Crystal Groves

I had to call 911 last night and have them take dad to the hospital.

When getting ready to put his night clothes on and was sitting on the edge of the bed, he couldn’t get back up due to severe back pain. When he laid back down trying to stretch it out, then he -really- couldn’t get back up. Not only that but he was having severe spasms. I could tell they were very painful because of the way he would tense up and scrunch his face and he eventually started tearing up.

He wanted to wait about 45 min or so before decided whether I should call the ambulance, but he eventually gave in. I made sure I had his wallet with insurance info, his cellphone, and his glasses in case he needed to sign anything. I also moved all the furniture out of the way for the paramedics in case they needed to get a stretcher in the house. One of the neighbors stopped over when they saw the ambulance to check and make sure everything was okay. I teared up a little talking to her and explaining things, but she was very nice.

Hospital visit was pretty quick and uneventful, though I’m surprised the paramedics made him walk to the ambulance and down the stairs with how much pain he was in. Dad’s sister and brother-in-law came up to the hospital despite me telling them it wasn’t that big a deal and they needn’t to. The doctor said that he would treat a herniated disc or a pulled back muscle the same way. Some muscle relaxers, pain meds, and anti-inflammatory, then he would send him home to relax, and call his GP in the morning. The paperwork I have looks like they are calling this a “back sprain”.

Anyway so that’s what I will be doing this morning. I’ve let work know so I can try to work from home as much as possible with their permission.

Neither one of us got very much sleep last night, but we eventually fell asleep around 1am, with periodic waking up throughout the night. Dad slept in his recliner chair and I slept on the sofa next to him (or rather fought the dog for the sofa throughout the night) in case he needed anything. I have to keep a jug next to him in case he has to use the bathroom since he can’t walk, and I cooked him breakfast and made green tea this morning and have Westerns on the tv for him.

Not much else I can do at this point but play nursemaid and take care of things around the house and with the animals. I plan to call the doctor as soon as they open, and my Aunt is dropping off his prescriptions for me at the pharmacy that opens at 9am. Actually I’m not even sure I remember how to get to that pharmacy, but I know the general area. And I wasn’t sure I’d remember where the hospital was but I found it fine. Just never drive up that way much.

Those on my Twitter, Myspace, or Facebook already heard this, but for those not on either, as of January 26th my dad’s leg is completely healed of ulcers after 18 months of failed treatments. We are continuing the Venacura medication that we started about 2 and a half months ago (the reason behind this miraculous healing) to see if it improves dad’s bloodflow enough to actually turn his leg a normal color (it’s been purple for years). Needless to say we are very happy about this, and expect that it will save us a lot of money just on gas from Dad running to the Wound Care Center all the time.

As for -my- knee, it’s almost back to 100%. I can straighten it and walk fine now, but I can’t press it backwards and sometimes I get sore if I sit too long. I expect it’ll just take more time to get to 100% again but I am very happy not to deal with the tendinitis anymore.

I went to get my taxes done last night by my cousin since we wanted to do them together for practice. Retirement accounts still mix us both up, and I really need to sit down and practice more. Finding the time is another story, however. They will hopefully be finished tomorrow, but it’s looking at about $1500 back, which is all going to the interest debt. I suspect it will be paid off in full in March, but I will still need to keep an eye on my dad’s use of it. Looking at November and December, he spends between $900-$1000 a month on it, which is about what I put on it every month, so that’s why it’s been stalling the last month or two. In theory I’d like to get his spending on it down to $200 or so, but the way he’s been having vehicle trouble lately I dunno.

I’ve been pondering opening up a checking account for him instead of letting him use my credit card. That way I can put a set amount into it and he’ll know what he has left to spend. I’m willing to experiment with it at least, till I can come up with a solution that works for us both.

Either way I am going to start paying off the last person that donated our down payment in March, and all freelance money I bring in will also go to that so I suspect it’ll be paid off sometime in the summer and then I am throwing all my extra cash towards the mortgage and into savings/retirement. I look forward to the day where I my extra money is going towards savings and not towards a debt. I’m slowly but surely getting there.

Some folks also have been asking me some financial questions that I’ll probably start organizing into actual blog posts and relate to my personal experiences at the very least.

I am very glad the holidays are over. We had my paternal family over last weekend for a holiday get-together, and I’m just glad to have all the Christmas Clutter down. Clutter drives me batty in general, having to deal with it for 2 months messes with my head.

