Fiercely Independent Pam

Author: Pamela

  • Plant Mom

    When I moved to my current living situation, I quickly appreciated my wonderful patio walkout. It my semi-private, small oasis that fosters a new hobby-being a “plant mom.” Through the winter I dreamed of what could be- still too cold to plant anything but would spend sometime each morning basking in the morning sun.

    During winter I also decided to embrace some indoor plants. I found a great seller of starter plants on Etsy and ordered a few from plants.com as well as being gifted a few. I got a great plant stand from Amazon that not only looks good, but has built in grow lights for the dim darkness of winter. I tended to this plants and almost all are doing great! I looked for plants that are dog friendly (always trying to plan ahead for my service dog), as well as air purifying (my favorite for this is my snake plant).

    Fast forward to early spring and my determination to get my patio ready for the warmer- growing friendly weather. I did a lot of research to find the perfect chair (from Outdoor Nook) and I am so happy with it! Then came the research and purchase of a wheelchair friendly raised flower bed (found on Amazon). I wanted something on wheels to be able to bring in during the winter. I love my choice and it checks off all my boxes! Next, I asked a good friend to bring me to Home Depot to purchase some plants- got all sorts of things, with my favorite being my little potted lemon tree, a tribute to my dad and his lemon tree he used to grow lemons to make lemoncellio. All my plants are doing well with the exception of my lost strawberry plant (should have left it in its pot and not planted in the flower bed). I’ve had some help from caregivers and friends with planting and watering, especially when I was in the hospital or recovering from multiple surgeries and couldn’t lift my watering can.

    Yesterday, I spent a few hours “deadheading” and cleaning up my plants, some are struggling a little with the current heat situation and others are thriving. Hopefully this attention will benefit the plants and they will be thriving soon! Today’s goals are to spend some attention on my indoor plants and get them into great shape for the future.

    I share all this to remind myself and hopefully others that being useful to someone or something is so important. Purpose in life helps keep you grounded, feeling secure, and give you motivation to keep going and not let the hard days win! Find your passion- it’s so important to give your life purpose, especially when dealing with disabilities or health struggles. So often we are caught in what seems like a never ending cycle of medical appointments, bad news, and pain that we can’t see the solutions. Giving your life purpose helps keep all these things at bay.

    Included are some but not all pics of my plants that make me a proud Plant Mom!

  • Get Well Soon?

    “You have such a good attitude” or “You aways are positive,” etc. I am a big believer in faking it until you make it! I am not always feeling positive or feel like smiling, but it’s so much easier to fake feeling good than to own up to feeling lousy. Nobody wants to be around someone who is feeling lousy or cranky. I like to be around people and not alone, therefore it’s in my best interest to try to stay positive and smile through the chaos. I’ve tried the “pity parties” and they frankly are not fun. I do believe its important to reflect and acknowledge how much is going on, but then its time to move on.

    Chronic illness is no joke- the stress of realizing you are never going to get better is exhausting. And explaining that to others is such a hard thing to do. Everyone wants to say “feel better soon” or You’ll be back to your old self soon.” This is just not true and sometimes it’s just not worth the energy to correct people, even close friends or family. So what do you say? How do you tell those around you that something else is wrong?

    Then there is the never ending suggestions of everything from yoga (which I love, but isn’t going to fix me), oils, diets, and everything in between. I’ve spent more money than I chose to say on various fixes, only to be disappointed. I love you, and I promise I am doing everything I can to feel better, but your latest google searches or ideas aren’t super helpful all the time.

    What can you do to help? Listen to me, ask me what I might need, stop by unannounced, distract me with your wonderful news, support my decisions, pretend everything is ok, and most importantly, try not to ignore or hide out from me. I know I am A LOT- I promise, I would change if I could.

  • I’d Like to Get off this Ride, Please!

    Well, here I am… again- in the hospital trying to figure things out. Fourth admission in the last 45 days. This one was unique- was feeling pretty crappy all of the sudden, high heart rate, super high blood pressure, and a crazy bloody nose. Had the medical assistant in the building come see me and we called my primary. Decided to call ems and take a ride to the local stand-alone ER.

    Doctor came in an did his quick assessment, ordered some bloodwork and tried to stop the nosebleed. Lots transpired including a ct to rule out blood clots some packing in my nose and eventually stronger antibiotics, fluids, and some pain medicine. A plan was devised to go home with close follow-up at the urologist the next day (already scheduled) and a quick pick up of the stronger antibiotic. As my luck goes, as the dr was typing my discharge papers, my medical record was flagged with a new result- priliminary results of the urine cultures from my past admission two days ago. The results were not good a
    “superbug” of sorts that required iv antibiotics and triggered a sepsis alert. Obviously this meant an admission. Being that I was at a stand-alone ER, I had to be transferred to the hospital.

    Without being super specific and reliving everything, a series of promises were made to me about the level of medicine that they could offer; this was not true and extremely frustrating. Given it was nighttime in the hospital, I knew I wasn’t going to get very far. Morning came and we were moving and shaking, even a transfer to MUSC was in the works. As quickly as things were happening was as fast as they were falling apart, my goal was to have a great visit with my amazing friend who brought me more things from my apartment, and then to sleep well, hopefully with the bipap. I did manage some good sleep in between the interruptions and woke feeling pretty good, considering.

    MUSC was not accepting transfers because they didn’t have any available beds, so I decided to make the most of the situation and practice my advocacy skills. Then the news came, MRSA detected in the bloodstream (blood cultures started to result), new additional antibiotic, and close monitoring of vital signs and blood work. I’ve been down this route many times with sepsis- always scary, never fun, do not recommend!

    After a great visit from an area priest who anointed me and then came back with Communion (so thankful!) and some good phone calls to family/friends, I had a decent sleep (thank goodness!) and woke up ready to see what the day would bring. Another new Dr., she thinks that the MRSA found in the last round of blood cultures was a contamination, not a real result and ordered more blood cultures and discontinued the 2nd antibiotic (GRR!) Now it’s a waiting game to see what will grow with the newest cultures.

    At the same time, I continue to battle with my bladder. I’m now going on my third week with a foley catheter in. Dealing with continued pain, pressure, and now bladder spasms. The plan is to leave the catheter in until the UTI clears and then try a voiding trial. The hope is that I can both void and full empty, otherwise its on to plan b- lots of things have been discussed, none of which please me in the least. Then there is the issue of the large kidney stone that needs to be addressed, but that needs to be done as an outpatient apparently.

    Whew! Besides the obvious of trying to make the best of this pretty crappy situation, it important to recognize the importance of trusting your “gut.” I unfortunately am rarely wrong when I think something is wrong with my body- many would have brushed off my initial symptoms that brought me to the ER, but I pushed through to the doctors that “something wasn’t right!”

    Still have this feeling that I will come out ok on the other end, but something still isn’t right. Infection isn’t clearing as well as I’d like and I have a bad feeling about this bladder stuff. For now, I will visit with anyone and everyone who I can, in person or on the phone, do some writing, brought some crocheting with me, and getting some good earned sleep.

    Tomorrow is Monday, which means things will be moving and shaking again after a quiet, empty weekend. Hopefully something, not too scary will grow on my cultures and I can start planning to go home to full recover. I am bummed that I had to cancel a few things that I was really looking forward to and hope my visit from a dear friend isn’t too impacted.