3250 Mystery Pork

Monday, May 16, 2011

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
-- Napoleon Bonaparte --

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I had a scare yesterday, Sunday. I went to the refrigerator yesterday morning for milk for my cereal, and found a storage container containing pork stuffed with bread, apples, celery, and raisins.

I recognized the storage container as the same set my daughter has, but I swear I had no idea where this one came from, or how long it had been there! Daughter and I had talked about stuffed beef rolls and stuffed pork chops a few days ago, recipies she'd remembered me making when she was small, and she'd loved them and wanted to know how to make them. I assumed this had come from her, because of the container, but I swear I don't recall her having given it to me. I had considered making stuffed chops myself and taking some over to her, but I didn't remember actually doing it.

I was floored. I know my memory is sometimes faulty, and for the past two weeks I've suspected the anesthesiologist in White Plains had given me Versed or something in the same family in spite of my having told him it causes me severe memory problems, because little things have been slipping the past few weeks, like anything that takes less than a few seconds I might not remember, but this is BIG! Whether I made it or Daughter gave it to me, it would have taken more than a few seconds, and I don't remember it!

It really scared me. I was afraid to mention it to Daughter, to ask, because she seems to think I'm pretty decrepit already.

Sunday afternoon she asked if I'd found the pork, and if I liked it. Found? Um, yeah, but how did it get there?

Mystery solved.

After my interrupted sleep Thursday night, utter dehydration, and severe IV trauma Friday followed by almost an hour of intense trembling (which is major muscle exercise!), I was completely wrung out on Saturday. I was cold and tired, and at about 7 pm I went upstairs and crawled into bed, still dressed. I just wanted to get warm in my soft fluffy nest, and maybe nap a little.

I fell asleep over a crossword puzzle and woke up at 3:30 am. Went downstairs, was surprised to find that the kitchen TV, lights, and computer were off (I had assumed I'd left them on), went outside for a cigarette, and then went back to bed. And fell asleep immediately again.

That's what I know.

What I didn't know:

Daughter had brought the pork over at 7:30 pm-ish Saturday. She rang the doorbell twice. When she got no answer, she tried the door. It was unlocked, so she came in. She knew I had to be home because of the unlocked door, my purse on the counter, Hal in the garage, and Fred in the driveway. She called me several times. She put the pork in the refrigerator, then went upstairs to look for me.

She found me in the bed with the light on, the covers up to my ears (so she didn't know I was fully dressed) and my face planted on the open crossword puzzle book. She said "Mommy? Are you ok?" a few times, but I was obviously comfortably asleep. She didn't want to startle me by touching me. So she went back to the kitchen, turned everything off, and left, locking the door behind her.

I can't believe I didn't hear the doorbell and didn't wake when she called or spoke to me. Seriously. That almost scares me. But I guess I really was completely worn out.

And I'm not quite as crazy as I was afraid I might be.

(The pork, once I knew it hadn't been sitting there for weeks, was delicious.)
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3213 Daughter Takes Charge

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Caring isn’t what you feel, it’s what you do. If you don’t do, you don’t care.

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Friday night at the hotel I fell asleep with pillows piled all around me, while reading a book. I woke Saturday morning all twisted over to the side. My back hurt. This is normal. I have four areas of my back with delicate disks. It usually works itself out in an hour or three with a little stretching and some aspirin to take down the inflammation and swelling around the nerve. Once every four or five years it goes out so badly that I can't straighten up or walk. Then I find a comfortable position and stay in it for a few days until the inflammation settles down.

A pinched nerve in the back can cause other problems, depending on what that set of nerves does - like shutting down peristalsis and the "bladder-is-full" nerves, or exactly the opposite, causing a sense of urgency in those areas, or as with Ex#2 causing incontinence. My right foot and ankle still have some residual numbness from a back attack in 1983, when the nerve was pinched so badly it died, and shooting pain down my left hip is common.

So naturally, I thought that's what this was. I washed and dressed to go downstairs because there was a presentation I wanted to attend. I didn't put any makeup on because I felt pretty rocky.

