right now?

He said, yes, because right now he’s employed and he doesn’t know if he’s going to be released to go back to work before the “paid leave of absence” is up. – He may not be employed after that.

There was a older lady standing behind John waiting to pay and overhearing this whole conversation and she quietly slid an arm past him and laid a twenty dollar bill on the counter, saying, “This is for his December payment.”.

I think John was mortified at first.  He insisted he was fine to pay it and tried to give it back to her.  She took it and handed it directly back to the receptionist and told her to apply it to his bill.  He was so very touched.  I am wondering how long he stood there and thanked her. She said to consider it a Christmas present.

I wish so much he had gotten your name.  I would have done everything I could to look you up and you would have a thank you card out to  you first thing tomorrow.

Whoever you are, where ever you are, thank you, merry Christmas and God bless you.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

We are home from the hospital and I am just kind of wallowing around in guilt.  We have been here since the 15th.

That’s right.  Almost a week as I type this.  I am a horrible person for not updating everyone sooner.  But, I am also a tired, and never gonna get caught up with anything person.  You know…. that kind.

John is just tired.  All the time.  I have tried to get him to mow the yard help him sleep in anyway I can, but his sleep is restless at best.  The cardio guy has him on blood pressure meds that keep it really, really low so this is a lot of the problem.  I think the rest of it is that not eating salt and carbs has sapped his will to live.  I know it would mine.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

SEE?  I fully intended to finish that and throw it out to the blogosphere last night!  I suck!

We did go to the cardiologist yesterday and got his Lasix increased by half again and his blood pressure meds decreased by half.  So, all in all, he feels much better today.

Does anyone out there have any idea how hard it is to cook diabetic recipes with NO SALT.  Both?  At the same time?  I mean it’s doable… just yucky tasting.  I made stew tonight.  With low sodium tomato sauce, V-8 Juice and stewed tomatoes.  And, of course, stew meat, potatoes, carrots, cabbage, onion and garlic.  It tastes good, just needs to cook on  low for a while longer to get the meat tender.   I sprinkled some of that “Nu Salt” on it and went very lightly with it since it tastes like gym socks… Not that I would know, but… well.

OK, whatev!   John is feeling rather hardier today and this is VERY gratifying.  He is going to get his flu shot tomorrow.  I know what you’re thinking. (Yes I do!)  You’re wondering why on earth a heart patient would ever leave the hospital without his flu shot this time of year. (YES, YOU ARE! SHEESH!)  Because he’s the biggest tightwad heart patient ever!  When they offered him a flu shot, (multiple times), in the hospital, he pictured the free one he could get from his employers.  He works for a major supermarket chain and they have pharmacies in each one.  Employees are all given a free flu shot.  So he declined the ones offered in the hospital.  And got some eye rolls from me, that probably went totally un-noticed.

There are 6, (SIX), flu shots left at one of the near by stores and they are saving one for him.

There are no N1H1 shots in Texas.  What about you guys?  I am really curious about this so please let me know if your state/country has them and if you have gotten or are going to.

Henrietta has no idea about what all has gone on.  Well, of course she knows he was in the hospital, but I told her he had a bad case of pneumonia.  She has cried for every new person that has come to the house.  I think the last ones were my parents.  They went home a few days ago.

With each person she goes into a sniffling thing and says repeatedly. “He’s my oooooonly sooooooon!” My mom told John that she feels sure if he had a passel of brothers his mom probably wouldn’t care so much.  Of course she was teasing him!

Please come visit me… she needs “new meat” to cry on…

So there!  I am NOT going to go on and on and on!  And tomorrow morning I am going to start reading posts, SO HELP ME GAWD!

I love you guys so much and appreciate the lovin and well wishes more than I can say!  I can assure you of one thing!  I never felt alone!

I swear, I can’t remember the last time I was this frustrated, (that doesn’t have to do with parenting).  We took our happy little asses home and the first night was great.  We both slept like the dead.

However, the next day John began having some sharp pains in his left side.  He said it felt a lot like the catch you get in your side from running, only worse.  These pains began keeping him up at night and he had shortness of breath with them  as well.

So I called the damn doctor and told the damn doctor what was going on and she said to go to the damn ER.  We did and got in pretty quick when the ER nurse took his history, considered his latest symptoms and did a test on his pancreas.

Pancreatitis.

Damn.

So here we sit.  Again.  It’s like a nightmare we can’t wake up from.

The thinking is that the pancreas is the handy little gizmo that makes insulin and we know his isn’t anymore.  So there’s something up with that, but what?

