Trip to San Diego

We just got home after seeing my primary, Dr. Irene Duarte. The appointment run close to 45 minutes because Sue was with and we had a lot questions related to the recent hospital stay, the new drug cocktail the doctors gave me, when is it proper to call 911, and what to use when the pain in my feet becomes severe. Irene is a 45-year-old Mexican American woman married to a doctor, also Mexican American, who she met in Med school at the U of AZ. She has two kids that must be close to finishing high school. She’s been my primary for at least 15 years. Sue mentioned afterward that the two of us had a nice rhythm together. I usually lead and she responds with information. When we described my condition on 2/23/2012 she said definitely we should have called 911, because in no way could Sue handle my body; she needed help as I was close to completely immobile. If there is a next time we won’t hesitate and call for help. We went through the drug list. The new A-Fib drug, Maltaq, she had never heard of and would check on it. I questioned the double dose of potassium every day. She said that was due to the heavy use of diuretics. But we did a blood test to see where my system is at in regard potassium. She sent in four prescriptions on the list where there was only one more on the bottle. She said all the drugs for neuropathy had, as side effects, a tendency to cause edema, which is no help for me. (I had already told her Dr. Capaccio had removed Exforge from my drug list because it also causes edema.) I told her when the pain got to be around eight on a scale of ten I dropped some oxycodone a dentist had given me a couple years ago, and it handle the pain nicely; in fact, from then on my feet started to improve. She said I should use it again if it gets really bad but no more than twice a week. She’ll see me again in a month and revisit the problem and see how I am doing. She checked my lungs, saying they sounded good with no fluid in them. Last but not least she gave me a home nebulizer, but she forgot to give me the chemical that goes with it. Maybe she’ll call that in to Walgreen’s.

Just before we left home we got a call from Kaia. She and Aaron were in San Diego for a three day celebration for their ten wedding anniversary. They were supposed to drive home this morning with time enough to pick the kids up form school this afternoon, but they have run afoul bad weather in southern California and are having a hard time getting out of the area because rain or snow have closed access to the roads east. Their wedding was marred by cold, windy weather and now on their ten anniversary they had to stay inside their hotel accommodations rather than lying on the beach due to cold and rain and snow, which is also blocking their way home. They called us this afternoon. It took them six hours to get as far as Palm Springs. They were resting in another hotel and were planning to head home early tomorrow morning. Talk about the best-laid plans of mice and men?

The weather here is about the same as southern California. We have had heavy rain, snow in various locations, especially in the mountains, and it hailed when Sue went to the store on Oracle Road. And it is very cold. The weather lady is predicting it will be freezing tonight.

Sue went to visit Larry Masters in UMC hospital this afternoon. He called yesterday to inform her he had a stroke and would she please come see him. She did go and came home depressed because he is in such a complete fog about what happened and they wouldn’t leave him go outside for a smoke, so he kept mumbling I should die—“there is no end to my misery.” On and on the story rolls. I worry about Sue in this mess. What can she possibly owe this guy to put up with his foggy bottom?