Good news: Mike remains stable.
Bad news: It was a hell of a day. He was on a bi-pap (an intense oxygen supply device, just one step down from intubation), which requires a tightly fitting face mask. The top of his nose is raw.
It was his regular day for dialysis. He suffers a lot during the process. Also, the dialysis nurse was only able to extract 1 liter of liquid from him. Three is an average amount; five is high.
Fasten your seat belts. This day was stressful from beginning to end.
My phone rang at a quarter to 4. It woke me, but I knew any calls at that hour had to be a scam coming from the mainland. I was asleep again right after the last ring. Then I woke up somewhat later and thought, "Maybe it's the hospital." Yes, indeed. A few heart palpitations. I listened to the voice message to see who I would have to contact. The message said, "Nothing urgent. Just a change in his treatment." I called and found out that he had been put on the bi-pap because some blood test showed his CO2 level was too high. These breathing devices are not just to supply a higher density of oxygen, they are also designed to apply pressure to push the CO2 out of the lungs. From what I've seen: the lowest level is what you see people who have breathing problems walking around with. The next level is the high flow nasal cannula. This looks very much like the nose thingies you see people walking around with, but has thicker bands that go across the face and over the ears, holding it in place. It is called a high-flow cannula because air is actually pushed into the lungs under pressure. The next level is the bi-pap, and after that is intubation when they shove a tube right down your throat. I thanked the doctor for letting me know and went back to bed.
My getting up was only a problem because my back was hurting. I think it's a damaged disk. It's not sciatica., no pain down the back of my legs. I had some trouble going downstairs because I was in pain. I eeed, owed, and uhed my way down the stairs, had breakfast, and prepared to leave. I left my phone and my water bottle in the room. Abby, the young girl, really a woman, I mentioned before, collected them for me as well as delivering my dried laundry to my room after collecting it from the dryer.
Convinced I knew my way to the hospital by now, I left without turning on Lady Gaga. Okay, after I was 10 miles in the wrong direction zooming down a 4-lane highway, actually eight, if you count the lanes in both directions, I pulled over and resorted to the GPS. Good thing it wasn't rush-hour. I made it back, having lost about half an hour.
When I arrived, Mike was in the middle of dialysis with his bi-pap on and absolutely miserable. I spent most of the day doing what I could for him. Seeing his agitation, I asked if he could have something for his anxiety. The nurse gave him Ativan. He also told me he had been given Ativan last night. His respiration dropped dramatically, and he was unresponsive. They gave him Narcan to bring him back.
Remembering the conversation we had yesterday, he kept calling for Izawa, the doctor in charge of his pancreatitis issues and the overseer of his care. He wants Izawa to do something quickly. He doesn't understand why it's taking so long. I can understand his dilemma.
Damon had requested that Izawa call him directly. I had reported what Izawa had said to me, and Damon wanted to see if he had a different slant on what Izawa had to say. He sure did. Izawa gave me a primarily pessimistic report. If we have to put tubes in, it leads to a slippery slope, and given his kidney problems, it doesn't look very good. He gave Damon a very different picture.
First, Damon asked him if there was life after pancreatitis. Izawa said, "Absolutely!" I knew that already from Tom's report of his recovery. Then he asked what would happen if they put the tubes in. Putting the tubes in is in NOT considered a surgical procedure. I don't get it. You make a hole into someone's abdomen, and that's not surgery? Well, according to them, no. It's like a 100.3-degree temperature is not a temperature in a hospital. I feel as if I've landed in another universe. There is a whole language to learn and behavioral norms.
Putting the tubes in invites a bacterial infection. Damon asked if they would do what they could to prevent/combat infection. Yes, they would test the site and do everything they could. Damon walked away, feeling, "They got this under control" Me, not so much. But his upbeat attitude gave me a lift.
