Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Why Do Forests Have to Have So Many Trees?

Being somewhere you've never been before, you're not sure how it's supposed to look, so it's hard to settle into a routine until you sense it's there. That's kind of what all this medical stuff with Steve is like for me (and for him, too, I'm sure).

Steve had a follow-up visit for his small toe on Monday, May 13, then stopped by the lab to get his blood drawn. We got back home about 2:30 in the afternoon and got a call from his primary care physician: Get back to the ER, your platelet count is almost nonexistent. So we schlep back to the ER in Long Beach and Steve gets admitted for transfusions. Three transfusions of whole blood and one of platelets later (on Wednesday morning), they discharge him.

The next day we have appointments with Dr. House (the psychologist) and Dr. Klein (the oncologist). We stop at the lab again, and Dr. Klein says the platelets are low again and has Steve go into the infusion clinic for a transfusion of platelets on Friday. Since I already have a dentist's appointment on Friday, Bob (a friend of ours), takes Steve to the hospital. He's home by the time I get back from the dentist, and even though I/we are supposed to be asking people for help, I still feel guilty about not taking Steve myself.

He will get to return the favor next week: On Wednesday I'm going in for oral surgery to remove a couple of residual roots prior to getting fitted for my partial. They'll use full anesthesia, so I need someone to drive me home. I'm hoping it will feel good for Steve to be the caregiver and me be the patient.

Things are kind of whirling quietly on the business front. I have started the website for Ray and Tony and their antiques/art gallery. We're starting out simple, but I'm designing it with a mind to putting all of their inventory online (which will be quite a chore, believe me; they have loads of great stuff). I think the job is going to carry on long after the site is up. I think we will have to have some lessons in good photography and photographing flat images (like paintings) for best reproduction. Ray wants to set up a photo booth capable of shooting everything from jewelry to large-scale furniture and sculpture. Should be a challenging and enjoyable client.

Yesterday we went to an orientation meeting for the Cancer Support Community here in Pasadena (formerly known as the Wellness Community). We both signed up for support groups, the first of which is tomorrow evening. We arrived about 11 a.m. and got out of the intake interview around 1:15. We stopped for lunch on the way back home and, soon after arriving, the doorbell rang and UPS dropped off a box.

You'll recall Steve signed up with the Neptune Society earlier this month. Well, the box we received had his urn in it, as well as other "momento" articles. It was super creepy. Neither of us opened it, and it went into the upstairs closet, to be dealt with at some point down the road. I know it was a blow for Steve, right after the visit to the support center. Even in our everyday life, death is slowly enfolding an ever-smaller space around us, and while the world remains mundane, an ultimate and irrefutable change is on the horizon: maybe months, maybe years, but inevitably there.

This, too, will become a familiar part of this new way of living.

Friday, May 10, 2013

The New Normal

Things are insane in the new normal; they are bipolar at times, delusional at others, and downright psychotic just a smidgen here and there. It certainly is busier than the old normal.

I'm looking over the calendar for the last week here, and I've got an appointment for me with the oral surgeon, a meeting with the dog rescue group, a meeting with a cleaning service, a meeting with the Neptune Society, a board meeting for the dog group, half-day house cleaning, and appointments with primary care, pulmonary clinic and the nutrition clinic. What's not on the calendar is the bizarre response from the doggie group and more tracking down insurance company mistakes.

Ted, the guy I've been working with, is a board member in this rescue group that specializes in golden retrievers. We've both been on the same page as far as the redesign for the group: they are doing their first major upscale fundraiser and a facelift in their graphic design—group logo as well as fundraiser logo—to raise their graphics and branding to a professional level of sophistication. (They are currently printing out their own business cards on their inkjet printers).

So I spend several hours working on a logo concept that seemed really flexible and workable to me. I went out to Somis to the board meeting on Sunday with Ted and gave my presentation. Dead. The meeting went on for another three and a half hours, and we stopped at the fancy restaurant which was partnering with the group on the fundraiser and providing all the food.

