Hello, all!
Lealonnie and her husband are traveling to AZ today, to begin their journey at Mayo.
Her husband will be receiving a liver transplant.
She has given me permission to begin a thread here.
Please pray for their safe travel, and for all to go well.
She’ll pop in as she’s able, and give us updates.
Admins, would you please move this to discussions? I can’t seem to figure out how to do that.
Caring Bridge Journal Entry
1:00 pm
Chuck had 3 appointments today; labs, an RN visit & a doctor visit with Dr Mayo. His numbers are looking great to the point where his Friday RN & doctor appointments have been canceled! He has a lab visit only on that day to make sure his bloodwork is still on track, and that's it. Dr Mayo told us to enjoy the rest of that day OFF, which we're totally on board with.
If the EMG nerve test doesn't show anything horrible going on, Chuck can get physical therapy back home for his drop-foot issue which seems to be improving with the use of the boot and walking. His last scheduled appointment here in Arizona is on June 3, and barring nothing going wrong in the interim, we will be discharged from the Mayo Clinic and given over to Kaiser care back in Denver meaning we can GO HOME! We would be very happy to do so, although the prospect of leaving the cocoon of safety & efficiency here at the Mayo is a bit scary. We'll take things one day at a time in the meanwhile, however, and enjoy our remaining time here. It's comfortable and we're in good hands here, which is all that truly counts.
The weight loss has stopped for now and Chuck is back on the upswing!
I posted a photo of him at our kitchen counter eating and looking pretty darn good! He's also back to using his outside voice which is very loud and booming and surprised our support group when he hollered for Honey! 🤣
I have a suggestion for your husband's meds that has worked for me. I made a chart with ten meds listed alphabetically per page, with columns labeled Morning, Midday, Evening, Bedtime and in those columns the number of pills he gets per med. I size this chart to take up the full page. I have the pages printed out. When I fill his pillboxes, I go down the list, one prescription bottle at a time, moving them from the left side of the table to the right side as I fill each slot. Then, each time I give him his meds that week, I empty the slot and place each pill on the chart. If I have missed a pill, the number in that column will be uncovered, so I know I need to get that pill. Or if I've got a pill I shouldn't have for that time period, I'll see there is no number on the chart and I can put it back. Since I have four different pill boxes (instead of one of those nice big all week boxes), I also color coded my chart to match the color of the pill boxes.
I think my system is easier to do than to describe! However, if something happened to me, someone else would be able to do his meds for him easily enough I think.
Thank you, God, for giving our friends a must needed rest for a few days! 🙏💜
I so hope you get home soon. There's no place like home.
Every single person here, Lea, is dealing with some loved one in a stage of medical and emotional crisis that affects the whole family. The fact that it’s you makes your situation like everyone else’s in that way, and most everyone else is not demanding that they hear only what they want.
You keep using the term animal cruelty. As someone who worked in an agency directly enforcing animal cruelty statutes for a decade, persistent barking in and of itself is not anywhere NEAR animal cruelty. It is a nuisance matter. You went to your Marriott to request that the nuisance be removed.
Thats fine. It’s also fine if you really don’t care that this other family may have an excuse for it, such as having to keep a deathwatch vigil on hospice. Or being the family of a potential donor on life support. Whatever the reasons they may have, it’s a valid argument that it’s not your business.
Its not your biz either to pontificate that the dogs MUST be neglected or abused because their behavior annoys you. Fact is you don’t care what the family circumstances are, but you’re purely speculating that they must be bad dog parents publicly regardless..
Own it.
PeggySue, I am ASKING you to stop commenting on my discussion thread which has to do with my caregiving journey with my DH and his liver transplant. Obviously I can't 'make' you stop leaving argumentative comments that stress me out further, which is why I'm ASKING you to stop. If you insist on leaving more comments, I'll just ignore them and you from here on out. What I need is support and decency right now, nothing else, period.
It is irresponsible and cruel to put these dogs through the trauma they are feeling to behave as they are. There is no excuse and I am happy to hear that the hotel is dealing with it.
I am so sorry that you guys have been subjected to this during a time when you really need peace, quiet and calm.
I pray that The Lord touches Chucks body and heals him from everything that is going on.
The same goes for this Marriott. If you went to management and they said they’d talk to them, well they may or may do that in the time frame you wish. But fact is that your dog is just someone else’s dog to almost everyone too. That’s why I pointed out that they put the pet people together.
I am advocating in this situation that you be compassionate about it.
I've asked you to stop commenting on this thread, and you're still here commenting. So I'll ask you once again to please STOP commenting on this thread. Thank you.
If they are there on vacation they should be gone after a week. If not perhaps they have a medical or personal crisis going on.
You can ask to be moved to another room in the development, but my friend in hospitality tells me there are only so many rooms for people with pets.
So far, so good..........no appointments, no calls, no bad news........just 2 dogs howling and barking in the room next door. I called the manager and said I'm ready to have a meltdown, PLEASE make these dogs stop barking/howling somehow, this is animal cruelty what their owners are doing (they barked/howled for 12 hours straight yesterday!!). So about 15 minutes later, it stopped. Thank GOD.
May you continue to see God's hand in this journey that you and Chuck are on.
Well, we just got back from doctor's appointments and then the Emergency Room where we spent 3 hours with DH, who has a drop-foot. He had a CT scan there which shows no problems like hematomas or tumors inside of his body, fortunately, so the conclusion is that it's a nerve issue in the peroneus calf muscle of his right leg. This can sometimes happen after surgery and/or laying around a hospital bed for 9 days as he did after his second surgery. That was the neurologist's conclusion who's ordering an EMG test for him next week. In the meantime, he's wearing a boot on his leg while walking around to prevent him from catching his toe and falling (which is the last thing we need to happen!)
Let's all say this together: NO APPOINTMENTS FOR THE WEEKEND! We are going to relax and do nothing for the next two days. We are going to eat healthy food, relax on the couch and/or out by the pool if the heat of the sun isn't excruciating, and sleep late. No Emergency Rooms. No pharmacies. Nada. Zip. Just one weekend off.