I’ve been starting to think about what I want to accomplish this spring as part of my Imbolc and Equinox celebrations. Here’s a small list anyway:
- Complete my Nature Awareness essays for the CTP
- Make significant progress on the Grove Membership Manual
- Continue bringing in more money for our year-long fundraiser at the Grove
- Start putting money into my home improvement account again for bringing someone in this spring to see why the basement is leaking during heavy rains as well as a new hot water heater (my 2010 projects)
- Maybe start putting together things for a yard sale this spring when tourist season opens up
- Explore a little more of Gettysburg
- Tons of other small remedial tasks that are on my todo list

Here’s to a progressive and healthy 2010 I love it so far, despite some setbacks (new brakes anyone? ). But I’ve become an eternal optimist in my years it seems.

We suspect another month or two and my father’s leg will be fully healed of ulcer wounds. We are likely going to continue the new drug to see if it helps more with the lack of oxygen that gets to his leg and maybe it will actually start to heal and not be purple all the time. (Putting the rest behind a cut in case people get grossed out)
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So I tweeted yesterday that Dad and I have been experimenting with a medication to help heal his leg ulcers. I had done some research a bit ago about healing venous leg ulcers and came across a french pine extract that is used for healing them. We took the information to his doctor because we don’t want to interfere with whatever the Wound Care is trying (and failing), and the doctor said it wouldn’t help his type of ulcer.

But he did say to try this drug called Venacura, which is for “spider veins” but works in a way to help strengthen veins and increase blood-flow. Apparently he didn’t actually expect us to try it, but dad has been taking it for the last month and a half and it’s starting to work (usually takes 2 months). I’m hoping it can heal his current ulcer completely that he’s had for the last year.

Prior to his current ulcer, he had been ulcer free for about a year or two due to hyperbaric chamber treatments. Prior to -that- he had the same leg ulcers for YEARS. Imagine having non-healing, seeping wounds on your leg for years? Disgusting. I am going to link to a picture of -that- ulcer, but it’s not a very nice image so I wouldn’t look if you have a weak stomach (Link to nasty picture).

I haven’t been able to find any listed side effects of this Venacura medication, and the company doesn’t list any either. Of course that is disconcerting, but right now it is working and dad gets regular check-ups and blood-work and this medication is helping so..

Thanksgiving 2009

Today I am celebrating “buy nothing” day by cleaning, visiting with a co-worker, and going to a bachelorette dinner later.

Well I recently found out.

Dad had outpatient surgery on Tuesday where they just put a skin graph on the ulcer on his leg to see if it’ll help heal it. Before they’ve used pig skin for this, but apparently they also save the skin from circumsized babies to use as skin graphs. So now my dad has baby penis skin on his leg. That takes not being “wasteful” to a whole new level folks.

I can see the jokes now…… “….waking up with a stiff leg.”

He has to rest and not bump it for a week or two, so I’ve had to take over some of his chores as well. Fortunately I have a three day weekend coming up where I can get a lot of things done around here.

I updated my pictures from yesterday with updated deck pictures from last night, as well.

1. My dad worked concrete for 40 years. I consider him one of the “blue-collared” Americans.
2. Because my dad was in construction, the guys were always trying to top each other on who was strongest. My dad always won.
3. My dad could carry 16 8-foot 2×4′s uphill, that was one of their “strong” tests. The next guy down could only do 14 of them.
4. My dad could also do this while jumping into a ditch, which is partially why he has such bad knees now.
5. My dad was hired by nerds in highschool to protect them. One guy paid my dad $20/week to keep the bullies away from him.
6. My dad used to drag-race his 1969 roadrunner all over Baltimore and Harford County. One time in the middle of the night they were all set up to drag-race over this bridge, and when the cars were going by, some idiot threw a gas can on fire under the cars to be funny. My dad walked over, picked the guy up, and dangled him over the side of the bridge with one hand.
7. My dad used to do push-ups with me on his back to help with strength training.
8. My uncle says my dad could reload a black-powder faster than most men can reload a regular rifle.
9. My dad’s 1969 roadrunner was so fast, cops had to set up a road block in order to stop him at one point.
10. My dad used to be a heavy drinker before I was born, and had a rope tied to the stick-shift in his 69 roadrunner that his friends could hold onto to prevent him from shifting it out of 2nd gear if he was drinking.
11. My dad had a stroke November of 2000 that left half of his body paralyzed (which is when I decided to move back home from the naval base). When he had the stroke he also fell off a roof and landed head-first onto a metal beam, cutting his head open. He made a full recovery of both.
12. I met some of my dads friends that he used to run around with, they quoted him as the “John Wayne” of their generation. Not only because he was a bear, but because he never let people get pushed around or be mean to women.
13. For instance..dad and mom were at a gas station, and there was a group of women there (I don’t know if they were friends with mom or what), and a guy was standing around bad-mouthing and cussing people. Dad told him to stop and he wouldn’t so dad said he just got tired of it and knocked the guy out. Mom tells me she felt the wind as my dad’s fist went by.
14. A girl was staying with the family who had left her ex-husband. He showed up one night and was giving my grandmother (dad’s mom) a bunch of grief and my grandfather and my dad both chased him off and drove after him. They caught up with him at a stop-sign and my dad jumped out of the car and ran over and knocked the guy out. No one cusses out grandmom.
15. My dad has the most awesome fumanchu-like mustache. He always get compliments on it.
16. At our old house, my dad’s nickname was the “Salem Bottom Angel” around the neighborhood because it’s a mostly elderly neighborhood and he’d help everyone out with keeping things in order and fixed.