A half hour into the presentation I was back in my room, panting from the pain. If you put your hand around that large muscle on your hip bone with the fingers pointing toward your spine, the pain would be right under the tips of your fingers. Too low for kidney, right? Has to be spine, right?

The urgency hit, both. Over and over, until bowels and bladder were absolutely empty, but I still felt like I had to go. The pain was so bad I was unable to stop moaning and panting - deep deep fast breaths - and I knew the panting could cause nausea, and sure enough - after five trips to the bowl I was throwing up only foamy yellow water.

This was bad. Real bad. I'm too far from home to hurt this bad. Today is Saturday. I have to get home, now.

I thought of a dozen ways to get both me and my car home. I knew I couldn't drive myself (even though I did drive myself to the ER in 2002 with the gall bladder attack with almost the same degree of pain and throwing up, but that was a 10-minute drive, and this is two hours). I could ask some Mensans for help, but that would be complicated, because I couldn't accept leaving Hal all alone here - at $12 per day for parking, and the possibility of towing once I left the hotel.

I called Daughter and asked if she had any plans for the day, and if not, could she and Hercules come get me, and yeah, I need both of you because someone will have to drive Hal home for me too, I can't leave him in the hotel garage. She said she'd come, but that I should call 911 and go to the hospital. I said I didn't want to do that. She said ok, and she'd be there in a little over two hours.

I guess I sounded pretty bad to her, because within minutes hotel security was at my door, followed by a hotel manager, and I could hear the ambulance siren coming down the street. Yeah, Daughter had made some calls.

I gave up to the pain and the experts and let it all proceed. ER, CT scan, xrays, grateful for pain meds, grateful for the urologist willing to come in. Immensely grateful that within minutes of my saying I was freezing, I was wrapped in the most wonderful hot blanket, that held its heat for the longest time.

The anesthesiologist planned to use that "twilight" stuff, but I told him either we went with a simple sedative, or completely out, because the last time I got that other halfway crap, I had no short term memory for literally years. I do handle full anesthesia well. I rebound from the deep stuff quickly.

The kids arrived before I went to the OR. They stayed in my hotel room Saturday night, and actually went to some of the activities and programs Saturday night and Sunday morning, with Daughter wearing my id badge. Hercules returned home Sunday evening, and fed Jasper. The hotel was willing to extend the room through Monday at the Mensa group rate for Daughter (on my credit card). Daughter drove Hal back Monday evening. She said that after the first few miles, she enjoyed driving him, but once she got home she chickened out and didn't attempt to put him in the garage.

[At one point, a doctor asked me if I would be sure to do something-or-other. I said, "You met my daughter. Do you think there's any chance I won't?" He laughed.]

We didn't know when I'd be discharged until it actually happened late morning on Tuesday. I considered renting a car one-way if possible, or finding a bus/train combination, or a limousine, since I didn't have to worry about Hal. I called Daughter, and she said she'd come get me, but I wouldn't be until later because she had some appointments.

She picked me up around five-thirtyish, I think. Or six-thirtyish, maybe. I forget.

What she didn't tell me was that one of the appointments was with her OB. She's 80% effaced and 2 centimeters dilated. The doctor said "See you in two weeks." I was shocked. If she'd told me that during the phone call, I might have faked an aide coming in with the news that they'd found a limousine service for me!

Yeah, moving down here was a good idea.

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When I was young, I had extremely low blood pressure, like low 70s over mid to high 30s. It climbed slowly, and lately it's been like 123-128 over the low 80s. I've been very unhappy with that.

In the hospital, it was consistently mid-70s to low 80s over low to mid 40s.

Shocking!

It wasn't just from lying in bed. I was up and roaming the halls (speed walking, actually) when I wasn't hooked up to an IV, right out of the OR, and I wasn't on any meds other than the antibiotic. Actually, I now recall that I used one of those machines in a drug store a few weeks ago, and it registered so low I thought it was broken.

I'm anxious to check it now. My own cuff and stethoscope are in the Suzuki at the old house, so I can't do it myself. I need to find one of those machines again.

