Tag: stress

When it rains, it pours

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It’s been a long, long week and there is no sign it’s going to get better.

First off, the good-ish news. Tolstoy is back home and is on the mend, even though things are still rough around the edges with him. His jaw is only broken in the one, usual place and has been wired together without the need for reconstructive surgery. His pelvis is fractured but should only require cage rest to heal properly. His lungs are bruised but that should clear up by itself. His feeding tube was removed when they found that it was pushing against the back of his throat and was making him gag and cough. He seems to be able to eat soft food – he just doesn’t do it often enough for our taste. We went to see him twice over the weekend and he seemed to be ok. He spend the whole time we were there on Saturday curled up to Katy’s bump, though he was much livelier on sunday and was making good progress at standing on his hind legs and walking around. He’s been passing urine and feces, so there are no problems on those ends either (which had been a concern, given the location of the fracture). So, all in all, the boy is going to be ok, or rather, his chances of doing so are good.

We bought a large dog crate and kitted him up well, so he’s living in the sitting room at the moment. We just hope he doesn’t get too depressed about not being able to wander for the next two months. He’s still lethargic and off his food at the moment, so we need to keep an eye on him.

Stephane kindly drove him and I up to the vets in Milton again last night, in shit weather I might add, because we were worried that we might have injured him while trying to give him some antibiotics that morning. He does not like them and, in attempting to break free of Katy’s hold (I didn’t feel confident to do it), he fell backwards in his litter tray. Katy phoned me at work later on that day and said that every time he tried to use his litter tray, he’d cry out in pain :( Hence, the trip to the vets that night. They said he didn’t have a fever and that poking and prodding him didn’t seem to cause him pain so they gave him a shot of long-acting antibiotics and sent him back home. We’re still playing around with his food to find something that he’ll be interested in eating.

Reenie, in the meantime, really isn’t too sure what to make of the whole situation. She’s hissed in the general direction of the cage a few times, but we’re hoping that it’s just because Tolstoy doesn’t smell like his normal feline self after a trip to the vet and an operation.

I’ll say it again as well, thank god for insurance. His vet bill so far? Around £1275 or (about 2500$ CAD). We’ve only had to pay the first £65 and the cost of the dog crate. Makes a rather large difference.

So now the bad news. Katy’s been admitted to Addenbrookes again. We had the usual afternoon delight of 5 clinic appointments yesterday afternoon. Her sugar levels are still high, so they’ve played around with her insulin levels and have put her on tablets that will make her more sensitive to insulin (so hopefully she’ll respond better to what she’s taking). Her blood pressure was higher than usual though, and they didn’t like that. We’ve both been stressed about the whole Tolstoy situation, but it seems that that’s not good enough an explanation. A medical student prescribed her beta-blockers (until I caused a bit of fuss and bother when I told them that there were multiple notes in her file indicating that she shouldn’t take them because they send her body temperature completely out of whack. The last time they tried that, she was complaining about freezing all the time when physically, she was so warm to the touch that it was uncomfortable to sleep next to her). So yeah. No BBs. That caused a bit of a stir, so finally they decided that they were going to try and up the dosage of the meds she’s currently taking. Her options were to either be admitted that night or to come back in the following morning for observation. They were concerned about the possibility of her blood pressure going too low.

They shouldn’t have been worried, as it turns out, because her BP is still too high for their liking this morning so they’ve admitted her. If they can stabilize her BP in the next few days, she’ll be allowed to come back home. If not, there is the distinct possibility that she’s going to be in the hospital until her induction date. That was supposed to be at 38 weeks, but I’m thinking that this might be moved forwards to 37 weeks.

Things were going so well until last Tuesday. Now? stress!

It’s really frustrating right now. The only bus that goes from Hinxton to the hospital is a joke. It only runs once every hour and is notoriously unreliable. It also stops service at 6:30 pm so if I want to go see Katy after work, I can get to Cambs using the work shuttle but I need to take a cab to get home – and that’s £20 a ride. Stephane can give me lifts back home once in a while, but there are still limits on how much I can abuse his generosity. I’m not worried about groceries and shit like that, because I can have most everything I need delivered. The whole situation is just very stressful and all this shit seems to all have decided to rain down all at once. The timing of it sucks as well, because we only managed to get one ante-natal class in and this week’s session – which we’re going to miss – dealt about the various pain relief methods available during birth and the how the whole induction process works. Right now, this information seems very important indeed. Next week’s session – which I have no idea if we’ll get to or not – deals with what to do with a baby once you have it. Which, ya know, also kind of important when you have no idea what you’re doing. So yeah.

