THE LOWE FAMILY NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 64 MARCH 2010

Dear Children and Friends,

Last month we celebrated your dad's and Josh's birthdays. As usual great demands were made on my baking skills with Josh requesting a marble cake that I almost lost my marbles over when I realized that I had mindlessly mixed the chocolate and vanilla cake mixes together instead of gently swirling one through the other – so we ended up with a pallid looking chocolate cake. However, I did redeem myself with the frosting . Josh had found a couple of recipes he wanted me to try: thinking we could have a family vote on which was the best so I whipped up two batches, one with whipped cream, sugar and cream cheese and another with Cool Whip, and vanilla pudding. I spread each cake layer with one kind of frosting and served every one two slivers of cake to determine the winner. I would say that the Cool Whip recipe was a taste ahead. After this endeavor I thought I would be free of kitchen duty for awhile but that turned out to be a half baked idea as Josh told me he had taken the next day of work to make Oreo Balls with me as he and Sean both wanted to take a batch into work. Sean thoughtfully handed all the ingredients over to me. Unfortunately the Oreo Balls are still the most requested item in their work places.

Coryn and Sean utilized my shopping skills too. Sean arrived after work one night to have me go suit shopping with him as he had a business trip the next day and his suit was a wrinkled mess since he hadn't thought to take it to the dry cleaners after he last wore it. He brought it over in hopes that I might be able to steam a few wrinkles out if he couldn't find another suit. Fortunately we found two that fit perfectly without alterations, plus some new ties and a shirt. Of course I ended up having to unpin and iron the shirt and steam out the old suit as he had more trips coming up. I did suggest that he could have avoided this last minute shopping spree if he had only planned his wardrobe out a few days ahead but he didn't seem to feel my stress! But I do enjoy watching my kids pull their own credit cards out to make large purchases these days.

Later in the month he had me help him pick out glass tile for his kitchen back splash and Coryn took me carpet shopping with her. She is planning on putting her house on the market soon and the dogs have ruined the bedroom carpets. Jeremy is hoping to sell his condo too and they plan to buy a new house together – probably on the Missouri side of Kansas City since Jeremy will still be working out of Clinton.

About the same time that the Tsunami hit Japan we were hit with a tidal wave of medical problems generated by the Asian here at home. One recent Monday morning your dad told me that his urine was bloody. Immediately suspecting a urinary tract infection I called his urologist's office to make an appointment – they could not see him for a month! They suggested I call our family doctor for treatment. This I promptly did and we were soon heading over to his new offices which I found without a problem – leaving was another matter as once again I got lost in a parking lot and had to use the GPS to get us headed in the right direction.

Norm was so uncomfortable sitting in the waiting room that he had to keep standing and walking around to alleviate the pain and then the urge to pee became so strong that I had to find a rest room for him – fortunately one of the nurses caught us and had him give her a urine sample. As soon as I saw the plastic container filled with blood I knew that this was more than just a urinary tract infection. The doctor took one look at the sample and said we needed to see his urologist today. I explained that I had called him first for an appointment but was told that the earliest appointment was a month away. The doctor said he would call and explain the situation because he believed that your dad probably had a blood clot blocking his bladder which was a medical emergency. He also felt that Norm's prostate cancer could have spread to the bladder and this was definitely out of his realm. His call produced an appointment in three days. Frustrated he told me to take Norm to KUMed's ER immediately since someone from the urology department would have to see him. We made a quick pit stop at home for my cell phone charger and granola bars and headed off to the ER.

Although I have made many trips to KUMed I had never used their ER services before. The entrance to it is virtually hidden up a side street and the underground parking lot is very small and was completely full. I knew your dad was not going to be able to deal with the parking garage so I elected to drive to the main entrance and use their valet parking. Soon I had Norm in his wheelchair and headed for the ER.

Now we are all familiar with airport security but I was not expecting a ramped up version at a hospital ER: an armed guard barred our way and ushered us through a metal detector – forgot about Norm's pacemaker again- passed a wand over us and checked my purse! I even had to hold my jacket open in case I had AK47 under there – a good job I didn't as I might have vented my frustration by firing off a few rounds. We were finally admitted to the ER, and after the usual insurance questions we finally got around to the matter of life or death that was responsible for our being there. Thank goodness I was able to say in all honesty that we had been sent straight from our doctor's office otherwise we might have endured hours in the waiting room instead of minutes.

