Sesame Street - Swertfeger Style!

One upon a time Brandon and Joy got their hands on a tape recorder...

http://www.swertfeger.com/just4fun/sesame_street.html

Getting Ready for Surgery

Today Esther and I went to get her lab work done prior to her surgery next week. She had an EKG and was very cooperative, nice and coherent. I stayed in the room with her while she had it. Then we went to the lab and I could only sit just outside the door while she went and got her blood drawn. The fellow that was drawing her blood was talking to her and then I heard him say, "Please don't do that." And later, "I wish you wouldn't do that. Just relax." I guess she got the idea she needed to squeeze her hand into a fist really hard as he was doing the draw. Then he is trying to chat her up, get her to talk about something else like, "What did you do for a living?" She took awhile to get around to the point that she was a teacher. She said she was an English teacher. Then she corrected his english. He was sweet to her about it. Then she said, "Could I have some of those bandaids? I don't have even one." (Not true, but she might have thought so.) He gave her 6, it was better than a sucker for being good (well, not so good). Next Thursday, October 15th is her surgery. It should go well.

Thieves Everywhere

Esther has been calling me regularly to report things missing from her place. "Someone has stolen my . . . . ". That started back when she was still in her duplex in Gladstone. What keeps disappearing is her alcohol--not the rubbing kind. I asked her what the chances were that she'd have the same problem in both places--that her alcohol would keep disappearing? She didn't have an answer for that. Right now it's her sunglasses, her wine (a whole gallon bottle), her purse, her wallet--today it was the cheese I brought over for her yesterday. Amazingly everything turns up--except for all the alcohol. I did notice that by the count of empty and full jugs of wine in her apartment I saw this week--the lost gallon was found, or at least the empty one was. The part that stymies is the fact that Jerry looked high and low through the apartment and did not find it over a week ago. Maybe outside in the bushes? To keep someone from seeing that she had it? Who knows. Tonight she was absolutely disgusted with herself because she couldn't find her wallet again. It is in her purse, I saw her put it in there right before she got out of the car tonight at 5 p.m. when I dropped her off. It's hard to not remember and to be confused and know that something is not right. Esther likes to come to a conclusion or a solution to the puzzle, such as being sure that her ex-landlord was coming into the duplex at night and drinking the vodka and eating her food. He lived on the other side of Portland, and never came over there, even when somehting needed fixing, but she is convinced of the solution she came up with. Now she knows that everything that was "stolen" this past week turned up right there in her apartment right where she had left it. Sobering and frustrating.

Tomorrow we call to schedule her appointment for surgery. Hopefully it will be soon so she can be healing well by her birthday in October.

Pelvis is Healing, But Now For the Cancer

Originally posted Aug. 23, 2009

Esther's fracture is healing and after more than a month since her fall, she is walking slowly with a cane. Now she has seen more doctors and had more tests than she was willing to have in her whole life. We have seen 4 doctors, had 2 different scopes, one Ultrasound, one CAT scan and one X-Ray. There is another Ultrasound next Friday. She seriously has only been in the hospital twice--once to deliver her first son. She accidentally had her second son at home. The second was when she fell three years ago while walking and factured her arm and passed out on the bus stop. They took her to the closest hospital and she went home a few hours later. She has gone annually to health fairs for free blood work and blood pressure screenings. Then in the past few years she has seen one PA annually for monitoring of blood pressure and cholesterol--but never took her BP medication. She didn't belive in paying to go to the doctor or taking pills. When we went to the first doctor to find out what happend to her hip when she fell last month, afterwards she said, "That's all the poking I'm going to let them do. No more." Well, when you refuse to have your colonoscopy at 50 as reccomended, or to have your eyes screened for glaucoma or any other preventative test or screening, you put yourself at risk for advanced stage cancers and other diseases. Please take a lesson from this and go for your screenings. Getting inconvenienced by lowering your shorts and exposing your private places, or by being a little uncomfortable is nothing compared to the pain and problems that can occur later. If you just don't want to know, it won't change the fact that what is going to happen in your body will happen. Don't we really want to know early so we can take care of it? The things that can't be found early, well at least you are in tune with your body and tried.

She first told her surgeon that she thinks that she would rather do nothing, then she flipped to the opposite and said she wanted it done now. When she told him she'd rather do nothing he told her what would happen to her. He also said that people decide to do nothing and just end it, but then when it gets bad they change their mind and want to do something and then it really is too late. I could see that easily being the case here if we let it happen, which we won't. Now Esther is keen to have the tumor out. First she will have an Ultrasound of the Rectum, then a Colonoscopy to make sure there is nothing else in there. If it's all clean, then they will see if she's a good candidate for radiation to shrink the tumor and then they will operate. She thinks they should just operate today.

She has been very appreciative of help from us and it makes her calmer to have a clear head around to help her sort things out.