While Damon and I were on the phone comparing notes, the hospitalist, who happens to be the wife of Dr. X, (yikes), a lovely straightforward lady from the Bronx, who can deliver difficult news and have compassion. (By the way, I was told that the behavior I experienced at Dr. X's hands is very unusual for him. He is usually a mellow guy. Love it! I must have triggered something in him. I probably remind him of his hypercritical and dismissive mother. Remember, I told him that I couldn't take in all the information he was throwing at me. I thought I even said that I was on overload. )
At any rate, his wife gave us details that again left me feeling down, and Damon feeling upbeat. Of course, I'm exhausted from this experience, particularly on this day, when I had no opportunity to write. The writing has a very positive impact on me. It relaxes me. I think it is a form of play, figuring out how to express what is going on in words.
The things she said that alarmed me were that the TPN, the intravenous nutritional supplement, it loaded with sugar for calories. Bacteria love sugar. She also talked about a form of encephalitis that can result from something. She spoke about his blood pressure dropping too low and surgery being impossible. There are so many snares ahead of us, and his age and kidney disease work against him. I'm finding it a little harder to be optimistic. Thank God Damon is holding up the optimistic end.
About an hour into the dialysis, I actually climbed into bed with him. That calmed him a little. I leaned over the rail of his bed and put my head on his pillow into bed with him. The dialysis nurse and the hospital aide, who was his sitter, were fantastic. They moved him over to one side and encouraged me to get in bed. I commented this would make a great picture. The aide went into the hallway where my phone was charging and came back to take that picture. I wish I knew how to incorporate photographs into the text from my phone, but I don't. I did send it to family members. I spent the last 3 hours of his dialysis lying next to him. He said it made him feel better. I said we have a date every T, T, S, which are his usual days for dialysis.
I felt I had to pee. In the past, the dialysis nurse has allowed me to wiggle past all the dialysis equipment to get to the toilet. Jeff, from the other day, had no problems, even though I couldn't close the door. He just looked the other way. Who wants to see a 78-year-old woman pee? But, this time, the nurse said no, So I had to make a run for it down the hall to the public bathrooms. Oops! While my bladder remains operational, unlike Mike's, it is no longer open to negotiation.
I left late tonight at almost 7:30 pm. I wanted to wait until the bi-pap was off, and I was sure he had been moved after four hours of holding still for the dialysis.
I went off to the ashram. I knew I had been moved to a different room because my Airbnb had expired. Govinda, the ashram manager, had called me at the hospital to say that he had to move me to another room because the room I was in had been rented. He had told me upfront that he couldn't give me the room straight through because others had already made reservations. I said, "No worries. Just gather up my stuff and put it in the new room."
Govinda had told me that I would have to share a bathroom instead of having a private one. I bought a robe from Target for that very purpose. I don't know what you think of when you hear 'shared bathroom,' but my vision was one bathroom on a floor with several bedrooms. Not! After dinner, someone led me to my room. It was a 6 x8 space with a door leading directly to the outside with no inside access. The light switch was tucked into a corner. You had to grope for it in the dark. There was a bunk bed made of unfinished, as in the sense of just fresh from Home Depot, 4 by 4s hammered together to be functional. The mattress was one of those old spring ones that I haven't seen since I watched an old cowboy movie. To get into the room, I had to step up, two big steps. One to stand on the cement blocks serving as a step, and the second to get into the room. But the best part was that there was no bathroom attached to the room. I was expected to go outside in the dark of night, clamber over some stepping stones to find this 'shared' bathroom.' I have to pee 2 to 4 times a night. These quarters might be good for a 20-year-old, but it was downright dangerous for me.
While I was waiting for Govinda to come back to see if this is what he really meant for me, I called Judy to share my situation. She had the only appropriate response; she laughed with me. She pushed me to make a hotel reservation. I found one place that had something that looked like a reasonable rate and booked it through Booking.com.
When I got to the hotel, the guy told me I had made a reservation for the next night, not for the 16th. Booking site showed the 17th, and I just assumed it was the 17th. The hotel is in the middle of an industrial neighborhood. Certainly not 5-star. Not even top-shelf. The guy and the front desk tried to find me a room. He said for $55 more, I could have a room with 4 beds. It was the four beds that got me. It felt like I would feel so isolated and lonely.
