The Sober Widow

Chapter 6

Other than attending to the laundry list of tasks to get ready for transplant, I believe I spent most of August at home. My brother, Mike, had basically moved in with me to take care of Primo and to a large extent, of me. All that month and up until I went in the hospital for good in early October, he was running me back and forth to appointments, etc. A total godsend and I truly don’t know what I would have done without him.

It must also be said that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Tony’s friends and his brother Russ and sister Margaret. Especially when I ended up permanently in the hospital, they helped so much to spell my brother in terms of walking Primo and giving him his daily drops (medication for his eyes). I was just talking to a friend today that I felt SO GUILTY about leaving Primo in their care all autumn long, simply because he had already lost his daddy and now me. And I couldn’t explain to him what was going on. But bless him, he adjusted, and the care he received from family and friends had everything to do with it.

I was trying to remember today what I had to do during this time. There were so many tests to take (colonoscopy, mammogram, heart ultrasound, and more). And if you don’t get your transplant within a certain time frame, you have to do the heart ultrasound again because it needs to be current. Oh, and let’s not forget the five liters of fluid they had to take out of me every week because I was swelling up like the Michelin man every day. See the photo posted here? That’s five liters. Remember the time I said they took 10? Imagine carrying that much extra fluid around constantly. I’m surprised I wasn’t sloshing with every step I took!

In late October, they decided to look at my heart more closely, which involved a large needle (catheter) and scope being inserted into my carotid artery going all the way to the heart to take tons of pictures. They told me that I had to be awake for it but that they would be numbing me up so I wouldn’t really feel it. THEY LIED. It hurt like you can’t believe, and I was pretty much sobbing until they were done. It was awful. In fact, one of the doctors said “come on, it’s not that bad” and I swear to God I wanted to pull the catheter out of my neck and jam it into his. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

So now it’s September. I was feeling well enough to run an errand to return something to Amazon and there is a Whole Foods about two miles from my house. When I got home, I stepped out of the car, and when I went to close the car door, the sharp edge at the lower end clipped my calf and the blood and fluid started gushing out. My legs and ankles were incredibly swollen still, so the fluid is going to take any opportunity to get the hell out of there.

I’m standing in my driveway trying to put something on my leg (outside area of my right calf, very difficult to get to from a standing position) and there’s blood everywhere. I panicked and called my next-door neighbor, Carol, who came running over (thank goodness). She helped me into the house and I told her where the towels were.

For the next three hours, I soaked almost every towel I had. I called my friend Lucia for advice and she pretty much yelled at me to get my ass to the emergency room, because the fluid would not stop leaking (the blood had stopped long ago). Luckily Carol was available and drove me, whereupon I had four stitches put in and multiple bandages wrapped around my leg. This is the part where you’re afraid to ask, “what more can happen?” Am I right? 😊

The leg stopped leaking for the time being. Then, on October 3, my brother-in-law Russell was going to drive me to get my colonoscopy at Salem Hospital, but my bloodwork the day before had my gastroenterologist calling me before we left, saying that she would cancel that appointment for me, but I needed to get to the Mass General emergency room right away. Apparently, the high amount of fluid in my body, coupled with the fact that my kidney numbers were out of control, made me a higher risk of infection for any type of procedure involving putting invasive scopes, etc. into my body. Thank goodness for Russell, he was a trooper and drove me right in. After the initial triage and basic examination, they admitted me right away, and there I stayed until December 18.

I’ll leave you with that thought for now. (much) More to come! Thanks so much for staying with me this far!