Thread Drift

[SadieKate]

Yeah, I know I haven't been around. TD can be fun but overwhelming. I can't keep up with all the story lines when my family stories keep shifting also. Not that I don't care about yawl, but I'm sure salsa and others can relate. Sometimes you have to focus on the immediate issues and hope you don't miss anything critical otherwise.

Dad is back in the hospital we think due to some side effects of the chemo. He was doing great once they got his calcium levels down. They put him back in the hospital for the first round of chemo and then he came home before his immune system started to go down but was doing so well.

At home, he became suicidal but Ativan seems to have solved that. We don't know at this point whether it is a side effect of the drugs or sleep deprivation. They took out his Foley when he was still on huge amounts of fluids. He can't get out of bed unsupervised at the moment. You can imagine what the lack of sleep was doing to him and my mother with now provisions for incontinence. So, they got that somewhat under control as he's re-Foleyed (new word there )

However, over the weekend his ankles started swelling, his temp went up and he became a bit confused again so he was readmitted yesterday. His regular onco is back in town today and will see him. So, current crisis averted but he is still in there and we have a bunch of unknowns.

My brother is driving me nuts. He lives in the same town as they (about 60 miles from me). He is going to have to deal with crisis needs for transportation or physical help. I make plans and rearrange my work appts, etc., etc., to be there for the non-crisis help times. But my brother will show up even when my parents have told him not to. He's taken over control. So, I'm just staying out of it for now and when he next calls me because I haven't been there "enough" in his view, he better be wearing armor. Though I probably shouldn't waste my energy. My brother (a 49 yr old confirmed bachelor and workaholic) knows what everyone else should do, how they should behave and how his mother and sister are so dense that we need everything explained to us in 10 paragraphs even though others can answer our questions in 10 words or less (and don't dare try to stop his soliloquy).

Whew, thanks for letting me vent. I did try to keep it below 10 paragraphs myself.