Cirque de Renee

The Cirque de Renee is in town for an extended engagement. She’s added a new feature called the Carousel of Calamity. The critics have given it four stars and at least one has labeled it “eye popping.”

Round and round Renee goes from doctor to doctor performing feats of daring. We watch as she wreaks havoc on the allergist’s office. We’re amazed as she befuddles the family practitioner. We’re dazzled as she confounds the ophthalmologist. All I know is I’ve got to raise ticket prices. This is some high quality entertainment and the prices should reflect the same.

Renee’s eye problems did not go away with the eye drops prescribed by the family practitioner last week. In fact, they continued to get worse. She heard of similar problems some people were having and attributed it to allergies. She made an appointment for Wednesday with the allergy doctor. Remember him? He was the one who wasn’t in when Renee had her systemic reaction to her shots, the last exercise in eye-bulging. Well, Renee woke up on Wednesday morning with both eyes swollen, red, stinging and so sensitive to light that she needed her sunglasses on in the house.

I took the carpool duties again, high-tailed it to work and took the afternoon off to play medical transport technician. I heard Worthington Fire & Rescue wants to make me an honorary ambulance driver. I just have to watch my stopping. I don’t want to get rear-ended by a lawyer.

After close to an hour at the allergist, Renee emerged and said she needs to make an appointment with the eye doctor and to tell them it’s an emergency. This doctor thinks that it is probably allergies but he’s punting it to someone else.

The appointment is set and we trek downtown to the ophthalmologist’s office. It turns out Renee’s got a recurrence of an inflammation she had years ago. It’s called Anterior Uveitis. She’s got a prescription for liquid steroids that are dropped into the eyes once every two hours. Now, Renee keeps saying “drop me” and when I reply, “stay where you are or I’ll drop you where you stand,” she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. The only western she’s ever watched is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. (Hey Renee, they die at the end!) She really needs to broaden her western horizons.

Renee’s eyes are now all jacked up on steroids. It’s a good thing she doesn’t play major league baseball, her career would be over. She has switched back to clear glasses so she’s making some light progress.

The month of eye popping drama in these parts continues. I think we’re on round five counting Polly. Maybe Renee’s just trying to keep herself in hospital shape. She’s built up this tolerance for the medical visits and this is just part of her training regime for the next big fight in June. I got tapped to be her sparring partner but they forgot to issue me the protective head gear. At least I’ve landed a few jabs with this blog by playing the part of the clown.

I can’t wait to see what kind of circus acts that March brings.

Are You Laughing At Me?

I know I’ve done good with one of these postings when my subject laughs. Friday’s Eye Candy post did just that, it just cracked Renee up. Hearing Renee laughing again on a regular basis is making this whole thing worthwhile and I’m not talking about the blog. I’m talking about the surgeries.

As you can imagine things were pretty glum in these parts for the better part of a year while Renee was suffering. She’s gone from dealing with daily pain to dealing with inconvenience. The inconvenience is the bag, but what a great trade off. Honestly, we never considered how unloading into a bag could provide so much relief, comic and otherwise. Renee can eat again. She can sleep again. And she’s laughing, at me, at the dog, at Cassidy, at life in general and at herself. The best part, we’re laughing together.

Friday, I got to poke fun at a cold, a simple cold, nothing life threatening. What a welcome change that is! And then, of course, took it a step further by making it sound as if these common health issues (OK, with Renee nothing’s common) are a major burden. Hah, this is the slack tide baby, and though we’re not home free, we know we’ve got the right craft and best toolkit to ride out the storm. And, the most versatile tool in the kit is our ability to laugh at ourselves and even the most trying situations.

A few months from now we’ll be back on the rough river raft fighting the rapids. There’s nothing even remotely funny about that, right? Who knows? Renee’s got the unique ability to turn even a capsize into comedy. All I have to do is report it.

So, laugh on Renee, laugh on.

Eye Candy

There must be some kind of insane jealousy going on with the girls in this house. I swear they are running a competition to see who can have the most doctor visits. You’d think Renee would be done with that by now, especially knowing that she’s way ahead in that race. But that didn’t stop her from making another visit yesterday morning.

Renee’s eye had been bothering her for a couple days and she has been experiencing some dizzy spells. (How can you tell, you ask?). She’s got a head cold and its all part of it. But the eye gook was getting out of control so she made an appointment for the doc. We’ve just got to be sure there’s not more to it like some strange residual effect to the allergy shot reaction from a couple of weeks ago. She wakes up Thursday morning and says her eye hurts. It’s as red as maraschino cherries and she’s doing the squinty Popeye impression (ugugugugug). She was considering doing carpool, almost insisting but I didn’t think a half blind person should be driving children around.

I took the kids even though I had to be on the other side of the city for work by time certain that morning. Traffic was light luckily and after the round trip, car switch and slalom across the expressway, I arrived at my destination less than five minutes past deadline. No harm, no foul but the donuts were gone.

Renee drove herself to the doctor who checked for things like conjunctivitis. She’s just got a cold in her eye. She got a few eye drops to settle things down until she recovers or the cold moves to a more common place like the nose or the lungs. But she just can’t get a simple cold, no, its always got to be a production. She even had to one up the dog this time. Yes, Polly’s pretty much recovered from the dog fight. It looks like she’ll have a double scar under the left eye but its all closed up and she’s back to her lazy dog self.