I wonder what caused that, why it has fallen so much in the past year or so? The new diet, maybe? I hope it's a good thing, not another ominous sign we're ignoring.
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1589 Forgotten Versed

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Lunch today with a friend, at the fancy-schmanciest local inn. He jokingly referred to it as "the office Christmas party". It was sort of sad - the waitress forgot my soup, when it finally arrived it was cold, and the meat in my entree was dry. My friend is circumstantially celibate and when he's sober he claims he's perfectly happy with the state of things, but when he's had a few drinks he confesses that he wants every woman in the village. I want to find him a lady. He deserves a lady. He'd like me to volunteer, but that just isn't going to happen. I don't care how many millions he's got tucked away. On the other hand, if I do find him a lady, I will be jealous of her. He's a good guy and will treat her well.

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Another blogger had mentioned problems with Versed. It rang a tiny bell in my head, and I've spent much of the late afternoon researching Versed. It's a sedative, administered "to help you relax" during various medical procedures, either with or without general or local anesthetics.

For most people, it causes amnesia for the period from a few minutes after you get it until it wears off. However, it doesn't knock you out. You are still "conscious" and can respond to questions and commands. It also has no effect on your experience of pain. You just don't remember the pain, or, for that matter, anything else that happened.

Some people think it's wonderful. They get "something to relax" them, and then wake up in the recovery room. I doesn't bother them that they had expected to be aware during the procedure. (They probably WERE, but they just don't remember it.)

Some people have had very bad experiences with it. The amnesia lasts much longer than it should, or they get depressed or paranoid for a long time afterward.

Now, here's why my bell went off. I have been very worried about my memory lately. I was looking at a photograph in the recent issue of the local Mensa newsletter, a picture of me and another person at the gathering in Chicago six weeks ago. It is a very posed photo - not a candid shot. But I have absolutely no memory of that picture having been taken. I did her hair in the style in the photo, then I went to a talk, and she left shortly thereafter. I can't figure out when there was even opportunity for the photo.

Last month Roman gave me the coupons for the third Thursday dinner, and a week later, when it turned out I would not be able to attend the dinner, he told me to give them to John. I denied that he had given me the coupons. He insisted he had, even told me when and where. I remembered being there, but did not recall the coupons. I looked in my purse. They were there. I said to him that I was worried about my memory lately, and he said he's noticed, too, and is also worried.

Things like that keep happening.

Just today I found a note in my purse, a list of things that have no meaning to me, in someone else's handwriting. I don't know whose. I vaguely remember having given someone my notepad to write on, but I don't remember who, when, or where, let alone why, or what if anything I'm supposed to do with it. I find a lot of mysterious notes in my purse.

I keep finding "lost" objects in the house in perfectly logical places, but I have no recollection of having put them there, and I'm the only person in this house - ever.

I've been thinking about my memory lapses, an attempt to define what kinds of things I forget. One thing they all have in common is briefness. If some interaction between me and another person or an object takes less than, say, six seconds, I may not retain the memory. It just plain never happened. It's a completely blank hole in my experience.

It seems to be getting worse, or maybe I'm just noticing it more.

Now, here's today's realization: The memory problems date from the endoscopic procedure of two years ago. The one where they told me I would be conscious during the procedure, but where I remember nothing from the "here's something to relax you" to the "all done!" Whadaya wanna bet they gave me Versed.

Most of the long-term adverse reactions I've been reading about involve lost of memories from BEFORE the Versed. Chunks of their lives missing. Nobody (so far as I have read) mentions loss of the ability to form memories of events occurring afterward. Perhaps it's an aftereffect others have experienced, but no one has made the connection. Proving a connection would be very difficult.

I am annoyed that when I was told I would be given "something to relax" me, and that I would be conscious during the procedure, no one mentioned that I would not remember the procedure. That's not my definition of "conscious". I do NOT believe that I was properly informed, and do not therefore feel that I gave informed consent.

I suspect the medical community loves Versed. It makes things so easy. They can do just about anything, have your (sort of) cooperation during the procedure, but they don't have to be particularly gentle or respectful, because you won't remember anything anyway, so you're not likely to complain. Or sue. So I suspect there isn't a lot of incentive on their part to question residual effects.

Scary.

What now? Will my memory lapses get better, or worse?
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