Tonight's picture was taken in May of 2007. That afternoon, we were having lunch outside on our deck. Peter snapped this photo of Mattie and me, as Mattie was having one of his tender moments. I can't tell you how much time we spent outside on this deck, at all times of year. Mattie gravitated to being outside, and I credit Mattie for my love of the outdoors.
Quote of the day: Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you. ~ Augustine of Hippo
It was another early morning, as I had to take my dad to his follow pulmonology appointment. My dad took a CT scan on Tuesday at the hospital. I did receive his results in my portal, but we had a follow up appointment today with the pulmonologist. This is what I love about scans! You take them to find out about one issue and land up learning about several others. Thankfully my dad's lungs are fine. But the scan showed us he has gallstones and a 12mm kidney stone.
In May of 2020, in the height of COVID, my dad was rushed to the hospital because he kept falling. In addition to falling he wasn't eating (lost about 30 pounds) and wasn't cognitively intact. It turned out he had a kidney stone blocking his ureter and had developed urinary sepsis. Keep in mind I wasn't overseeing my parents care at that point in time. On an aside, during this hospitalization my parent's primary care doctor asked me..... how did your mom not see this massive decline in your dad? Another doctor I am not thrilled with because the doctor himself hadn't observed my mom's decline either!
It is quite possible that if we intervened sooner with some of my dad's symptoms, we could have prevented the sepsis, the surgery to remove the stone, and a week long hospitalization. During that hospitalization, my dad also developed uncontrollable hiccups, which he had for about three weeks. He got them from the CT scan contrast they used on him. The doctor put my dad on a psychotropic medication to stop the hiccups, which did not work! Needless to say, when my dad came out of the hospital after that week, he had delirium, was a handful to rehabilitate, and unfortunately he moved from early to moderate stage dementia in that short period of time. I credit that cognitive decline to a combination of things.... sepsis, hospitalization and isolation during COVID, and being a psychotropic medication for three weeks.
I am telling you all of this because the CT scan my dad took this week revealed a pretty big kidney stone. A 12mm stone is close to a half of an inch. The thing is I knew he had a stone in his left kidney from 2020. The doctor told me about it and he was scanning my dad on a regular basis to monitor the stone. However, since my dad moved East, I have been juggling so much that the stone fell off my radar scope. So today, I got my dad an appointment to see a urologist next week. Another specialist added to our alphabet soup. Given that I have had the same issue with stones as my dad, I know that his doctor could have removed the stone blocking the ureter and done lithotripsy at the same time to blast out the one in the kidney. If that had been done, we wouldn't be faced with this now.
In addition to the non-stop juggling of appointments, needs, and tasks, my dad has been having major issues with bowel movements. In fact, I caught him in the shower this morning, before he was about to go all over the place. When we got to the doctor's office, he wanted me to take him the bathroom again because he felt he had to go! My life has turned into monitoring and evaluating bowel movements, not to mention major clean up jobs! In any case, I feel like I have gone ten rounds this week, my back is killing me, and I am exhausted. Yet I know I have to park that somewhere, because I have another fun filled day of this tomorrow, and the next day, etc!
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