Dad approached me when I got home, saying that he wanted to know what I felt about him paying -me- money to put into savings towards a ‘life insurance fund’ instead of actually buying a policy. I’m not sure why he’s asking about this, but I’m at least entertaining the idea.

Obviously there’s huge risk involved, I mean it would take about 15 years to get to $15k (which is about what I was looking for to bury him and handle his affairs). However, once he is debt free besides the house (next year), I had planned on saving up $20k anyway just as an emergency fund. We could reach -that- goal in about 2.5 years. Maybe less if I get additional income coming in (definitely a future plan).

So I’m not sure what to do, I’ve love to hear some input. It’s basically a 3 year risk, and I only need money to bury/cremate him, and this year I’ll have all his major debt gone. It would be nice to have extra to supplement his part of the mortgage payment in case I’m not able to afford it on my own, but I’m capable of living fairly minimal, so it may not be too big of a deal (not that I plan to settle).

Two doctors appointments this week so far for dad. One where the insurance company said his leg was not “bad enough” to get the hyperbaric treatment, despite the 3% flow of oxygen through his leg. They did test his arteries which appear to be in -good- shape, which is great, but the little veins throughout his skin are not so good due to phlebitis, which we knew about. The insurance company is trying to see if there’s something else preventing his leg from healing because they think the circulation is not as bad as they think (which I think is a crock. If the hyperbaric treatment healed him fast before, then fuckin put him in it again and see what happens).

The second appointment was to the doctor who was supposed to perform a biopsy on dads skin to see if there’s some sort of infection. But when dad arrived, and still had his bandage on, the doctor is like “So….you’re going to take the bandage off, right?” Dad says he doesn’t have any scissors, and the doctor goes and fetches a pair of scissors for dad to take his bandage off. What? You’re a DOCTOR.

They also said he may have an infection in his toenails, which is really to be expected considering the leg has been infected with bacteria for almost a YEAR NOW.

Christ almighty I’m so sick and tired of insurance companies. I need to write a letter or something.

In worse news, a former co-worker of mine and friend I’m told is being admitted to John’s Hopkins today for neurological issues that they believe to be terminal. This was someone who, along with another former co-worker were literally like my best friends at work. I really didn’t know all this was going on, and I just feel so bad for someone so young having to go through something like this. It makes you feel helpless as a friend. I’m praying for the best for him and the people close to him, and that the powers that be let him pull through.

Dad went to get some tests done today on his leg to see if he qualifies for use of the hyperbaric chamber again.

Some background: Dad went to the wound care center for months and months and months back in 2005/2006 to get treatments for his leg. He has extremely bad veins and circulation in his leg, which causes large skin ulcers (sometimes the size of my fist) and for his leg to remain indefinitely purple. They are pretty nasty (I have pictures for those interested). This is mainly due to all of the concrete construction he did his whole life as well as an accident when I was a baby where he fell off a roof.

We got these healed in October 2006, when they finally decided to put him in the hyperbaric chamber, which healed them in like 2 months. They stayed healed until we had to move last summer because dad was putting all that strain back on his leg and in that heat. So dad has been going back to the Wound Care Center since about October once we got settled into the house to get treatments for these new ulcers.

These visits are not cheap, even with Medicare. I originally wanted them to just throw him in the hyperbaric chamber (basically oxygen tank) right off the bat because it healed him within 2 months last time. Medicare won’t allow that, but he finally got permission today during his visit to get treatment again.

They have to test the level of oxygen in your leg first to see how much you get. I think a normal person gets between like 50%-60% oxygen to their legs. Diabetics usually get between 20%-40% oxygen. Dad gets 3%. In the hyperbaric chamber, he gets over 600%. (Note: I wish they made home oxygen treatment kits).

They also want to try and remove some varicose veins and possibly install (?) some new veins in his leg to get more blood flow. This will probably be outpatient surgery that I’ll need to drop him off and pick him up for. But we don’t know when that will be yet exactly.

Hopefully we can get these ulcers fixed this time and stay fixed. I think his body, and his leg especially, is just wearing out.

I wish they’d just put him in that oxygen tank in the beginning. It’d save us so much money.