This has been the month of swollen eyes around here - three for Renee and one for Polly. Let’s see if we can settle this crew down, they’re wearing me out with out all these medical distractions. Sheesh, don’t they know its my birthday month?

Here’s something I wrote for times like these when things seem to be sprouting out of control like wildfires. It was inspired by Jimmy Buffet’s book A Salty Piece Of Land. Ix-nay is the Mayan Shaman who explains to Tully a short respite enjoyed by fish at the changing of the tides. It is called the slack tide. It’s got a reggae groove.

SLACK TIDE (Ix-nay on the ide-tay)
By Bob Masterson © Old Paint Music

I’m searching for the slack tide
Hidden in my life
Where the sharks they are not circling
Baring teeth as sharp as knives.
Hanging near the tide pool
Not searching for a meal
Taking time to find out
how I really feel.

Racing currents, flowing tides
They push me on my way
Slack tide, slack tide, slack tide
I need a rest beneath the waves.

Slack tide, slack tide, slack tide
I need a rest beneath the waves.

I’m searching for the slack tide
Hidden in my life
Where the sharks they are not biting
And I’m not swimming for my life
Hanging near the shallows
Not fighting for a meal
Taking time to find out
how I really feel.

But I’m not a fish
And I don’t get to take those lucky breaks
It’s quiet time I need
But there’s too much here at stake.
Racing currents, flowing tides
Push me on my way
Slack tide, slack tide, slack tide
I need a rest beneath the waves.

Slack tide, slack tide, slack tide
I need a rest beneath the waves.

Polly Balboa

Things got dicey, and a bit gamey, during the power outage but a week later we’re back to the grind.

Here’s the medical:

Renee is doing well. She’s still adjusting to the bag and to managing her meals but she looks great! She gets worn out quickly from simple household chores and the runaround mom thing but she’s making real progress. It was hard to tell last week without light and heat how much better she’s doing but now that the power is back you can really tell. It’s in her face. I’ve lived with her for almost 23 years and she looks like a different person.

The whole allergy shot reaction is behind her. It was probably a good thing that the lights were out while she recovered from that incident. The doctor said that they’ll reduce her dose and if she gets another systemic reaction she’s done with allergy shots for good.

The cardiologists visit went well, no signs of lingering problems. The hospital heart scare looks like it was all due to the post-op infection.

The gastroenterologist also says Renee’s doing well. They talked about the next operations. (There will be two.) He highlighted the negative side, noting that the muscles that were used for those functions are now dormant. He doesn’t want her thinking that everything is going to be normal especially immediately following the second procedure. Unfortunately, normal is no longer an option. What you do get hopefully is tolerable. We're hoping for a three hundred percent improvement from where Renee was at pre-surgery but frequency will never return to healthy colon standards. The doc's J-Pouch failed and I think he really wants to prepare her for the possibility. He also wants to prepare her for the discharge re-training and accidents that go along with it.

Yes, sometime in the fall I’ll be house training the wife. I wonder if I’ll have to spread newspapers?

Cassidy has recovered from her fever and ear infection and returned to school last Tuesday along with the rest of the county. She ended up only missing a half a day officially, but five and a half in total.

Cassidy also had a doctor visit with the endocrinologist. Only a half inch in height gain since last visit but at least her growth line is no longer flat. They upped the dosage of growth hormone again. We’ve now topped out the needle. We’ll have to get larger syringes if they increase again. I’m trying to get her to inject herself but she’s still reluctant to even look at what I’m doing.

Polly had a great time in the cold and snow. I brought her outside as much as possible through the outage week. I would also walk her without the leash since my arms weren’t long enough to reach to her comfort spots from the skinny lane cleared for cars. Last Sunday warmed up to above fifty degrees. It was sunny and just a good day to be outside. Polly was out roaming the frozen lawn while I scraped and shoveled the driveway. A neighbor came by with her dog on the leash and stopped to chat. Polly had been horsing around with a visiting puppy and the pup stopped to check out the leashed canine. Polly snuck out in the street to say hello also.

Ruffruffruffruffruff, bark, snarl, growl, snap …aarr..aarrf.

Polly was ordered back to the lawn but had already caught the worst of it. There was blood dripping from beneath her eye. I rubbed snow on the wound which looked like it needed stitches. The left side of her face was swelling and her eye closing up. She started slinking back toward the street and the other dog and she stared up at me while I tried to apply more snow to ease the pain and swelling. “Cut me Mick,” I think she said. She wanted to go another round. But Cassidy was crying and Renee was calling the vet and the other owner was just itching for a way to gently ease herself out of this awkward situation. She gracefully offered to pay the vet bill, saw her opening and moved on.

The vet opened her shop for us on Superbowl Sunday. We quickly got Polly corralled and in the car. No stitches, she glued the skin together. She gave us some antibiotics and told us to place warm compresses on the area. The worst part of the bite was just under the eye and there were no scratches on the cornea so the mutt was lucky. She’ll have a scar but she’s healing nicely.

