Hospitals, Holidays and Hell

The word of the week is dyspnaeal. Yes, it's a real word.

Oct 10 - It's a working holiday 

I was up early today on Thanksgiving, but not to cook a turkey - I was headed into work early, again to facilitate car sharing. One of my CSR's has been sick for a week and I don't expect her back until Wed, so that's been hellish to try and accommodate when we're short-staffed as it is... yadda yadda. So in I went, and the day went by fairly smoothly as it was far less busy than I thought it would be. I managed to get a fair deal of work done that had been waiting for me, as I don't get to my 'home' branch in Colwood much of late thanks to my working at four different stores to make ends meet, staff-wise. As a bonus, I had turkey leftovers waiting for me when I got home; I especially love the low-salt stuffing with gravy, always a treat. Not having a lot of people to cook for, we usually do a turkey log, which is simpler and keeps better for leftovers. It's a win-win for everyone - except the turkeys. 

Oct 11 - Bad day for me, worse for THAT guy... 

After a long day today, I was headed home tired and slightly deaf in one ear - the alarm downstairs decided to malfunction and the siren was conveniently placed UPSTAIRS in our branch teller area. Three feet from my right ear as I stood at the counter. It went on for ten minutes and I had no code to turn it off; it was a perfect compliment to spending the entire day at the counter as people decided to get everything they didn't get done before the long weekend done TODAY, while I worked alone. Nobody complained about the wait though.

But that's not the story today. On the way home, I was waiting at a light on the highway( yes, they have intersections on the highways here, unlike in Ontario )when I hear a massive squeal of tires. Startled, I looked to my left, to see the back end of a car in the air, trailing tire smoke as it disappeared off the highway and down an embankment out of sight. No, they don't have crash barriers lining the edge of roads atop steep embankments here in BC either - stupid, right? A huge crowd of people waiting for the bus nearby rushed over to gawk and a few brave people went down the embankment to see what they could do. From what I could tell, the car was cut off by a white truck and had nowhere to go but down. I called 911, along with a whole lot of other people, and hoped that car's occupants were all right as I headed home. I checked the local news for a few days, but there was no mention of the crash, so I hope that means nobody was seriously hurt. And it also meant I saw someone have a worse day than I did, which was an awful irony. 

Oct 12 - Mom ?!?!?!? 

First words I hear this morning: "Take me to the hospital." Said in a calm tone of voice by my mom, but they set my heart thudding all the same - she's had so many medical problems in her life that she has developed a 'Health Sense' superpower about these things. So I threw on some clothes and drove her stright over to the Saanich Hospital... to wait almost 6 hours in the Emergency dept for her to be admitted. Fortunately they did some CT scans fairly quickly and found the pain-causing problems: blot clots from her recent surgery. 

LOTS of large clots, in her legs and lungs. She was immediately put on thinner drugs and put into the surgical care ward for 24/7 observation. 

We were told later that evening by ALL the medical personnel there that they had NEVER seen someone WALK into the ER with SO MANY LARGE CLOTS in their system and live - most didn't survive as the clots quickly reached their heart or brain. That's it - she could have been dead any time.

A 'filter' was put into my mom's system to catch and control the clots and she spent the night under close observation to ensure she was out of danger. It was a shocking and scary experience for us all, as there were no obvious danger signs - my mom has a VERY high pain tolerance due to her various ailments, so these new 'smaller' pains weren't something that she was instantly aware of. Whereas most other patients would have been at ER the same hour they noticed the pains start. 

We're all shaken here, but grateful that I was off for the day and was able to be there to immediately take my mom to the hospital once she'd identified that something was seriously wrong. It's a great example of being in tune with your body, to know immediately when something's wrong - and to act!


The rest of my night was a blur; I don't remember much apart from the naps.

Oct 13 - Coping with stress

After a somewhat restless night, my mom is doing fine; she will be staying at the hospital for at least the weekend to ensure all is well, under observation. 

