When Ryan and I were driving down to the doctors appointment we were talking about so many other families that have it worse or have had it worse. We had a friend that had flesh eating bacteria on his face, another friend almost lost her children, another friends son has CP, our great friend is battling a brain tumor and chemo, and another friend of mine has a brother in law going in for brain surgery on Monday for the umpteenth time.
If Ryan can come out of this with just a few headaches and surgery and of course the thousands in medical bills (that you're really never prepared for), I'd say we are incredibly blessed.
We are kind of having some trust issues with Ryan's internal medicine doctor, we found him to be quite arrogant and not really listening to us, not to mention he acted too busy to manage Ryan's blood thinners. After we meet with the neurologist she called the internal medicine doctor and asked him why Ryan's numbers haven't been consistent and that she feels something else needs to happen to get his numbers therapeutic. He told her to send Ryan over and he'll do a blood draw. Well, he ended up meeting with Ryan and he kind of went wacky, he told Ryan to take three shots of Heparin, then increase his doses, and then he told Ryan that he told Dr. Chang if she was so concerned about Ryan and his coumadin levels, she should manage them. Really? Really? How is it possible to have someone in that role of a medical professional question and judge another professional because he felt she (the owner, the hospitalist, the one that specializes in critical neuro patients) was wrong in being conservative. At that point we lost what little faith we did have in him.
To make matters worse his nurse was telling Ryan what a long day she was having and how stressful her job is. She just started complaining about patients and her job. It really got us thinking, you know, we all face challenges everyday for some of us that's just getting out of bed is a challenge and for others that's retraining your brain to learn how to feed yourself as an adult, we ALL have challenges. But, what we don't need is we don't need to see people not being humble for what they have. This nurse works with hundreds of patients a day that are grateful just to be able to get out of bed and get their chemo, she sees patients that have beat the odds and are walking and talking again, and you know what she has a pretty amazing patient that should have died two weeks ago with blood clots in his brain and he was unable to move portions of his body and he went without seeing his family for nine days; sorry she had a long day. I've had a long three weeks.
A few days after Ryan was released we went to Costco to buy some bookshelves for the girls. We went to three different Costco's before we bought them. I pulled the car up in front of the store and Ryan was loading it in the back and we were having problems getting it in. We sat there for maybe about two minutes getting this thing in, well a car came up behind us and started yelling at us and telling us to get our asses moving. I walked up to her window and said sorry it should only be a few minutes, she continued to curse me out and said a whole bunch of things. I wanted nothing more than to walk over to that drivers side of that door rip her ass out of the car and tell her look we've just spend nine days in a hospital because my husband has blood clots in the brain, I'd LOVE nothing more than to beat you with my bare fists so you can experience how tough it is to manage blood clots in the brain, you game? She upset me so bad and I dwelled on it for days, I think I'm still angry as I write this. I guess you can't expect a lot from humanity.
I used to have this passion for mothers of children with disabilities how and why that was my passion I have no idea. I think it's because everyday I wake up and I know I am not a strong woman and how hard it would be for me to take that new role on. Although my heart still aches for those parents my thoughts are with those that have to be everything to their spouse in their time of discomfort. When we were on the critical care neuro floor at Swedish, Ryan by far was the youngest on the floor, by several years. I think the next youngest person was a Colorado State Patrol Officer and he looked like he was in his late fifties. His children and wife were there everyday and although we never spoke to each other I felt their pain and they felt my pain. It's a weird world to be around people that are fighting for their lives and to see the raw emotions and the faces of the families. When I use to go and sit with Ryan for his soft chemo my heart ached for all of those people that were there alone, so many people went through their battles alone, how terrible.
I can say that at so many points of this I too have felt alone. I was never alone I know that and I know that at any moment I could have called a friend and I wouldn't have been alone, but you are you are really alone at times. I just can't imagine if truly no one was EVER there how difficult that would be. I guess that's what makes us different as believers, because in our hearts we know that we are never alone, He is always with us.
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