Well, “they” did a cat scan after he got to drink 10 delicious ounces  of barium and found, nothing.  Well, nothing outside the norm except an inflamed pancreas.  They don’t know why or what’s causing it.  Maybe it’s jealous because it can’t spit out insulin anymore and we now have other sources.   I dunno.

*deep sigh*

I am so emotionally drained and just plain tired I can’t think straight.  I have a bunch of pictures to put on here, (Some of them even funny!), only I forgot the deal to put the camera card in at home.

There is some good news.  Mither and Pop are here!  they showed up last night to help with, well, everything.  And that sure is nice to know!  Hopefully they can get the house, Henrietta and the girls whipped into shape before we get home.

Geeze! If they can do that, coming to the hospital may be worth it!

I am exhausted, people.  I swear I will begin reading you all again soon… soonish. Oh, hell, I really have no idea when this will all end, but I’ll be back sometime, I promise.

I am not proofing this so please forgive me for any bizarre errors.  I’m just gonna hit publish and go with it.

Well, the good news is very, very good news.  They re-ran the blood test for cancer and it was negative.  So the “diagnosis” part of the report was incorrect and quite possibly meant for someone else.  Poor bastard, I wonder if they ever bothered to tell him/her?  Anyway, very, very, VERY happy about that one!  Woo-hoo and all that happy crap.

Not to mention, the angiogram showed no evidence of blockages or narrowings.  Just a weakened, enlarged heart that was pumping ineffectively at about 15 to 20 percent now, and that is supposed to be a much more accurate number than the amount we were previously quoted, which was 30%.

So, on we go to the present situation where the two cardiologists get together and agree that there is a blood clot in his heart that was seen during the heart catherization.  Otherwise known as the angiogram.  They told us we will need to be here for another two to three days.  Meanwhile I am still waiting on the endocrinologist I asked for yesterday and I was told he should be here sometime today. It is ten till five and I am betting a bundle that ain’t gonna happen.  But it’s not like we’ve got anywhere else to be so, whatever.

So we thought we’d be going home on Monday and found out it would be Tuesday before they could do the angiogram.  Then, we needed to wait until we could see the guy to “fit” John with a monitor, so it would be Wednesday.  Now, he has this bloodclot that they began treating with Coumadin last night and it will be, “two or three days”.

I think these people have a crush on us and don’t want us to leave.

I am blown away by the response from all of you.  Thank you so much for all your love, support and suggestions.  I am so blessed to have all my blogging buddies for friends.  I have even heard from some new people due to some of you sending people that might know something about our problems over here to weigh in.  I’m talking to you, Nan!  Thank you so much!  I’m going to start answering emails tonight so I WILL get to you soon!  Thanks you guys!

Maybe the title of my last post jinxed us.  Because, honestly, the thought of me just not knowing when to shut up is about the best explanation I have for why this is happening.

Let’s do a quick recap, shall we?

• October 1, Thursday

John was admitted to Clear Lake Regional Heart and Vascular Hospital by his new GP after he had done an xray that showed a very clear case of plural effusion that even I could see was bad news on the film.  His doctor remarked how hard to believe it was that John, standing there looking for all the world like his only problem was a nagging cough was the same guy on the xray.  He said he would have thought he’d be in bed saying he couldn’t get out.

Bad.

He then admitted him to the hospital and his blood sugar, upon admittance, was in the 500 range.  I can’t remember exactly and it was before I was keeping my own record.  (Yes, that’s right, I refuse to go the the nurses station and find out, so get over it.)  His blood pressure was 134/98 and his heartbeat was 121.  Quite fast.

• October 2, Friday

I only recorded the vitals 5 times this day and the lowest his blood pressure got was 95/64 and the highest was 120/96.  They were pumping him full of blood pressure meds and lasix to get the swelling down.  His legs, ankles, and belly were very swollen.

Highest blood sugar was 325 and he got 15 units of insulin for that one particular reading.

FYI, blood sugar levels should never be over 160.

He had several bouts with diarrhea, probably due to stress and nerves.

Cardiologist said that his heart was working at about 30%.  He didn’t bother telling us until later that the norm is between 45 and 55% or somewhere around there.  Doctors are such dumb-asses sometimes.

I stayed up a long time that night watching him sleep.  He has, what I found out on the internet is, central sleep apnea.  I made a video of him sleeping with my camera and considered posting it on youtube.  Figured he’d shoot that down and haven’t brought it up to him yet.