Staying positive is something that I struggle with, most days. Given all that my family and I have been through over the years, it's a wonder that we're not snappy, growling antagonistic bags of emotional wreckage. For myself, I try my best to maintain an emotional calm, to NOT get upset when Things Happen and to ride the middle ground while not overdoing it and becoming emotionally detached or distant - which does happen some days. The danger that way is that you lose both sides of things: when major things happen, you don't get upset... but you also don't feel happy when joyous events take place either. Though I've had many bouts with depression, I've never been clinically treated for it - it's been close several times, but the support of my family has got me through, as well as my own determination and desire NOT to depend on drugs to deal with life's problems. That time may still come, but I've worked hard to build a mental and familial foundation that keeps me on track when times get rough. Right now, it's work that's the issue; apart from scares like my mom's blood clots this week, my family situation is on an upward climb( as I've worked hard to make it )so that makes things easier to deal with in some ways. So I can focus more on getting the work side of my life dealt with now. 

Oct 14 - Coping with MORE stress 

It was a hard day for me today; with my mid-shift CSR sick( again ), I had to do a switcheroo to get down to our Cloverdale store to work the closing shift today - alone. I took it upon myself to do this, as I couldn't ask my other CSR to work by themselves tonight, on a double-payday at one of the area's busiest stores. It's like trying to run a main-street Tim Horton's with one staffer. 

And BOY oh BOY, was it BUSY: I stood at the counter for 6 hours without a moment's rest, moving at breakneck speed to keep up with the huge influx of people and phone calls. The people storm paused at 7pm for ten minutes, which I used for a combined dinner and bathroom break - not recommended, but it's all I had. Then the crazy resumed; by closing time I was totally worn out and by my calculations I had served one person at counter every 4.1 minutes for seven hours straight... and balanced to the penny. I was happy about that, but not happy that I had to do it; being ABLE to move at that level of speed and efficiency was something to be proud of, but it's like burning one's candle at both ends in a frying pan full of napalm. We'd better have some staff able to work soon, or something's going to give - which will probably be me. No surprise at all there; I'm not 20 years old anymore, sadly.

Oct 15 - Fatigue

An unexpected break today lulled me into a false sense of security at work: the morning was rather slow, so I managed to catch up on a few things, which was great. However, the lovely sunny weather outside lured people out to Do Things, which meant that after lunch things went crazy again. My lobby packed itself solid for the rest of the day, which meant I moved at a breakneck speed AGAIN to keep up - we're down to one person per day on the weekends to match staffing availability. So it was a 'good' thing I was working today, as it was busy enough it would have driven my CSR's crazy trying to keep up. However, two days of that sort of physical effort took its toll on me; by day's end I was exhausted and felt like someone was continuously poking me in my eyesockets. My evening was a ragged blur of catnaps and trying to decompress; sleep was a blessed relief when it whacked me with its pillowed hammer far too close to midnight for my liking. 

Oct 16 - Exhaustion

It was hard to wake up this morning, despite it being my only day off - I'm that tired, that fatigued, from working so hard in the last 48 hours. Combined with the stress of my mom coming so close to death so suddenly and I'm beat. I drove my dad to the hospital to visit with her for the day, spent a while there myself, then went to work for a couple of hours( on my day off )to straighten out the schedule - again. My 3rd CSR is still sick, so I had to juggle things again this week to keep things working; not fun or easy. But I finished by tea-time, went home and collapsed into a 2-hour nap, before getting some dinner and going back to the hospital to visit again with my mom. I also had the doctors check out some kind of irritation in my mouth; turns out it was worse than I thought and they gave me a prescription for Penicillin for the week to combat the infection. They said that stress has made things worse, so it's a good thing I got it checked out... and that I'll be even more tired because of it - not great. Back home late and collapsed into bed to start the week anew, hopefully with enough energy from somewhere. I hear bananas are good...

Sorry, but that's been the entirety of my week: stress and fatigue. I'm going to take a nap now... wake me up when it's 2012, 'kay?