State of Me
Mar. 8th, 2018 06:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trickykittyStill holding on precariously to sanity with 2nd job not quite done with layering on the madness. I figure about two more weeks and then I'll start to see the semblance of a regular weekly workload. Maybe. Hopefully.
I'm exhausted. I'm snapping at people and have lost all patience for anything. It's not just the two job thing, although that obviously is an added pressure. It's me thinking about future things. The uncle still in the hospital. The other uncle and aunt that I finally saw for the first time in a few years at the hospital. Dad announcing he'll finally try to retire before the end of this year. Mom always having back pain. I worry about them dying now, and what kind of pressure that will create for me regarding the boys and my sister. The idea of going back to grad school always hangs over my head.
Speaking of the uncle, he's now officially on hospice, although who the hell knows for how long.
We've had about a weekly warning that he might not make it though the night all month long, and I'm now convinced he'll live another 5+ months just as he is.
At this point they can't do surgery on his tumored-all-to-hell lung, because they don't think he will make it through surgery. They had put some kind of tube into his good lung to get enough oxygen into his system and removed the intubation, and there were plans to move him to a rehab center once he gained a little strength. That plan included hooking the good lung up to a newer, fancier breathing machine which required pulling the old style tube out and putting another one in. When they pulled the tube out, the good lung collapsed. At this point he's only getting pure oxygen through the oxygen tube in his nose, and he refuses to be intubated again.
Once the intubation was removed, all he kept asking for was a burger and coffee (his default diet for the past couple decades) and complaining that he was hungry. He had been on a feeding tube throughout the bulk of his time in ICU, and the hunger feeling is natural when the stomach really is just sitting there idle. The nurses gave him a little bit of something to eat, but now his upper esophageal sphincter is not doing its job properly keeping the esophagus and trachea separated. Food is making its way into his tumored lung, and possibly a little into the collapsed lung, so now he keeps aspirating food out of his lung every so often.
We're essentially waiting for him to eventually choke to death on his own lunch. He has a DNR, and it's been made clear by both him and the family that he's not to go back onto a respirator. They give him pain meds, food, and all the coffee his little stomach and lungs can handle, and he happily sits watching the television all day pining his time away. He's content. He was smiling and enjoying the company when we were there. He joked about how the nurses in ICU were cuter than the ones in the next-level ICU ward were he was staying prior to hospice. I think the pure oxygen and lack of cigarettes are actually helping him think more clearly, and less talking to the television and the voices in his head, but he still has the mind of an 8 year old. He has said he knows he's dying, but he's just there, smiling, not worrying about anything in the world. All of his possessions are there in the closet with him.
My mom can't get the electricity to his apartment turned off, even though the apartment has already been let to someone else. She told the electric company about his situation, but they said they have to hear from him directly, but someone who isn't family or a nurse in the room with him really isn't going to be able to understand him over a phone. So she's just going to let those bills go unpaid until they turn off the electricity. I'm going to encourage her to try to get him on the phone with them anyway.
I'm chalking a good portion of my mental state up to the family side of things. Work stuff is busy, and drama-filled, but otherwise actually helping with my mental state as I knock tasks off of the to-do list. Waiting for someone to die and thinking about others around me dying, on the other hand, is no proper mental state for anyone. It's causing me to become a grumpy bitch, and I'm really not fit for social interactions right now, even though I know good social interactions are typically the cure. I'm just too worried I'll piss people off being bitchy instead of being comforted by their presence. Like I said, I've lost all patience - I'm too tired for that.
The end result is me having a hard time opening my eyes every morning and wandering the world with constant, massive jaw and neck tension. I think I've had some form of a permanent crick in my neck for the past two weeks now. I don't have enough Valium in the cabinet.
I'm exhausted. I'm snapping at people and have lost all patience for anything. It's not just the two job thing, although that obviously is an added pressure. It's me thinking about future things. The uncle still in the hospital. The other uncle and aunt that I finally saw for the first time in a few years at the hospital. Dad announcing he'll finally try to retire before the end of this year. Mom always having back pain. I worry about them dying now, and what kind of pressure that will create for me regarding the boys and my sister. The idea of going back to grad school always hangs over my head.
Speaking of the uncle, he's now officially on hospice, although who the hell knows for how long.
We've had about a weekly warning that he might not make it though the night all month long, and I'm now convinced he'll live another 5+ months just as he is.
At this point they can't do surgery on his tumored-all-to-hell lung, because they don't think he will make it through surgery. They had put some kind of tube into his good lung to get enough oxygen into his system and removed the intubation, and there were plans to move him to a rehab center once he gained a little strength. That plan included hooking the good lung up to a newer, fancier breathing machine which required pulling the old style tube out and putting another one in. When they pulled the tube out, the good lung collapsed. At this point he's only getting pure oxygen through the oxygen tube in his nose, and he refuses to be intubated again.
Once the intubation was removed, all he kept asking for was a burger and coffee (his default diet for the past couple decades) and complaining that he was hungry. He had been on a feeding tube throughout the bulk of his time in ICU, and the hunger feeling is natural when the stomach really is just sitting there idle. The nurses gave him a little bit of something to eat, but now his upper esophageal sphincter is not doing its job properly keeping the esophagus and trachea separated. Food is making its way into his tumored lung, and possibly a little into the collapsed lung, so now he keeps aspirating food out of his lung every so often.
We're essentially waiting for him to eventually choke to death on his own lunch. He has a DNR, and it's been made clear by both him and the family that he's not to go back onto a respirator. They give him pain meds, food, and all the coffee his little stomach and lungs can handle, and he happily sits watching the television all day pining his time away. He's content. He was smiling and enjoying the company when we were there. He joked about how the nurses in ICU were cuter than the ones in the next-level ICU ward were he was staying prior to hospice. I think the pure oxygen and lack of cigarettes are actually helping him think more clearly, and less talking to the television and the voices in his head, but he still has the mind of an 8 year old. He has said he knows he's dying, but he's just there, smiling, not worrying about anything in the world. All of his possessions are there in the closet with him.
My mom can't get the electricity to his apartment turned off, even though the apartment has already been let to someone else. She told the electric company about his situation, but they said they have to hear from him directly, but someone who isn't family or a nurse in the room with him really isn't going to be able to understand him over a phone. So she's just going to let those bills go unpaid until they turn off the electricity. I'm going to encourage her to try to get him on the phone with them anyway.
I'm chalking a good portion of my mental state up to the family side of things. Work stuff is busy, and drama-filled, but otherwise actually helping with my mental state as I knock tasks off of the to-do list. Waiting for someone to die and thinking about others around me dying, on the other hand, is no proper mental state for anyone. It's causing me to become a grumpy bitch, and I'm really not fit for social interactions right now, even though I know good social interactions are typically the cure. I'm just too worried I'll piss people off being bitchy instead of being comforted by their presence. Like I said, I've lost all patience - I'm too tired for that.
The end result is me having a hard time opening my eyes every morning and wandering the world with constant, massive jaw and neck tension. I think I've had some form of a permanent crick in my neck for the past two weeks now. I don't have enough Valium in the cabinet.
