05.23.17 Wow, everything changed!

Tuesday, May 23,201 – I’m fairly certain some of ya’ll wish I’d stop talking about medical problems.  I wish I could stop. Last Friday I had my elbow drained of a lot of fluid that was making it swell and was very painful.  They did a culture.  Remember all that?

My elbow was swollen back up Sunday and was extremely painful, so as soon as the orthopedic doctor, Dr. Chiasson, opened this morning I made an appointment to see him.  I already had follow-up hospital appointments scheduled for today with the gastroenterologist and my primary care doctor.  I was so hopeful we could get back on the road tomorrow, which is now Wednesday, but all three doctors told me no way. Once I got the appointment made I went back to bed because the pain was so bad I couldn’t function.  I took one of Roy’s pain medicines which helped very little.

The first visit at 2 pm was with Dr. Booth, the gastroenterologist.  He said my ulcer was very large and the inflammation in my esophagus was very bad.  He also said that the ulcer is most likely the result of years of taking anti-inflammatory medicine for arthritis.  I’ve been off the Naproxen, anti-inflammatory, since being in the hospital over two weeks ago and my body joints are screaming at me every day. I truly didn’t realize how much relief they were giving me until now.  He ordered a follow-up endoscopy and colonoscopy for June 22nd at his endoscopy center in Hammond. He said I have to stay off of naproxen and Plavix (taken to prevent more TIAs)  until the June 22nd tests at which time he said I probably would be put on Celebrex which seems to not be so harsh. I wasn’t happy when Roy asked the doctor to not let me leave town and even more unhappy when the doctor agreed with him.  The next doctor was my orthopedic doctor.  After that visit, I knew there was no way we should leave.

Dr. Chiasson, orthopedic doctor’s appointment time was 3pm.  He said the culture of the fluid from Friday showed staph infection was growing.  He talked about admitting me to the hospital but decided with other health issues going on he’d try strong oral antibiotics and pain medicines.   The two antibiotics that the staph culture showed a sensitivity to were Doxycycline and Clindamycin. Draining the fluid today was incredibly painful, much worse than Friday,  The fluid was a much larger volume and cloudy instead of clear like it was Friday.  Today’s draining was so painful I had to lay down on the table to stop from passing out.  That started me crying which didn’t stop until the next doctor’s visit.  I consider myself a strong woman but being in pain was just too much.  They gave me some Coca-Cola and I laid down on the patient table for a while, then the nurse took me out to the car in a wheelchair.  I have a follow-up apt for this Friday but they kept stressing, as did my primary care doctor, that if the pain or swelling gets any worse to not wait till Friday to come right back in.

Finally, the last doctor was my regular primary care doctor, Hugo Valdes at 4:15.  I am always happy and upbeat when I go to him but today I was sobbing and sobbing.  He has a very calming nature and not long into the visit I was feeling much better.  He got back the blood test results from last Friday and my iron is only 34 which the normal range is 55–160 µg/dL.  He called in a prescription for Poly-Iron and talked to me about everything saying it’s just been too much all at one time.  He wants to see me after I have the endoscopy and colonoscopy and hopefully, I’ll be good enough then for us to get on the road that day or the next.  Another month home isn’t the end of the world and I just have to suck it up, rest more, and take care of myself. I know God will have me back to normal as soon as possible!

Both Dr. Chiasson and Dr. Valdes told me if anything gets worse or red streaks go up or down from my elbow I am to get to the hospital quickly. Just took my temperature for the second time today.  Earlier it was 98.6m, this time it is 99.8.  My normal temperature is 97.6. If it doesn’t go away in the morning I’ll go to the hospital. 

I worried that having appointments at 2pm, 3pm, and 4:15 might not work but God knew I needed it all done and got us to each one on time!

The antibiotics, pain medicine and year prescription of Protonix (medicine to heal ulcer that I’ve been on since I arrived at the hospital almost three weeks ago) were picked up yesterday.  Roy went back this morning to get the Poly-Iron tablets. I don’t know if it was the pain medicine or what but my sleep last night was quite strange.  You know how sometimes when you’re not sleeping for long periods you wake up and it’s only 30 minutes later, well last night it was 2 to 5 minutes all night.   Very very strange sleep.  I need the pain medicine desperately but if tonight is like that again I will try taking only Tylenol. Update: Before going to sleep Tuesday night my fever went up.  Spoke to Dr. who said to add Tylenol to the medicines I’m taking and if it goes up higher I will need to go to the hospital.  After a great night’s sleep, I woke up with a normal temperature and feeling well-rested!  Praise God for small happinesses!

Today I went outside for about 30 minutes to enjoy the beautiful outdoor air.  On my way outside I noticed that at the bottom of the right windshield we recently had installed was lots of water that must have come in from the overnight rainstorms we had.  Roy called Jeff who installed the windshield and he is on his way here to check it out.  It took a couple of visits to get that plugged up but we think we are good to go with that now!

After all the fun from yesterday I was very convinced that leaving on Wednesday of this week was not going to work for us.  I have reservations to cancel and have reconciled that I have to rest more so that when we are finally given the go ahead to get back on the road I am well in more aspects enough to do so!  This gives us more time to be with our sons, their wives, and our grandchildren!  If I am feeling good enough by early June we may be attending the John F Kennedy Senior High school 45th reunion.  that was a typo about the 45th reunion!  I couldn’t possible be that old! I’d like to go to one of our Coast to Coast local RV Resorts for a couple of weeks during this time.  We’ll see, but for now we will not be leaving tomorrow morning!

Since we thought we were leaving tomorrow, Wednesday, we went to church with Chip’s family at Soul’s Harbor.  Here all the Ponchatoula/Amite Chauvins (except Madisyn) in church Sunday morning.

Maybe we can go to church with our oldest son’s family when I am feeling better! There is nothing like sitting in a worship service with your family worshiping the Lord!  Maybe the Ponchatoula and Baton Rouge Chauvins could join us at Trinity one Sunday.  Maybe we can fit a day of Chauvin family fun in at our home in Amite b before we leave town!!!

Last and certainly not least is all the caring Roy has done for me.  He is outside frying fish right now which is something he’s very good at.  He’s done some laundry, brought me something to drink a few times and is being very loving.  I thank God for the man he put in the football stands at Tad Gormley Stadium in New Orleans’ City Park when I was only 16.  He was dating one of my good friends so it was hands off for a while.   The next year they  broke up and we started dating.  God knew then, just like he knows now, that we were meant to be together!

Ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear!