TheBanyanTree: Where is the Love?

[Margaret R. Kramer]

How many Christmas wreaths are still hanging on people’s front doors?  As
the season fades from memory, the wreaths are fading, too, turning brown and
losing needles.  But there they are, still hanging by a thin wire to the
door.  Is it so much work to take down the wreath and throw it away or
compost it and in general, put it out of its misery?  Before Easter, maybe?

My Christmas stuff gets put away on January 1.  My wreaths are slowly
decomposing on the compost pile.  After the wreath comes down, I hang up a
pretty heart infused decoration on the door.  I’ve done this for years.
Until . . .

I noticed it was gone the other morning when I was getting newspapers.  I
looked at the door and then at the ground and I looked all around.  It
couldn’t have fallen off, because it would have been right between the storm
door and the front door.

What happened to the darn thing?  It’s difficult for me to imagine, but
someone must have stolen it.  Now who in the heck would want that thing that
isn’t even worth $3.  Plus, our house is up on a little hill from the
boulevard sidewalk.  You have to climb five steps to get to the front door
and then open up a very heavy storm door to get decoration.  Was that
decoration worth it?  It must have been to somebody.  What a strange thing
to steal.

Well, I went to Michael’s and bought another one.  I hung it up last night
and locked the storm door.  They’ll have to bust the glass in the storm door
to get it.  No one’s going to mess with my pitiful attempt to decorate!

I’m also missing a husband.  No one stole him, I know where he is, but I can
’t get him back until the hospital decides he can come home.  Yes, he
finally went to the hospital.  But before that we had some drama.

Ray went to work on Monday, but felt so bad, he left after an hour and a
half.  He came home and slept for a while, and then went to the emergency
room at the former county hospital, Regions.  He called me at work from the
emergency room and I drove down there.

They took a couple of x-rays of abdomen, which were inclusive.  He called
for pain medication several times before they brought it.  The ER doctor was
a little witch.  She looked like she was 17 and was sarcastic and
patronizing and didn’t listen to Ray at all.  She sent him home and told him
to see his own physician within 24 hours.

Well, Ray’s abdominal pain continued, no matter what he did.  He finally
called the VA and made an appointment for Wednesday.  I took him to the VA
and they moved with lightning speed, which is amazing for them.  His doctor
admitted him right away and within an hour, he was in a room.  He had an
ultrasound and x-rays.  They put in a catheter, because they discovered he
had an enlarged prostate and that was preventing him from urinating.

The severe abdominal pain continued.  He almost passed out from the pain
while going to bathroom.  His heart stopped and his blood pressure shot off
the charts, so they moved him into ICU.  They talked about doing a
colonoscopy, but I don’t know where that is right now.  They fed him ice
only.  He stabilized and then they sent him back to a regular hospital room.

When he called me with his new room number, I was encouraged that he was
doing better.  But when I got to the hospital last night, he had eaten some
food, but he was still in severe pain, even with a morphine IV.  He had one
of those attacks while I was there.  He starts shaking and his breathing
gets labored and raspy and he turns purple.  It’s like he’s choking on
something, but he’s not.  I called the nurse and then started crying,
because I’m a crybaby.

A million hospital personnel flooded his room and got him stabilized.  They
were going to insert a pic line later in the night and I think the doctor
set him up for some tests.  But it’s the weekend, and typically not much
action goes on in hospitals on the weekends.  So always plan your illnesses
or accidents for week days.

And I’m sure you’re asking the same questions that I am, why haven’t they
done more to find out what’s going on with him?  Well, that’s another thing
about hospitals, they move at the pace of snails, and spend more time
talking about what’s going on with a patient then doing something for the
patient.  Believe me, I know from experience.  Ray has been in a several
hospitals around the Cities and they’re all the same.  Talk, yes; action,
no.

He’s getting more attention from the staff at the VA compared to the staff
last year at Fairview Riverside.  He was in his room for hours at Fairview
and wasn’t bothered by anybody.  In fact, we had to beg for staff to come in
and do the simplest things.  No more than five minutes go by at the VA
before someone comes busting in to stick him or look at his IV or whatever.
But Fairview went to the high tech stuff as part of his treatment and the VA
doesn’t seem to want to use MRIs or PET scans and stuff.  Maybe they don’t
have them.  Anyway . . .

There are two other guys in Ray’s room.  They’re very nice.  One, who has a
broken arm, got up on a chair, with me holding him, and swiveled the TV so
Ray could see it.  They offered us ice cream.  Everyone at the VA is so very
nice, even when Ray gets impatient with the staff.

My nightmare is that my phone will ring in the middle of the night and it
won’t be good news.  Thank goodness, we live close to the VA and it’s not a
big deal for me to get there.  No phone calls last night.  Ray made it
through the night.

Ray’s health problems are intertwined with a coworker’s of mine.  He’s about
my age and was just diagnosed with esophageal cancer.  It was stage one and
hadn’t spread.  He had surgery last week and they discovered some cancer by
his heart and removed that, too.

He was doing OK, but then got pneumonia.  He was put in a drug-induced coma
and was on a respirator.  They started weaning him from the oxygen and began
bringing him out of the coma, when they discovered he was partially
paralyzed.  Tests confirmed that he had a massive stroke.  What happened to
cause all this?  Well, we can’t talk directly to the doctors because of
HIPAA regulations, so we have to hear the story through his loopy
girlfriend, who exaggerates everything.

Our office manager and Mark’s coworker went to the hospital for a couple of
days to make sure the loopy girlfriend wasn’t interfering with his
treatment.  She’s on seizure medication and can’t work.  She’s on social
security disability (SSI).  I think she’s probably in her 40s.  She’s very
pretty, but talks a blue streak and barely stops for a breath.  I’ve met her
a couple of times, and she’s so strange that I kind of discreetly edge away
from her.

The girlfriend didn’t leave the hospital for 10 days.  My coworkers finally
convinced her to go home for a while.  She hadn’t taken a shower, washed her
hair, or changed her clothes in all that time, because she promised Mark she
wouldn’t leave his side.  The guy is in a coma, why wouldn’t you go home and
clean up?  And get a mental break from the hospital and come back in a
better frame of mind?

There’s more to the loopy girlfriend story, but that would take hours to
write about, and she’s not that important anyway.  I just have Mark and Ray
all tangled up together in my mind and wish I could transmit my healthiness
to both of them and give them a leg up.

We’re in a winter weather advisory today.  We might get some snow this
morning and then a cold front is going to slam us.  Did you hear about –72
and –60 in Alaska?  That’s coming here.  Not the cold temperatures per se,
but the wind chills.  We’re going to get down to about –15 tonight with wind
chills of –40 and –50.  Fortunately, this cold blast is only going to last
for a day or two before we begin warm back up.

Well, that’s it for now.  I have LOVE back on my front door and eventually
my lost husband will find his way back home.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com

www.polarispublications.com

My heart to you is given:
Oh, do give yours to me;
We'll lock them up together,
And throw away the key..
~Frederick Saunders
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