Gotta Go Back Under…

Well, I got the news yesterday, after I called the doctor. Apparently they had been calling and calling and could not figure out why the heck I wasn’t replying.  THEY HAD THE WRONG DAMNED NUMBER.  Whoever at their office that entered my information transposed my two numbers into one; brilliant.

Okay, so the news at hand: the stent in my pancreas did not float away.  It has to come out in the next few weeks surgically.  But, what I did not know is that it has to come out in an ERCP procedure.

“What’s that?” you ask.  ERCP is the more difficult procedure, where they knock me out completely and cut into my pancreas (or bile duct).  It makes everything down there swell and is hard to recover from.  This will be my fourth since Jan. 7 of this year.

For some reason, I had thought retrieval would be by Upper Endoscopy.  That is a much simpler procedure and is how the biliary stents were retrieved.  Silly me.

So, back to Houston and another hospital stay and a big old, “how do we do this and get my husband there and etc. etc. ”

Last night my husband told me he has had some trouble at work due to all the distractions from my illness the last couple of months.  He assured me it was no big deal but I can’t help but wonder.  For the last trip, all he did was drive me but he was preoccupied worrying about me.

I need a friend or a relative that cares enough to go with me and I just don’t know who to ask.  I really don’t. I am out of options.  I missed a lot of vital information from the doctor last time because I was stoned.

My friend was there for the surgery and my cousin was in and out but it just isn’t the same.  This is very, very frustrating.  It makes the whole thing harder.  I don’t mean to bitch but I can’t just worry about the surgery, I have to worry about child care, time off for my husband and what it will do to his job and animal care and everything else.

This is what happens when your parents are dead and your siblings are not terribly helpful. My aunt is around but no longer capable of much.  My best friend and my kid’s god father is just out of cataract surgery (he has type 1 diabetes) and is hopefully getting some vision back.  He cannot drive right now.

Another good friend is undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

My neighbors and friends are all volunteered out.

I feel really, really out of control.  I need help and don’t know where to turn.  I have spent countless hours, days and nights, alone in hospitals.

I am so over that.

And then, when I get home, I am still down and out for at least a week.  I need help on this end with child care.  I have to drag my husband once again, down into the depths with me.

Is there ever an end here?

I am down:  Really, really down. I am in the pits of Sheol; the valley of the shadow here.

YELP.