He Ain’t All That and a Bag of Chips!

Last night there was lots of shouting, swearing, and crying…and for once it wasn’t me. Joey had a baaaaad time pain-wise. Then this morning he felt much better. How is this possible? No idea and we are still waiting for diagnostic tests to find out what’s going on. He was supposed to have a CT scan this afternoon. He drank the contrast dye, but one of the CT machines is broken, so I guess it won’t happen until next week now. Maybe we’ll head down to Celebrities and make use of their black light so he didn’t drink the dye for no reason. Friday night: woo-woo!

Realistically, there is no freaking way we are doing that; he feels better than last night, but it would be pretty tough not to. Looks like it’s trashy TV time again, although he has sternly warned me that if I give away any of his secret shows, I might be banned from future participation in this activity. (Apparently Kimberly is on notice for having loose lips re: his thoughts about Dog the Bounty Hunter).

I don’t think Leland is cute. Brah.

K & J

Update to the update: CT scan is done. Go staff at St. Paul’s! Guess I’m heading to Celebrities solo.

Side Pain

New mysterious pain was bad for most of the day, then eased up a bit this evening. An ultrasound was done to try and figure out what it is. Didn’t help with that, but did help to figure out a few things that it is not. When we saw his doc this evening it hurt less, so the plan for now is to reassess in the morning. If it’s gone, we’re good with that. If it gets worse again, some more tests will be done, I guess.

Today I watched Joey sleep until dinner time. Then Kimberly came over for a bit and we watched trashy TV. Party on.

K

Egads!

I frequently wonder whether I need to qualify my reports that Joey is having a good day/something went well with the reminder that he generally feels like crap, but there are times when he feels less crappy. It’s a tricky balance between getting everyone’s hopes too high and being overly negative/depressing in my reports. Take yesterday for example. Pro: he is awake a hell of a lot more than he was before I went to PR, we got to go on a walk, and had lunch with Ed and Debbie. That’s pretty exciting. Con: when we got back to the hospital his pain got worse and he puked up the lunch he had eaten. Pro: at least he got to taste it twice. Always look on the bright side of life…

Basically I just wanted to throw out the reminder that Joey still needs a liver transplant and won’t be feeling 100% for quite a while. They are still tinkering with pain meds, so although he has some days/hours that are better than others, he is still in pain pretty much all of the time. Just sometimes are worse than others. And he’s gotten pretty good at dealing with it so it’s not obvious.

Today was a so-so day. A new mysterious pain has appeared on his non-liver side. Tomorrow some tests are going to be done to see if they can figure out what it is. Apparently it happened once on the weekend, then went away for a few days, reappeared today, then decreased again tonight. Hopefully it fucks off for good.

Thanks for loving my baby.

Kirstin

PS When I read Joey this post, he asked me whether “fuck” was on my dad’s list of approved swear words. No it is not. Egads!

I’m Back, Jack!

I’m back and Joey looks a hell of a lot better than when I left. Today we went on a walk and out for lunch with Ed and Debbie. That was pretty amazing that he was able to do that. When we got back to the hospital he was hurtin’ with a headache, so he took it easy for the rest of the night, but that is still a huge improvement.

Was also excited that we got to speak with our friend Brenda Small today; another Powell Riverite who had a double lung transplant last month. She is out of hospital and doing well. Yahoo!
Kirstin

The Great Escape

I abandoned J-dub for a couple of days and came to Powell River to try and force myself to relax. So far, so-so. Barb asked me yesterday what I do with myself while Joey is asleep (approx 85-90% of the time these days). Couldn’t really come up with an answer. Some jewelry making and some reading I guess. Most of the time I just stare out the window brooding and fine-tuning my rampant anxiety disorder. Is that a hobby? Hence the reason I needed to come home for a couple of days to try and chill out. Spent yesterday afternoon doing some lightening visits and have been out south the rest of the time trying to fix my broken internet (gave up – hence the lack of posts) and finishing up miscellaneous sewing/clothing repair projects from the last couple of years. Heading back tomorrow.

Joey tells me he has been doing all right in my absence. A few of our Vancouver peeps have been trying to have visits, but like I said, he is asleep most of the time these days and seems to be having fairly regular headaches, which makes him a bit of a Debbie Downer to try and hang out with. (Headaches could be caused by the liver not filtering out the toxins in his body properly. Taking mass amounts of painkillers adds to this problem). Thanks for trying guys. We both appreciate it.

Looking into my crystal ball, I see napping in Joey’s future. In mine, I see lazing about at home, sewing, and visiting with whoever feels like calling me and stopping by. It is also possible that I might feed some seagulls if I am feeling ambitious. (I like them, damn it!)

Kirstin