• October 3, Saturday

Here it is Saturday and he, apparently, has no intention of taking me out to eat anywhere.  Where did we go wrong as a couple?

His blood pressure stayed low all day and his heart rate right around 100.  Blood sugar was right around 250 all day as well.

He had three bouts of extreme shortness of breath in the early AM.

Went for a cat scan around 3:00pm and the results weren’t that good.  Still signs of fluid in and around his lungs BUT, a rhythm in his soul.

Then his cardio guy told us that he had had a heart attack and the reason this was evident was the presence of an enzyme in his blood called troponin.  If I had a son I think I’d like to name him Troponin.

What was I saying?  OH, Yeah!  My husband had a heart attack.  Slipped my mind for a moment.  (read sarcasm here)

• October 4, Sunday

His blood pressure was, of course, low all day.  His heart rate averaged about 100, and his blood sugar topped out at 396.  He received 15 units of insulin more than once that day.

He received a shiny new IV port for the procedure that everyone seemed to think was going to happen tomorrow, except the doctor who saw the chest films and heard all the coughing he was doing.

See he can’t have the procedure until he can lie flat in bed for at least 6 hours without moving.  This is to allow the entry wound in the groin heal so that if he moves and blows the clot, he won’t bleed out and die in minutes.  It’s a good thing, as Martha would say.

HOWEVER, he is still coughing due to the fluid in and around his lungs.  He has had enough lasix to dry up The Great Lakes.  I am beginning to wonder what it will take.

• October 5, Monday

Oh. My. Gawd.  This has been a day I will never forget.  John wasn’t well enough to do the angigram, still.  It is definitely planned for tomorrow.

You know, I have had this feeling in my gut that something wasn’t right since this whole thing started.  It seems like years ago, but it was just last Thursday.   It is now 5 days since he was admitted.  I just keep repeatedly thinking about him going to the doctor on February 27 because he was concerned about losing a lot of weight very rapidly and told the doctor he was worried that he might have diabetes.  Said doctor preformed some blood tests and asked him lots of questions.  Tried to get him to do the colonoscopy, and John turned that down.  But he seemed to be fairly thorough.  I was a little bit on pins and needles wondering what the results were going to be.  I very much expected him to be diabetic just because it would be a very nice reason for the weight loss compared to what all had been running through my mind.  Cancer.  Though I never said it.

The day came when the nurse from the doctor’s office called and told John his test results.  That’s right, the nurse.  Automatically, we know the results are negative for everything from liver disease to athletes foot.  Because the nurse doesn’t deliver bad news, the doctor gets you in his office to do that.  In person.

So she ended up telling him that everything was good to just get his cholesterol down some it was a tad high.

He specifically asked what the diabetes testing showed.  She said negative. This just does not gel.  John has had a test since he got here called an A1C that graded an 11.  “They” said it should be no more than a 7 and this is pretty bad.  But they assured me that he has had the diabetes for more than 3 months and they know this for sure because of the test.  So since he supposedly didn’t have it in February and he couldn’t possibly developed it after July, I am supposed to believe he just magically developed it the five months in between and it got so bad so fast that he was admitted to the hospital with his blood sugar in the 500’s?

Clearly something is off.

So fast forward to today and picture me sitting around in this hospital room with a very sick husband for the last 5 days and know that I am going to get to the bottom of this.  I called the doctor’s office this morning and asked them to make a copy of his file for me, and I would come by and pick it up later this afternoon.  The lady did and I got it, tore it open in the car and started pouring over it.  The first thing I noticed is his blood sugar was 272. IT WAS EVEN CIRCLED.   Then again on another page it says glucose 2+ along with protein 2+ and ketones 1+.  I don’t know what all of these are but the glucose amount was circled as well.

So at this point I am furious because they found out he had diabetes back in February and didn’t tell us.  If they had NONE of this would have happened in all likelihood.  Every doctor we have seen in this hospital has told us that the heart condition was brought about by the untreated diabetes.  So if this doctor, that shall remain unnamed for the time being, had told us about it we would have begun treating it immediately and gotten it under control way back then.

Now let me tell you why I became a bit hysterical earlier.  (Geeze, it’s 1:35am.  Ok, it was yesterday.)

At the bottom of one of the pages it says, “Diagnosis: 1. Malignant neoplasm without specification of site; other (199.1), Primary Diagnosis, Onset  2. Abnormal loss of weight (783.21), Secondary diagnosis, Onset”

Cancer.

