My "sister" wives.....

Your comments get me through the day.  Thank you so much!

Tina wrote:

How have I survived this long ... well, I just love him. Year 1 went into year 2, into year 3 and so on and so on ... you get the picture. It has been really hard. As we are in year 6, I have been through the ups and downs, the driving nightmares, (I will not get into the car with him if he even thinks of driving, I am the permanent driver). As I read all of the posts on this site, I really feel for each and everyone of us that have to live through this nightmare! In my situation, my hubby has really been sort of healthy (maybe healthy is not the right word, but I guess he has not had all the "bonus issues" that I have read about). It has caught up to him. As I chat, he is in the hospital with a very high heart rate (they are treating him to hopefully make sure he does not have a stroke) he has a blood infection, (not sure how or where he got this), and the list goes on and on ... but onto the hospital care as a whole. He is a diabetic on dialysis, in the hospital with very little restrictions on his fluid intake, are you ******* kidding me. Obviously, this man cannot control his fluid intake by himself, so why do the nurses just come in and give him cups (20oz.each) of water and of course, my favorite, ginger ale (not diet, duh, he is a diabetic) and of course, he says nothing and just drinks it all down!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess when I really think of how I have survived the last 6 years, I will say prayers and lots of them! A really "bad" sense of humor! And, finally, just one day at a time. I have an awesome family whom I have gotten a ton of support from. I was listening to a talk show on the radio the other day and the speaker said "you can't climb over crap ... you just have to go through it". It made me chuckle to hear that, but maybe it's true! So I guess I just am in my really, really high "fishing boots" and "trudging through the crap!" So onto my "bad sense of humor", I will end my story here for the night because I gotta get my rest, because I just feel that it's going to be a really "crappy" day tomorrow!!!! Sleep well my sisters ... my prayers and love are with each and every one of us!

Tina,  very good advice - to wade through the crap one day at a time. It's all any of us can do.  As for the high heart rate - high potassium?  I read that can happen easily on dialysis.  Happened to my hubby.

I remember they gave hubby straight Sprite in the hospital - not diet sprite.  I wondered what they were thinking!  But they did limit his intake quite seriously.

You are very wise to be the permanent driver.  I, too, will not go anywhere with hubby driving.  Well, fortunately, at this point, he's not been released to drive. But if he does need to go somewhere, he will take his truck and I don't go with him.

As for the blood infection, be aware that if they dose him with high levels of antibiotics, he is likely to end up with c diff in the hospital as did my husband!

Overall, I think hospital staff needs training on diabetes.  You would think with the high numbers of diabetics in this country that it would be foremost in training. But apparently, it isn't!

Here's prayers that your day did not go as bad as you anticipated!  Hugs coming your way!

Lilly wrote:

Best wishes to Tina, as I can't imagine how hard 6 years of dialysis and counting must be! She could probably teach us ALL something. As for your hubby being cold, is he running a fever? Usually when my husband is complaining about being cold, he has one. Might want to check (or maybe you already have). Wondering if there could be a low-grade infection going on after all his problems in the hospital, etc.

No temp, no low sugar. I think it was just a "thing" he went through. I turned on the fireplace, covered him with blankets and 2 hours later, he tossed the blankets off and turned the fireplace off. Thank goodness!!! :o)

Lynn wrote:

My hubby was in denial for years... so that is why at some point I told him I was not going to call in his pills pick them up and put them in the weekly pill dispenser...I wanted him to own the fact that he is diabetic...It was scary and one of our sons was mad at me...thought I didn't care about him...now he sees for us it worked/works...but hubby can still take care of it...if the day comes, I will help of course...but for him it MADE him accept his disease and deal with it...I also did it because I felt that if I had that many health problems I couldn't see him taking care of my pills etc...I knew I would have to...and I do for me now that I do have a disease...so any way...they HAVE to accept and embrace the disease...otherwise it's ALL on US and that's not fair to either of us. RIGHT LADIES? Enjoy the bubble bath...I started doing yoga and that seems to help me with everything! HUGS and LOVE PS cold? how is his thyroid?

