Last Year

In July 2009 I had a bout of pneumonia. I missed a few weeks of work and was back to work when I felt really weak and tired in the Fall. Around September I left work one day and was told again I had another case of pneumonia. At that time I also had fluid in one of my lungs and was hospitalized. I was inpatient for ten days and they never could figure out what was causing the bouts of pneumonia and the anemia and other issues. I was not feeling that I was improving and my grandmother, who I so dearly loved went home to be with the Lord on October 14th. I had learned in the summer that she had breast cancer (and had chosen for only her two daughters to know at first), she had decided not to have any treatment based on the doctor telling her that it was a non agressive form of cancer. Apparently after about a year it became very agressive and was basically everywhere by that Fall. To be honest, I was so ill myself I couldn't process all that was going on with her, not even when she called me several times the months before she died to say goodbye. The day of her funeral we went 200 miles to attend her funeral, have lunch with family afterwards, then drive home. I don't know how I made it that day. I had lost thrity pounds between September and November when I was hospitalized again. This time the pneumonia was in both lungs and they called in a few specialists, including my cardiologist and an infectious disease doctor. They did a TEE and found that there was an infection on one of my heart valves. Fortunately, it was not on the mechanical valve (which would have meant another heart surgery) but on the mitral valve instead. I had a PICC line put in and was sent home. I was not able to return to work until the following January. I was on home IVs for six weeks. Despite that I was having so much difficulty breathing. I returned to work and was just getting back into the swing of things there when I began coughing all over again. It was terrible. I was asked to stop coughing by coworkers. It was embarassing. I went to the doctor who sent me for an xray and I was told I had another "small pneumonia" and given oral antibiotics. Several days later I went to an ER and again was sent home with the same information and another prescription for antibiotics. Some 48 hours later I went to the big hospital where I had had my heart surgery and was rushed into the ER. Now I was coughing up blood and in respiratory distress. The xray showed I had a "horrible" pneumonia according to three doctors. I was admitted and put on five intravenous antibiotics. I was so sick it took me about five days to even care I was in the hospital. I had numerous CT scans, and other tests done. I think they tested me for everything. I had another PICC line put in. Sent home on more antibiotics, again so very weak. I simply had to get back to work and returned July 1st. What a year July 20009-2010 was.

As though all this were not enough my mother-in-law got angry with us. She felt her son was neglecting her and told me I had changed him. This was a difficult thing for me to go through. I made a post that I had been hurt. Her sister and niece read it and I felt exaggerated it greatly. I gave her time to cool off but when I did call her, she made it clear that the relationship we previously had was gone. So be it. I will not agonize over it any more. I did for awhile but I have prayed and left it in God's hands. Only he can speak to her and show her that a man's sick wife should be his priority.