He has a cancer that, well, I will just link to it because it is pretty clear and succinct. And you may have noted with all the extra gibberish that I am anything but succinct tonight.

So.  Here we are EIGHT MONTHS LATER.  I found a nurse when I got here and asked her to verify my findings and she agreed. (OR, did she concur?)  I asked if they had done a PSA test here and she said no, that was a test for cancer and they hadn’t done one.  It was about 7:30pm so I am going to wait until after the angigram tomorrow and then ask his cardio dr. to do one and show him why.  Then, if it’s really true and this isn’t just some really, really bad cosmic joke, I’ll find an oncologist.

Now, my question for you.  It is almost 2:00am and my nerves are shot.  I am so sorry this was so long and rambling.  You regular guys know that I usually try to keep the posts to a manageable size.  And definitely lighter in mood.  If, in fact, you are still with me, please tell me what you think you’d do.  I am not a violent person at all but, I really have a distinct desire to bodily attack that original Dr.   Do I get an attorney?  What to do?  Please ask other people that you think might know if you can come up with any.

I am Just. So. Angry.  and scared.

I am sitting here feeling overwhelmed.  And I have pushed everything out of my mind except just “do a post”.  John is sitting here, asleep on and off, in that chair they have in most all hospital rooms that reclines all the way out for someone to sleep on because he is sick of the bed.  I’m in the bed.  It hasn’t been that long since I posted and yet an eternity seems to have gone by.  Time has no meaning here, it seems.  It just wanders around and unpredictably slows down and races forward leaving me wondering why one thing is taking so long and how it’s possible to already have results from something else so fast.  What happened to yesterday when things were so much better?  Will tomorrow ever finally just GET HERE?

It seems the hits just keep on coming.  Here is a 52 year old man that has never in his life been in the hospital.  Has never missed a single day of work in all the 10 years he’s worked for the Kr**er Company.  At 6 feet some odd inches tall and all shoulders, he’s  always been a formidable enough man to scare the hell out of Kes and Keelan’s boyfriends when they were in high school.  Now, we’re told he’s had a mild heart attack and he won’t ever be able to get rid of the excess fluid in and around his lungs until his heart is back working correctly and can “pump it off”.  He has been on massive amounts of lasix since we got here and has finally gotten rid of most of the swelling in his limbs and belly from all the fluid.  However the fluid in and around his lungs is being produced faster than the lasix can keep up.  Because the heart can’t pump hard enough to get it gone.

Something like that.  You would be amazed to know the extent of the crash course I have taken in cardiac terminology.

So now on Monday they are going to do an angiogram.  Or sometimes it’s called a catheterization.  They will run a tube from his groin up through his body into his heart and put dye into it that way.  The x-ray will pick up the dye very well and indicate where it is able to go and not go.  Hence, they will be able to see what all is damaged, why, and, hopefully, how to fix it.  Hopefully with medicine.  If not that, with a stint or a balloon.  And, I guess worst case scenario would be open heart surgery.

I am scared and he is just plain depressed.  He has always been a fairly pessimistic person, I mean he’d have to be having been raised by Henrietta, right?  But, he is really down about all this.  He keeps saying things like, “Our lives are never going to be the same, now.”  And I tell him that even if this hadn’t happened our lives change everyday anyway.  But that’s not what he’s trying to say and I know it.  However, my attitude is you just have to buck up and handle it.  I have got a ton of literature on diabetes and he is quite despondent about the whole change in menu that is about to take place.  I am seeing a great opportunity for him to get healthier and feel better than he’s been feeling.  And I’ll lose weight, too!

Well, I have probably bored you all to tears with this emotional, rambling, drivel.  I will try to hit it again tomorrow if I can find the time and energy.  I am SO sorry that I haven’t been a good blog reader lately.  I am feeling like it’s all I can do to get phone calls made and emails answered.  This post is just to give everybody a heads up as to what’s going on and to tell you thank you so much for all you guy’s kind words and love and prayers.

You guys are tops and I love you all.

PS I promise to make a really good stab at getting back to reading YOUR posts soon!

Hi, gang!  I haven’t been around much in the past few days and we’ve been kind of in an incredibly busy holding pattern here at HH, (HalfAsstic Headquarters).

John is sick.  And before anyone out there has the usual, accepted and, yes, expected response of, “Well, yeah…. but he’s a MAN and therefore no matter how bad he thinks it is, it’s about a tenth that bad in reality.”, I need to point out that we passed the point of not taking this thing serious several days ago.