Lynn, hubby sots his own pills, has his cell alarm set to take his insulin, he renews his own RX, he does all that. He has too. Yet he continues to admit certain things like having high blood pressure. For some odd reason, in his mind, if the BP monitor reads that his BP is good, then he doesn't have HBP....even though he takes meds to keep it down low. Strangest thing in my mind.

In the last 2 years, since his heart problems, I've been attending every medical appointment with him. Before that, I never went. And I found out what the problem was. He would go to the endo and tell her that he didn't have a BP problem! He would visit the nephro and tell him he didn't have a sugar problem (even with an A1C of 8.0!!!) So when I started going I'd just quietly say "but he does take atenolol for his bp"....or "he takes 32 units of Humulin RU 500 Concentrated in the morning" and the specialists started "getting" it. They are outside consults to our HMO and do not have access to his medical file. So I started copying stuff and putting it in binders and taking it along with me.

When he first went to see the cardiac specialist and told her that he did not have a BP problem - I nearly shot through the ceiling. I was so glad I was there. She took one look at me, rolled her eyes, held her hand up to "silence" me before I could get a word out and gave him the lecture of his life.....he was there because he absolutely had a blood pressure problem....and off she went. She did not mince words and I have loved her from that moment! First specialist who saw right through him! :o)

And Lilly wrote:

Unbelievable that the dialysis machine (actually broke!) twice. I can only imagine what that was like. I don't remember any machines breaking, but I do remember my husband going to have dialysis 3 times a week, and being on the machine for 4 hours (add at least another hour wait time and making sure the bleeding stopped before he left), in a large room with 11 other people all wrapped up in blankets like cocoons to stay warm. Most would fall asleep during the process even though they each had a television and headphones, none of them wanted to be there, and they all still felt like crap when they left. And then at least some would have horribly painful cramping later as a side effect of the dialysis. Knowing that, I don't ever want to do dialysis with him again, and I don't have the phobias like you do. Didn't mean to be flippant about your problems with that. It has to make everything so much harder! But no matter how you slice it, dialysis is a really rough way to have to live. I also wonder as you do, if the denial is exactly that: a survival mechanism. But it is still unreal the things that they will swear by! For example, hubby gets mad at me when I tell him he has heart problems. He will say: "But I don't have them anymore, because the bypass took care of it." Sometimes, you don't know whether to laugh or cry. And yes, I think our husbands are very much alike in this. Interesting that yours also loses track of time. Mine will always tell me he did something "yesterday," when I know that sometimes it was several days ago. The short term memory thing is troubling, as I'm not thinking it will get any better.

Lilly, just to clarify, it was two different dialysis machines.....each one of them broke!!! and I never took you as being flippant, not for a second! Your experience is quite valuable to me as I went into this cold turkey - having never done any research or asked any questions about dialysis. Because my hubby had always said he would never agree to dialysis, it was all quite frightening to me. I had to sign the release forms and that in itself was a huge step.

I know what you mean about not knowing whether to laugh or cry. I do really try to laugh most of the time. My husband, just this week, told a doctor that he no longer has heart problems. Well, I hate to tell him this, but remember, his veins were so bad they couldn't do 5 bypasses on him....they only found enough veins to do 3 bypasses. What does he think is going on in the 2 spots they couldn't bypass???? YIKES!!! We go to see the cardiologist on 4/20. I am quite anxious to see what she has to say when I tell her his heart rate was 140 for 2 days and 130 for another 3 days after surgery. It did not go up and down....it remained that high for 5 days. Now, tell me that didn't do some damage to his heart???

When I was talking to him this morning about my nightmares last night, I said that I thought the only thing he really remembered was his dry tongue. And maybe that was a true blessing. His quest for something wet, for ice, for a swab, for a wet washcloth....his desparate cry for just a sip of ice.....kept him from knowing all the other horrible things that were going on. And that he will never have any memory of it. But I was sitting right there and while he only remembers how dry his mouth was.....I remember 100% of every ounce of what was going on to every part of his body.

And that's where a diabetic has us beat to heck! They don't/won't/can't remember the things we do.

Love all your comments because I know we are in this together.....one day at a time......sometimes just one moment at a time.

DW