Worry, worry, worry! Fret, fret, fret!

One part of my brain, the small part that is still a bit rational, tells me that things are actually ok. Tolstoy is stable. Katy is being looked after. They’re not just going to chuck us home with a baby without telling us the basics of how to care for it and we can pick the rest up as we go along. Somehow, in the middle of all this, I take a bit of comfort in knowing that most of our Christmas shopping is done. Somehow, this seems very important to me right now. I think I’m rather insane, but there you go.

More randomness. Our next-door-but-one neighbour is in the same ante-natal classes as we are, so that means they’re due soon-ish as well. We were hoping to get introduced to them on Thursday so that Katy would have somebody to have tea with in the village and talk baby-shop-talk.

Yet more randomness. We went to mothercare last weekend and bought the last of the bedding that Katy insisted we get. Her nesting instincts were yelling that we didn’t have enough sheets and covers, so we bought bumpers for the cotbed, as well as sheets and cellular blankets galore. The nursery is pretty much ready to greet Ben, so that’s one less worry – which is always good. I’ve taken pictures of the nursery and I’ll be putting them online some time today.

So much for work today. Katy being admitted threw me for a loop. My productivity in the last 3 months (pretty much since all of Katy’s health gremlins started making their presence felt) has been, for lack of a better word, shit. I’m having great difficulty focusing on work right now. I seem to have a lot on my mind.

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Good news, bad news, good-ish news

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Katy had her many appointments at Addenbrookes yesterday and all is well. Her blood pressure is good, her blood sugars are acceptable in the sight of the diabetic team and they say she’s doing all the right things – even if it is driving her up the walls – and the growth scan indicates that Ben is a healthy 5 pounds 10 ounces at the moment. That’s actually very good news because the last scan indicated that he was very big for the stage he was at and that might have been due to the diabetes. The curves are a lot healthier this week and the midwife on the ultrasound said that the last scan results were probably a blip caused by the fact that Ben was in a very awkward position. Since she was the one who took both scans, she’s very confident about this week’s scan because Ben was much more cooperative.

The end is now in sight. The obstetrics consultant said that they generally induce women with diabetes at 38 weeks, which is less than 24 days from now. A lot could still happen between now and then and circumstances might mean that it’s sooner than later but it won’t be later than mid-November.

That is all good news indeed. It had been a long day and I couldn’t be arsed to cook so we went to the pub for an impromptu celebratory dinner.

The bad news is that we had to take Tolstoy to the 24 hour vet tonight. He came in at 9 with blood in his mouth and looking in pain. We think he’s been hit by a car. The vet says that his jaw is broken, possibly in multiple places. They’re keeping him overnight on fluid and painkillers so that he stabilizes and they’ll take x-rays tomorrow and go from there.

The good-ish news is that it could be a lot worse. There was another cat who came at the same time as us with a broken jaw and a possible spinal fracture. To make matters worse, the owner wasn’t insured (we are, and that makes a very big difference when faced with a thousand pound bill). On the plus side for our grumpy boy, he had to jump the back fence to come in and was walking, albeit slowly. His vitals were stable and so far there’s no obvious internal trauma. The prognostic for a broken jaw is very good for a young cat in good health. If it’s just a question of money, the insurance will cover all of that. So, for now, we wait.

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Update on Katy

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I’ve just gotten a phone call from Katy. Her liver function test came back and it was worse off than yesterday so that means it’s not the meds causing it. We’re now down to two options, one bad and one worse.

Poo, I say.

They’re going to keep her for observation and more tests until they have a better idea what’s the cause and what’s the best course of action.

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I will need to have words with my son.

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Katy was readmitted to Addenbrookes today.

Her blood pressure had started creeping back up when she had her ante-natal clinic appointment on Tuesday, so they told her to increase her meds from 3 times a day to 4 times a day. They also took some blood samples to run a few tests. She was to come back today for the results. They were less than pleasing. It would appear that her liver function is being impaired. This can be one of three things.