Looooooong ass story cut down to a dime novel size is this:

On the 12th he was starting to have this nagging cough that kept waking him up and bothering him anytime he laid down.  This went on for about two weeks and he finally went to the Dr. He told him he had a “viral infection” in his lower throat, (where John was telling him all the clogged up feeling was). How he determined it was viral and not bacterial or well, anything else is beyond me, but whatever.

The dumbass doctor prescribed Cipro, an antibiotic.  Apparently no one ever told him in med school that antibiotics don’t work on viruses.  Anyway, John took it faithfully since we really didn’t know what was the matter and he was getting no sleep at all at this point.  Literally.

Fast forward to today and we have gone round and round with the stupid doctor’s office about all the problems he’s been having and, mostly, the fact that he is feeling a tad crazy due to the fact that in the past two weeks he’s probably had 7 or 8 hours sleep, total.  And I am talking not more than 15 to 30 minutes at a time.  The doctors wouldn’t call us back for a couple of days since, apparently, lack of sleep is not on their emergency call back criteria list.  I was also telling them that he was having anxiety attacks because I didn’t know what else to call it.  He would all of the sudden start hyperventilating and couldn’t catch his breath.  For no reason.  At all.  Apparently me just calling it an anxiety attack threw them off and they thought I was trying to invent problems for him or something.

Finally this evening I called and left another message saying that his ankles and lower legs are swollen huge, he is having a hard time catching his breath and his heart is racing in addition to the chronic cough that he has had for ALMOST THREE WEEKS NOW and I don’t know what to make of it.  Apparently this red flagged some little pea brain there and I got a call from one of the doctors who said to take him to the ER or to the clinic.

I glanced at the clock and it was 4:30.  They close at 4:30.  So what does he have in mind?  Tomorrow morning at 9:30 they will “squeeze him in”.  If he has ANY changes for the worse during the night go immediately to the ER.

Of course he went back to work today and is doing the late shift.  He is supposed to be home early.  I am just so worried.

Look at the first thing that came up when Kessa entered in some of his symptoms, swollen ankles and legs, persistent cough, swollen belly, shortness of breath.

And I looked around a bit and located this that has all of his symptoms on it too…

I will just add an amendment to this post when we get back and settled in tomorrow and update you guys on what happened.  I am wigging out right now and am done with crying, cause, after all what my aunt Minnette said is true, it makes you nose snotty, eyes red and your head hurt, so the tears didn’t last too long.  I’m just so scared.

God, if you people can understand how tired I am you will go easy on me for having such a boring, long-winded, HalfAssed post that can only be made better by the assurance that I am about to go and get into a bath that I NEED.  BADLY.  I smell a bit… just Assed, no Half about it.

Yes, that’s what I am going to do for YOU right now.  No reason to feel shame for me in public any longer.  I promise I will be clean and fresh and even change the sheets when I get out.  I love you that much.

*Amended to add:

We are back from the Dr. and he was sitting up paying attention this time.  Indeed, I believe he begged for a treat before we left.  He listened to John’s chest, front and back, heart, etc. just as he had before, only this time he said he could hear that John wasn’t getting  a “good sounding breath”.  He was also concerned about the extra 7 lbs that John had put on in the past 5 days.  All fluid retention, and he’s not even on his period. (Weak attempt at humor)

Took an Xray and gave a couple of vials of blood.  Then, while we were waiting for him to come in I leaned over and looked at the film the radiologist had thrown up.  I was a bit floored.

I don’t know how much you can tell from John’s cell phone picture, (they looked much whiter in person), I forgot my camera at home.  All the cloudy white stuff, especially on the left side, (John’s right), is “mysterious”.  He said that there is fluid sitting in the bottom of the lungs and you could see it in person, but he’s not too sure what all the other white masses are.  He wanted a cat scan ASAP and sent us down the street to an imaging place to do that.  Poor John had to lie down to run through the tube thing and hold his breath, over and over again.  He was coughing so hard when we left I thought he was for sure just gonna cough one of those bad boys up and I could get a first hand look at whatever was in them.

The radiologist stuck his head out of the door when we were leaving and said he was going to be calling the doctor within two hours.  The doctor will be calling today.  If for no other reason than to prescribe steroids for the mess that we already know about.

I would like to say at this point that John does not and never has smoked.  His dad smoked until John was about 10 years old and then quit.  Other than that he has been in smoke free environments his whole life.

So Krissa, what does this mean?  I dunno.  You tell me.  I will get back as soon as I know something.