Once your dad was set up in an examining room, wearing a hospital gown and using a plastic pee bottle (collecting nothing but blood) a doctor finally arrived and decided to set up a catheter so that they could flush his bladder with gallons of saline in hopes of breaking up the blood clots and getting his urine flowing again. The nurse had a terrible time threading the catheter in place because of your dad's prostate cancer and it was obviously an excruciatingly painful one for your dad who was already suffering. I was so relieved when it was finally in and working. There was an awful lot of blood and clots passed. Finally a urologist came to check and decided that if and when the urine was clearer Norm could go home but that the catheter would have to stay in place in case they needed to repeat the procedure and to hopefully prevent another clot blocking the bladder. He also had a very bad urinary tract infection so they prescribed an antibiotic for that. Nine hours after arriving we were discharged and I found myself heading down I35 in the dark of night desperately gripping the steering wheel as I fought through my cataracts to see the lane lines. Coryn had offered to pick us up but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of picking up the car some time in the future so I decided to go for it. She also let me know that Sean was going to spend the night at our house as he had a presentation to make the next morning at the Olathe Medical Center which is fairly close to us.

Sean pulled into the driveway right behind us, exiting his car with a bottle of wine in each hand: I was ready to pull some of Norm's tubing and intubate myself with both bottles. Thoughtful boy that he is he also bought along a couple of bags of frozen Chicken Voila in case we hadn't eaten. I had actually left Norm's bedside to pick up a couple of sandwiches and bottles of juice once I realized that we were going to be there long past my usual dinner time. Would you believe that the security guard actually made me pull my sandwiches out of my purse to check that I didn't have a bomb or something in there! I realized that some of the people in the ER looked like they might be a threat but me?

Sleep was difficult that night as Norm was very restless and still in pain. The following morning I awoke and found him on the cusp of a seizure trying to reattach his catheter bag to his leg. Unfortunately he had undone all the straps and pulled some tubing out but thankfully not the most important part ! I tried to help him but he was being very unco-operative so I was grateful that Sean was there to intervene and get him strapped and taped again. Unfortunately your dad was like a toddler with a new plaything – he just couldn't keep his hands off the tubing and kept wrapping electrical tape around it to keep it tight to his leg not understanding that he was putting so much tension on the apparatus that he was causing the tubing to pull away from the bag and thus causing frequent leaking!

I made a quick trip to the pharmacy to pick up his prescription but by the time I returned Norm was in a lot of pain and there was no urine in the catheter bag. I called the Urology department and was told they would have a resident call as soon as possible. Two hours later there was no phone call and Norm's pain was so bad that I decided we needed to return to the ER. I called Coryn to see if she could leave work early to drive us as I was having my own meltdown and I didn't think it was safe for me to drive. Fortunately her principal was very understanding and told her to take the rest of the week off too!

Once back in the ER Norm was in so much pain that he couldn't even sit in the wheelchair – the nurse said she would try to get him in as soon as possible . Another nurse came to take his vitals and ascertain his problem but she virtually shut me out of the room despite the fact that I told her your dad had dementia. We were sent to the waiting room which seemed more like a social club today. Groups of people , many of whom seemed to know each other, came in and made themselves comfortable, hugging and greeting others as they poured through the doors. They were obviously settling in for the evening. Poor Norm had to keep pacing to alleviate his pain and I was getting close to another meltdown so I went to the front desk to see how much longer they thought it might be – not that they cared!

After a while I noticed a smell that reminded me of dead fish - I wondered which of the crowd was responsible and leaned over to get Coryn's thoughts but she is not blessed with my sensitive nose and just shrugged. A few minutes later the smell caused me to check your dad's catheter bag: he had finally passed some urine but we had an equipment malfunction - a puddle had formed around his feet and his pants were wet. I hastily rushed out to the desk and explained what had happened, hoping this would get your dad into an examining room more quickly, but they were very nonchalant. I expected a hazmat crew to clean it up but the nurse came by after awhile and mopped it up with a paper towel. No bleach, no Lysol. Eventually they did take Norm off to supposedly change his bag but asked Coryn and I to remain in the waiting room while they took care of it, assuring us that they would bring us to him once that was accomplished. I thought it very odd that we were being virtually told that we could not be with him but I felt it better to just co-operate , hoping that he would be seen by a doctor very soon.

Since people were arriving with dinner in hand , all the munching around us prompted Coryn to volunteer to make a food run while we waited. She arrived back about forty minutes later with a bag of heart healthy fries and burgers and was surprised that I was still there and not with Norm. While we ate supper I began to worry about why no-one had reunited us with Norm so once again I went to the front desk and realized that a shift change had taken place and apparently we had been forgotten about . My blood pressure must have been at boiling point. Coryn and I found your dad alone in an examining room where he had scooted himself to the end of the bed and was marching in place to try to alleviate the pain. I was appalled that from a health and legal stand point that they had left your dad with all his health problems unattended. However his spirits rose when Coryn offered him a burger and french fries – he ate like a rabid dog.