I tried to call the Ambassador Hotel, but I got there 800- booking number, which is somewhere on the mainland. They told me to call the hotel number. When I asked for the number, they gave me the same one I had just called. I checked as to which was closer to where I was at that moment, the Ambassador or the Airport Hotel. When I got to the Airport Hotel, there was a line of 50 to 75 people. A plane that was supposed to fly to the mainland was unfit to make it across the ocean. These good folks were being put up at the hotel on the airline's dime. When I realized they all had their booking already, I went up to the register to see if there would be any more rooms. Nope. I thought, okay, let's try the Prince where Damon put us up. On my way over there, I thought, "I'm right here by the Ala Moana. That's where we stay when Mike is in the hospital." As I was approaching the area, my phone rang.
As I was approaching the Ala Moana, the phone rang. It was Judy saying she had found me a room. She said even the Ala Moana was completely booked. All the rooms in both Honolulu and Kona were booked. It's the height of the tourist season and a three-day holiday. Folks around here take 'staycations," which means they move to a local hotel for a few days. The only room Judy found was at the Outrigger Ohana East. I would be $300 for the night. Yikes! By that time, it was after 10 pm, and I had been driving all over Honolulu. I said I'd sleep in the car. She persuaded me to take it, pointing out that I couldn't sleep in the car overnight. I went off to find it.
Lady Gaga's directions were pretty good except for one turn. Sometimes it's unclear exactly where the turn is. She will say 90 feet; I think it's the next corner, and then it will quickly drop to 0', meaning turn now. Sometimes, I miss the turn as a result. So, when she gave the direction to make a slight left turn, I did. I hit the brakes as I saw two arrows on the pavement, pointing right at me. So, I had to back up into a two-way street at 10 pm in the middle of Waikiki at night. Fortunately, Honolulu is not NYC. Even though it was a busy night on a main street in Honolulu's tourist district, the cars coming toward me stopped and patiently waited. No one, and I do mean no one, honked a horn. I pulled into the correct turn lane and made the left hand turn at the other side of that triangle.
I saw the hotel and made out that there was a circular driveway, of sorts, in front of it. It was some small modification of the sidewalk. Only, there was a bus blocking the entrance. There I sat for another 10 minutes until it moved. I went up to register, hoping this would work. It did.
I asked for a bellhop to take up my luggage because I had so many different bags, and my back was killing me. I actually said, "I may look homeless, but I'm not." I think I looked like a resident of Hawaii. While tourists were running around half-naked, I was in long pants, a shirt with two sweatshirts and a large scarf, and I was cold. My nerves were frayed by this time. I got a little testy with the receptionist. I explained my circumstances to her, Mike being in the hospital and me being in this rather peculiar circumstance. The bellhop told me the receptionist told him to take good care of me. He also told me she wanted to see me again. Off I go to talk to her; what now? She told me that since I'm Kama'aina (It literally means child or person of the land, meaning someone who is born here or is an established resident of Hawaii), I was entitled to a discount, and she is going to give me a room upgrade.
The bellhop is a wonderful protective man. Any question about what I was doing in a $300 hotel for the night with a bunch of shopping bags is dispelled when they see the shopping bags are all from Kaiser Permanente, the hospital. The bellhop walked me through the building to show me where the parking lot entrance was, and how to get the elevator to my floor.
When I got up to the 10th floor, he was there, catching an elevator back down. When I offered him a tip, he refused. There are so many people in Hawaii who extend kindness. Mike and I love living here.
The room was clean and had typical hotel furniture. If this was an upgrade, I hate to think about what they were offering me initially for the $300. It was the smallest hotel or motel room I have ever seen, but stuffed into the room was a breakfront with a flat-screen tv on top and a safe and frig. in it, two chairs and a small table. The bathroom was another super small space. The shower was the smallest shower I have ever been in, and it was oddly shaped a wedge. However, it fulfilled my needs. It was huge compared to the 6 x 8 room I had been offered at the ashram. Of course, it was just a tiny bit more expensive.
Judy remembered that there is a Catholic retreat center here on the island which offers nice private rooms with bath at a very reasonable rate. She is going to see if she can get me into the center. I might have some priority because I am a deacon's wife. We'll see. The reservation office won't be open until Monday, or even possibly Tuesday since it's Presidents' Day this Monday. It sounds perfect for my needs.