She has always been such a force to be reckoned with, and downright offensive, and guess what? She still is, but along with it now is this vulnerability, neediness and weakness which has made her contemplative and softer. The other day she was lying on her sofa and asked me if I believed in guardian angels. Of course, I do. I know they are there. She said she does, too, because she was walking in Clackamas once trying to cross the highway and saw a car coming for her, then she was suddenly on the other side right where she needed to be, in an instant, and had no idea how she got there. She said she has had one other experience like that (she didn't elaborate). She said she believes in angels. I've also heard her say, just last week, that she was "agnostic". Now, she's rethinking everything. Funny how that works isn't it? Some people deny what truth they already know, deep inside, until they are ready to let go and face leaving this life. This week she has been saying alot of, "This is the last time I will . . .", but she was referring to things she didn't like--such as going downtown to see the doctor. After she'd said it about the 4th time in one afternoon I said to her, "You'd better stop saying that, you might make it come true. . .this could be your last time." Well, she laughed at that, thankfully, and it made her stop staying it.

Now for the classic denial of what you have been doing. Long story short: when you have bowel troubles and bleeding that you can see, laxatives are not the answer. When I discovered them, we started making sure she ate properly, took them out of the house (they were stashed everywhere, even in an Altoid tin on the back of the stove), and things got better right away. Well, she called a few days in a row asking were they were, "Just in case I need them", which she didn't. We went to the Colo-Rectal Surgeon this week and when he asked her how long she had had a problem she didn't answer (as always) and I mentioned the laxatives. She said, "I haven't taken a laxative in a year." He smiled, and started writing. Then he went on asking other questions and she had difficulty giving a straight answer and in the middle of it all she turned to me and in a stage whisper said, "I haven't taken a laxative in over a year." More smiling by the doctor. THE QUEEN OF DENIAL. It doesn't change the consequences or outcome.

Get your screenings, take care of yourself--I'm going to follow this advice, too.

Nothing to See

Aunt Alice has the most unique perspective on things. Having lived on the same property in Missouri her entire life she's a little partial to her home and keeping her things around her.

During an extended visit I talked with her about all the places she'd ever been. She talked about how my Grandpa and Grandma had convinced her to go on these trips with them even though she didn't really want to go anywhere.

When asked how she liked visiting places like West Point Military Academy or Canada her response was always the same... "Yeah, I went there. Nothing to see, might as well have stayed home."

Esther Fractured Her Pelvis

Last week Esther fell in her front yard and fractured her pelvis. She is feisty, and with a walker is managing well enough. When we went to the hospital for the x-ray the receptionist said that she had been seen at the hospital in 2006. She was very perplexed about that. "When was I ever here?" I reminded her that she had taken a walk on a Sunday and decided to take a shortcut by the bowling alley. She was heading to Rite Aid to get some beer. Since she can't see very well, the shortcut turned out to be a bad idea, because she forgot THAT the Clackamas River was there and she fell down the embankment a little, breaking her left arm. She was 85 at that time. So she picked herself up and climbed up the embankment. A couple of young men asked her if she was okay and offered help, but she declined, of course, saying she was "Just fine.". She finished her walk, figuring that she needed the beer even more, because her arm was killing her. She managed to get into the store and buy herself a 6 pack. Then she realized she was in too much pain to walk the mile plus back home and decided to wait on the bus stop so she could catch a ride home. She had her beer in a paper bag and opened one, keeping it in the bag, and started drinking it to ease the pain. That's the last thing she remembered. She evidently passed out on the bus stop, someone there saw her and called 911. They picked her up and took her to the hospital, and you can guess the rest of the story. We were sitting in church and Jerry had his pager on. It went off and he called to see who it was. It was the police calling about the whole incident. He went over to the hospital and stayed there until they released her later that day. She did pretty well for someone of that age, with only one arm, and was able to fend for herself, with a little help from us, her neighbors, and friends from the senior center. One can only guess what the people who found her thought, since she dresses like a homeless person all the time. We were grateful to them. So now, she is on the mend again and has to use a walker for the first time in her life.. She is being a trooper.

A Red Coat

Today I picked up Esther and her friend, Leona. They are both legally blind, but Leona wears special glasses and can see better than Esther can. They still can't see much. Esther called me a couple of time the past two days to make arrangements for today-- that I was to pick them up on the corner of Dartmouth and Portland Avenue in Gladstone at 9:20 a.m., I would take them to Esther's eye appointment and then to a nursing home to visit their friend and then to Gillman Park an assisted living facility for a free lunch and tour. When I arrived at the appointed corner to pick them up they told me that they had both been standing on corners on the opposite sides of the street and waiting. They each thought the other was not coming because they waited "so long", but they just couldn't see each other. Esther said, "And I wore this red coat just so you would see me." The red coat was actually a very long, bright orange robe. I didn't want to embarrass Esther by pointing that out. So we went to the eye doctor in the orange robe. Fortunately she got warm and took it off in the waiting room. ( She had a sweater on underneath as well as a turtleneck shirt. ) She left it in the car after that. Thankfully.