A nurse finally responded to Norm's beeping monitor: Norm had pulled his finger clip off. I questioned why he was in so much pain and she assured me that he had been given pain medication and that it should take effect soon. She had a couple of prescriptions to send home with us and was about to leave the room when I asked if the catheter tubing and bag had been changed. The previous shift nurse had apparently neglected to tell her about the problem, but she said she would check it - which she did ,informing me that it wasn't the kind they used. I promptly fired back that he had been set up with it yesterday in this ER ! I realize now that she was probably thrown by all the tape plastered over it and the elastic and safety pins that I had replaced the hospital bands with as they were too easy for Norm to remove. The nurse assured me that all the connections looked fine – obviously she didn't want to change a thing!

Once again Norm was discharged into my care and I think it was about three in the morning before we were able to sleep as he was in so much pain. He would wake me every couple of hours to empty his bag even though there was little urine in it. He confused his sense of urinary urgency with urine flow of which unfortunately there was very little – until about eight in the morning. He woke me up to let me know that the bed felt wet under him. Indeed it was. Once again the tubing had come loose and we had Pyridium stained urine all over the bed. (Pyridium is a medication used to treat urinary tract infections and it stains one's urine a bright orange color which is very difficult to remove.)I had placed some towels under him but unfortunately our mattress pad cover was not waterproof so it soaked through. So I cleaned your dad up, changed him, reattached the catheter tubing and called Coryn to come and help me as I was too exhausted to go to the pharmacy, shop for a waterproof mattress cover, and clean all the mess up. She was a great help again that day, running errands, picking up food for us and watching her dad so that I could try to get some sleep. I did manage to get the mattress cleaned and encased in a waterproof cover, the bedding washed and most of the spots shampooed out of the carpet. A few days later I bought a new bedding set to ensure we were completely clean and comfortable.

I called the urology department in tears that morning with my tale of woe and they said that they would plan to remove the catheter the next day when we had an appointment with the urologist. Josh came over later in the evening to spend the night and was a great help as he repositioned the catheter bag on Norm's leg to make it more difficult for him to fiddle with it. Since I had again spent most of the night sleeping in short bursts Josh stayed with Norm late into the morning so that I could get some more sleep.

Thursday afternoon Coryn drove us back to KUMed for our appointment with the urologist. Norm was set up with an appointment for a CT Scan and Cystoscopy of the bladder for the end of the month and thankfully the catheter was removed. Fortunately your dad is pain free in that area of his body but is now having a lot of back pain and leg cramps which are keeping us up at night. He’s been having tidal waves of seizures, including incontinence and collapses. He went down in the front yard yesterday when he was trying to enjoy some sunshine – fortunately one of the neighbor's saw us and came over to help me get Norm up and back into the house.

We also have appointments with his cardiologist and a new neurologist who specializes in seizures. I am hoping that something can be done to stabilize his situation as it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to monitor him twenty-four hours a day. Like the Japanese I am hoping that something can be done to contain the situation before the fall out from your dad's ills results in a catastrophe.

The warm weather we have enjoyed these last few days has helped buoy our spirits. Norm has been able to bask in his rocking chair on the deck whilst I've been cleaning up my garden and anticipating the glorious display of my spring bulbs as their green leaves peak through the soil. I have piles of twigs and ornamental grass cuttings for the birds nesting needs; the bird houses have been hung and my bird feeders filled. I spotted a toad under a pile of wet leaves and hope to see the butterflies feeding on all my flowers very soon. The deer have already been around to feed on the few acorns left by the squirrels on the front lawn. I tried to chase them away at dawn this morning but they didn't budge. As long as they don't eat my hostas – they have already dined on my tulips. I am still amazed that living in an area so close to a number of interstates that we have so much wild life to enjoy.

Thanks to Coryn I have recently joined a Brits International group and just before Norm fell ill, enjoyed one of their afternoon teas. They hold social meetings on a frequent basis so hopefully I'll be able to join them sometimes and broaden my circle of friends here. Probably help me regain my accent too – I've certainly never lost my love of a nice cup of tea!

Let's hope that I can keep my cool as things heat up in an effort to get to the core of your dad's latest health melt down and lets hope that no more ill winds blow our way, your hard to contain, highly combustible Mom.