To make a long story short, e-mails between myself and the president of the group went back and forth, and by10 a.m. the next morning, she was giving me the big brush-off: We don't need your services. Of course, by then I was in total concurrence in not wanting to work with her in particular, as she had been quite venomous in her objections to the concept of any redesign (even though their current logo has no viable image file from which to work: There's the jpg for the web that is also used to print out the business cards. Haven't talked to Ted about all this yet, but I think he's just as floored as I am.

Anyway, enough wasting energy on the negative. I'm now working with Ray and Anthony at Cable International, launching a website for them in the next few weeks. I also have a site redesign for Joy on deck and a couple of other folks in the organizing phase right now, so I'm hoping to see stuff happening down the line.

Wednesday, I got a call from the oral surgeon saying they can't schedule my surgery because Delta Dental has my birthdate year as 1954 and the surgeon has it as 1953, which is correct. This surfaced back in October with my current dentist when she tried to submit a claim. It took several days to get things right, but obviously the old date is still floating around in their system. I called them and, after going back and forth a coupla times, got everything right as rain. I really want to get this dental work over and the partial in my head so I don't look like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel from The Simpsons.

As for Steve, his biggest challenge right now is being a healthy sick person, which is not an easy construct to fabricate. On his last chest draining (which was today), we actually tapped him out and under 800 milliliters, so that's slowly clearing up. His toe is improving, dead skin peeling off, healthy tissue growing back. The "little stuff" is beginning to resolve itself.

The second round of chemotherapy last week was a little stronger than the first, and Steve was wiped out for a couple days afterward. And the side effects are fairly minimal at this point. We'll be seeing the oncologist next Thursday to get an update on how treatment so far, then the third infusion is scheduled the week after that.

So I'm finding it realistic to plan just about seven days in advance and no further. One nice thing I'm finding out about the new normal, dizzy and disruptive as it is: there seems to be time for everything that needs getting done. That's a special kind of blessing.


Thursday, May 2, 2013

Spring Thaw Piggie

Well, Steve has most of his littlest left toe with him still.

After he was admitted that evening, I came home, got really drunk (which for me is two and a half drinks) and fell a apart. Special and specific people were phoned, and I wrote the previous blog (which I've updated so it makes just a bit more sense) in the in-between times.

Steve was on the 8th Floor this time around, which is not as insane nor crowded and disorienting as on the 10th Floor: the people seem less beholden to the medical data grid but still adhere to the machine built into it all.

The upshot is, they cut out the tiny icky part of the wee-wee toe, loaded him up on antibiotics and I picked him up two days later. The toe's healing nicely and I'm starting to ride him again about building stamina.

To his credit, he's jumped into it when he could have passed, like doing the shopping with me today, which really pushed him, but he recovered quickly. I tossed out the idea of going to Disneyland for a day, shooting for that as a comfortable stamina goal. He didn't seem to balk at the idea, so Cinderella's Castle may be in our near future; more likely: Cars Land.

On the studio front, I sealed the deal with one of the two clients I interviewed with last week (the antiques and artwork collector), and I'm meeting with the second one (a Golden Retriever rescue organization) again this Friday (right after my dental consult in the morning).

And suddenly all of this regurgitation of information seems terribly vulgar, like describing bowel movements to the uncomfortable observer.

But that's kind of the threshold of senior citizenship in our society; that point where health becomes more of a declining concern and less of a gift. You're thinking about diapers and walkers to get through the day once again. But now you're not a baby; you have your own thoughts and prejudices and apprehensions to deal with as well as everyone else's.

The first time you admit at the grocery store that, yes, you do need help out to your car with your groceries, it happens: a bumper sticker on your forehead, adhered for life, which simply says "elderly," and labels you until death.

I saw a woman, probably in her 90s, using two canes to drag herself from the car to the grocery cart at the front of the store. It might have taken her forever, but she's going to the store to get the things she needs to stay alive. If she can't get the help, she'll get there on her own. Or maybe she just doesn't need the help.

I haven't had any kind of  nicotine for about 24 days, by my reckoning. I've had urges to smoke, but I just can't give up being nicotine free. I've decided that's part of the rest of my life.