…to my much-anticipated NM excursion starts today * with Day 8 (I’ll explain why I didn’t start with “10”in a moment)
* I started this ramble yesterday morning, but didn’t finish it off until today
Christina flew back from her Florida business trip and drove herself straight to the ER, as she had gotten steadily sicker & sicker all week. They hospitalized her, put her back on oxygen & started investigating abnormalities in her ECG and elevated cardiac enzymes (!!!) I wound up driving Catie back to Paris (Texas, that is! ;-) since Marty had to pick up their other child 13-year-old Christian) from his ranch camp Saturday.
They have given her loads of fluids & steroids (!!! I’m all for steroids but they can mask symptoms); culture is pending on sputum but the working diagnosis at this point seems to be a fungal sinus infection, which makes sense after her critical-care hospitalization for sepsis & bacterial pneumonia in May. Fungi are opportunistic organisms, I doubt that Christina gave herself ample opportunity to rest & recover after that ordeal.
Human medicine is incredibly frustrating (which I know in large part is secondary to our fragmented, multi-tiered healthcare system) - I want to give the hinterlands another day or two, then I’ll nudge Christina to seek care at UT-SW in Dallas or the Texas Medical Center in Houston. Her health is too valuable to mess around like this - one thing I have always credited my ex-husband with was his demand that I go to MD Anderson, the premier cancer facility in the SW. Especially after I was misdiagnosed at the College Station clinic - given “6 - 12 months” with an undifferentiated adenocarcinoma! Imagine our shock & horror in what was otherwise a healthy (asymptomatic), robust 25-yr old who was just graduating from veterinary school. At the time, I believed M was motivated by “undying love & devotion”, but in retrospect I think his motivations were more sinister - he kept on pressing my surgeon for life expectancy predictions, not so much bcz he couldn’t stand life without me but exactly the opposite: if I died of cancer, he wouldn’t have to divorce me to be with his “soulmate” (gag)
Let me wipe the slate on that and get back to the present: Saturday afternoon, Marty wanted to show me their place, which is a “workshop-aminium” built by his dad on his acreage about 15 mi E of Paris. It was somewhat shocking to me considering the nice places they have lived in the past - basically an efficiency apartment. Marty is in the process of remodeling a three bedroom/two bath , modest ranchette brick home down the road a piece but he’s got a ways to go… no wonder Catie thought Zach’s old bedroom was the lap of luxury! I didn’t take any pictures, but I did get blood samples drawn on Marty’s ponies - I could at least do that much for him.
I wanted to make a pilgrimage by the new lake (Bois D’arc) and visit my aunt’s old house one more time but I was running out of hours in the day.
Christina sounds very run down. I hope her husband and kids are able to help her to recover. At least there are excellent medical facilities in your area. We have to drive to St. Louis or the Metroeast area here. Finding a doctor here is harder and harder. They are all part time.
ReplyDeleteFunny how times change. We used to have the nicest house in the neighborhood and then the V.A. completely remodeled the house to the west as a veteran lived there who seldom if ever worked. The the house to the east, his daughter married into the 4th richest family in Illinois
and they bought him a really fancy double wide. I would never want either of their homes, not my taste and I don't like mobile homes but both are like new now. Our property is much better.
I love Christina's husband Marty to death - he reminds me a great deal of my god-brother PJ - but he is definitely akin to a deer-in-the-headlights concerning Christina's recent health crises. Christina has always been such a high-powered, perpetual motion "force of nature" that it is shocking in many ways to see her laid low in this manner. But if she wants to avoid permanent disability, she's got to rest up, allow herself time to recover properly, and last but not least, get a definitive diagnosis!
DeleteThat is a shame about Marty. I hope you can gently nudge Christina and Marty in the right direction before it is too late.
DeleteFrom your description of Marty, he reminds me of my dad, facing the situation when my mom got very sick. Some people just don't have it in them to be care-givers, and my dad was one of those who did not.
ReplyDeleteKeeping a kind and healing thought toward Christina!