The best case scenario is that this is simply the appearance of a known potential side-effect of her blood pressure meds. They have switched her onto new meds to see if this makes the problem go away. The medium case scenario is that this is a known potential complication of pregnancy and they’re doing some more specific blood tests to check on this. This can be treated fairly easily and is not a problem. We should have the results in about a week. The worst-case scenario is that the liver problems are a symptom of pre-eclampsia. That would be very bad. That would mean that they’d monitor her on a daily basis and at the first sign of distress to her or Ben, she’d be induced or have a c-section. Her due date is at the end of November and it seems highly unlikely that she’ll make it full term.

*sigh*

We’re mostly keeping a positive attitude about the whole thing, or at least we’re trying to. Nothing bad has happened yet and people are working very hard to keep it that way. Still, it’s not the easiest thing to do to keep from fretting. I don’t know what I’d do without Katy. I know it sounds a bit dramatic saying that, but … I’ll admit being scared about the whole thing and not be able to do a damn thing about it. Sometimes, tea just can’t fix it.

The one thing that does comfort me is that she’s exactly where she needs to be to get the best care possible. Addenbrookes is a very good hospital and she’s in the system. She’s being monitored very closely and they seem on top of things to catch things early enough to be able to deal with them gently rather than at a stage where aggressive treatments would be required. That does help a lot in easing the anxiety.

And there is still tea. And kittens. Those help too.

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Week in review – things did not go according to plan

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It’s been a busy couple of days, it has. We were in Leicester last weekend to meet up with Anna and Rho, who had come from Manchester to catch up with Katy. That was a fun morning – those two are always good for a laugh. Rhona always seems to be complaining about something in a very loud and emphatic sort of way. Always makes me giggle.

The cot bed we wanted was finally back in stock at Ikea so Mel and Stu did a run up to Nottingham on Friday to avoid the madness that is Ikea on a sunny Saturday. We might have made a convert of Stu, who seems to have seen a table he likes in there. Yay, Ikea :)

This means that we now have all the big furniture pieces that we wanted for the nursery and we now simply need to build stuff and put everything in its final place.

We had a lazy Sunday morning. Katy had a lay-in and then proceeded to get pissy with the impossible puzzle we’d gotten for Mel’s last-last birthday. He’s been working at it for over a year (and has just informed us that he’s wimped out, admitted defeat and broken it down). I was, to be honest, bored senseless for most of the day.

While the world was shitting its collective pair of pants on Meltdown Monday, I was experiencing Migraine Monday, so I didn’t go into work and spent the morning in bed. I was feeling better by the afternoon so I started building furniture. I must admit that Mothercare flat-pack furniture is not up to Ikea standards. There is one bolt that doesn’t want to screw in and it’s pissing me off.  It is offensive in my sight  because the whole crib seems rickety because of it. I’m going to go to B&Q to get another bolt and see if that helps. If not, I’ll just use nice, large wood screws. Esthetics be damned, I want the thing secure :)

Katy had an appointment at the antenatal diabetic clinic on Tuesday. Her blood tests the previous weeks had indicated that she had gestational diabetes. Given that she’s a big girl, is Asian and has a family history of diabetes, this wasn’t unexpected. The good news is that the dietician said that our diet was already very much on the good track (complex carbs, lean proteins, lots of fruit & veg). The bad news is that she has now cut Katy off from any processed or refined sugar until Ben is born. This is, for those who know Katy, very bad news indeed. At least it’s only for a few months, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition though, and Katy’s blood pressure really threw a spanner in the works. It’s been borderline for weeks now and never seemed to make up its mind if it was high or normal. The doctors finally decided that enough was enough and told Katy that she was going to be admitted for observation and possibly put on medication. The timing of this was, in our opinion, possibly the worst time possible. We hadn’t planned for this, so Katy only had the clothes on her back and nothing else. I also had to get the car out of the Park & Ride parking and back home to avoid from getting it clamped – an interesting feat given that I can’t drive. In the end, I called some lads from work, who picked the car and myself up from the Park & Ride and drove us both home. Michael, the pinch-driver, had a bit of fun getting used to a right-hand drive car, but got us home safely. It’s interesting to note that we might be seeing him on Thursday when his partner is being admitted to the same ward as Katy to get her twins induced.

I had time to pack an overnight bag for Katy while I waited for Tesco to deliver our groceries. I managed to get a lift back to the hospital in the evening and spent time with my very bored wife and her new friend, Felix the serial blood pressure machine. She named it because she figured that shed probably get to be really well acquainted with it.