Everything's calmed down to the routine level of chaos that goes on in the house. So this week all is good. We’re going to try for two in a row but I don’t want to push it. Things can explode around here pretty quickly.

Survivor Louisville

As soon as I say I’m going to get back to regular postings here Old Man Winter pulls off his thick belt and spanks the living snot out of me and the entire state of Kentucky. We’re not sure what we did wrong but this was no slap on the wrist for a minor offense. This was a Singapore flogging. Mother Nature must be just as ticked because she continues to throw a Canadian cold front at us defenseless Kentuckians.

Following a three inch snow fall overnight Monday, January 26, came a pelting ice storm that raged through Tuesday and on through Tuesday night. I awoke around 6 A.M Wednesday to the creaking, cracking and popping of tree limbs due to the weight of the ice. Three large branches from our sturdy elm in the front yard snapped and crashed straight down. The fingers of the branches held the stems straight up. They froze in place like a Marine holding a fingertip push-up. The branches blocked passage down our street. I was able to pull one of the fallen limbs from the ice to provide a passable lane. The others were immovable. I retreated to the warmth as the freezing rain was turning me to a popsicle.

Just past 6:30 A.M. a white flash and a sonic boom shook the house and knocked Cassidy out of bed. WOW! The dog was whimpering, Cassidy was shrieking “what was that?” The power immediately left the building, it must have caught a hot deal on a Caribbean Cruise and bolted south.

The state shut down and by mid-morning the precipitation petered out. The temperature dropped further freezing everything that wasn’t previously. The limbs continued their popcorn sounding descent and smashed out the back window of our neighbor’s car. Our subdivision looked like a war zone.

Venturing outside was a dicey affair as a hailstorm of breaking boughs crashed downward. Pine trees looked like a crazed lumberjack had clambered to the top and chain-sawed a straight line down leaving only bare trunks. Power lines snapped from the frosty load and the pounding from dropping timbers. Transformers were pushing out their blue arc of light with a whump before dying or being set ablaze from the overload. Sirens blared from every direction as firemen rushed to the hot spots to battle the flames that climbed the lines toward the houses. Each tree was twisted and bent, laden with a new arctic coat and threatening to fracture from the glacial mass. It was disturbingly beautiful.

Later in the day as the number of powerless homes jumped over the quarter million mark, the snow returned. Another four inches of powder cooked up a layer cake of frigid white. A diesel pick-up and a chain provided the strength to move the ice-encrusted elm branches from the road (Thanks, Nate). The rest of the day was spent trying to keep the driveway clear enough to get the cars out. We moved all of the freezer product to coolers and placed them outside in the snow. Our neighbors across the street with power invited us for a hot soup dinner followed by gooey warm brownies for dessert, yum. I’m not a veggie guy but I even ate the broccoli in the soup. We braved the night in the house sans heat except for the broccoli residuals - just call me Methane Man. After this episode I am convinced that there is no way broccoli can be good for you.

A few strings of electric juice remained in the city. It dangled across the street and teased us but one look out the window let us know that we were in it for the long haul. Our utility provider was advising us to prepare for a 7-10 day self-sufficient sojourn.

By Thursday A.M. every hotel room in a fifty mile radius was booked. We knew that a second night without heat was not an option. Our water is heated by gas so at least a hot shower could be had. I went to work following a two hour delay. Cassidy was still doing her fever roller coaster from Monday’s call out from school. Renee had her checked out at the closest immediate care facility that had power and they prescribed antibiotic for an ear infection. We received several offers to stay over at houses with heat. We ran an extension cord across the street and tapped into the neighbor’s power. An attempt to wire the furnace to the extension cord failed so we bailed out of the refrigerated environment for the warmth of an overpriced hamburger joint next to the highway.

We discussed our options while waiting for our dinner. Renee and Cassidy were set to stay in the basement of the other Robert and Renee on the street. I was going to stay with the shivering dog in the house.

Renee had checked Costco earlier and they were out of generators and warming devices as were the other retailers in town. I decided to take a shot at Lowes to see if they had any fireplace logs or anything to safely generate heat. I walked in and right in front of me they were dropping a pallet of portable electric radiators. Best $30.00 I’ve spent in a long time. As Renee was talking me into buying a second unit, the other Renee called. She listened to Renee’s description of our good luck and then relayed they had a space heater they weren’t using.

We set up both heaters in our bedroom and hooked them into the extension cord. The room warmed up fairly quickly and Renee and Cassidy decided to stick it out at home.

We camped out in our bedroom for the next four days. Polly, a dog who loves the cold, finally warmed up enough that her teeth stopped chattering. We had no lights beyond candles and flashlights. We had a battery operated radio to keep us connected to the outside world. Friday night dropped to 3 degrees Fahrenheit but we toughed it out. The kitchen got down to 41 degrees. Although by Saturday it was warmer in the uninsulated garage than in the downstairs.

The power came back on around 2:00PM on Superbowl Sunday. Due to varying temperatures the cooler contents were pretty much a complete loss.

So it’s been a full week since I’ve been able to update. I’ll give you the medical update in the next post.