I stopped by the office to talk with the powers that be and, in the process, pick up the two parcels that my mom had shipped to us from Canada. It seems that everybody had been commenting about the 62$ worth of stamps affixed on the parcels :) I need to bring them back into work for somebody’s collection next week.

The plan now is to take regular blood pressure readings to establish a baseline and see if the meds they’ve prescribed lower it enough to get to a stable level they’re happy with, but not too low. I’ve loaded her up with grapes and strawberries, oat biscuits she’s allowed to eat and enough trashy magazines to rot her brain multiple times over. My boss has given me carte blanche to spend time with her at the hospital so I won’t be getting much work done this week. Having said that, if I were at the office, I doubt I’d be getting anything done, really.

Most of today was spent trying to find ways to kill time. I went out and got myself fish & chips for dinner – something that I’m still regretting hours later because it’s sitting like a lead balloon in my gut and giving me all sorts of unholy gas.

The good news is that the meds seem to be wanting to work in the right direction. The bad news is that they need to tweak the dosage and/or timing of the doses – which means that Katy will probably need to spend another day in observation. This does not make her happy. She’s getting to the point where she just wants to come home and relax in familiar surroundings, with the cats (who are being right little attention whores at the moment – Reenie is sleeping on the couch with her head on my foot as i type this).

We both know that this is the right thing to do and the right time for it. Spending a few uncomfortable days now could potentially save lots of hassle later on if we did nothing and things went pear-shaped and required more aggressive treatment in the future. It still doesn’t change the fact that it’s a pain in the ass and it would have been even better to have been able to avoid the issue altogether.

Like the song says thouggh, you can’t always get what you want.

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This day just keeps getting better

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The good news is that I've done most of the leg work to retag Katy's MP3s to load in a sane fashion on her ipod. The bad news is that in my pissed off/stressed out frame of mind, I snapped at her and managed to put a serious downer on the good work that her spa day had done. Go me. If this day keeps going like it is, we're going to be divorced before we get married.

I'm looking forward to getting married, but to be perfectly honest, I'll be glad when the day itself is done, hopefully without a hitch, and we go on vacation.

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Today, I so cannot be arsed

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I admit it, I can't be arsed to do anything today. It seems that I've finally reached my limit of wedding organization and planning and doing and emailing and calling and stressing. The good thing is that it's almost done. The bad thing is that it's *not* done and I still need to do it. The stress vein on my forehead has now become my constant compation. This does not please me.

Slept like ass last night. Katy zonked out like a light, but I couldn't stop my brain from overthinking stuff and I just couldn't relax enough to fall asleep. The cat jumped on my chest and demanded some fuss, which actually helped a bit. I slept quite badly though, and the whole left side of my body is tense and sore, another sure sign I'm wound rather tightly at the moment.

Right now, I'm trying to organize the reception music, which will involve mixing and burning about 15 CDs, while at the same time re-tagging a large of Katy's MP3s so that her ipod will actually be usable. This will be brain numbing, brain damaging scut work that I hope to write code to do and prevent me from going quite mad and potentially punching a hole through the screen of my laptop. I hope.

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Does anybody have a liver to spare?

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I'm worried about my sweetie. She's in a bad place right now. The stresses from the last year have taken their toll and I don't know how to make it better. It's making her physically sick. She's been sleeping badly for… I don't remember when she told me she slept well. She can't get enough rest. She's always tired. She's been carrying a cold/cough for weeks now, and it doesn't seem to go away. It's always coming back with a vengeance when the fit hits the shan.

I hate her boss. She's completely irrational and unprofessional and is turning what should be a great opportunity for Katy into a lower level of hell. I've had a bit of a taste of that a few years ago, but never like this. When you can't decide if it's better to stay in bed or go to work, you're in a bad place. When going to work seems like a hassle that's just not worth the effort, it's time to move on. I just want to go a smack her boss around. You do *not* do this to people. When work makes you cry… Peterborough was bad at the end, but this is worse now. If only it wasn't for her boss and that simian jackass of a supervisor.

I firmly believe in karmic retribution and hopefully, Katy is going to get a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge load of good luck soon. The flip side of that is that her fucking evil twat of a boss is going to have a very, very bad day soon. Or so we only hope.

I keep telling her that we're going to get away from it all soon. Canada can't come soon enough. In the meantime, give her some love. I'm going to. lots and lots and lots.

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