Where Did April Go?

I know that whining is inappropriate behavior for an old crone like me, but I just have to tell you of my latest experience of aging. I will try very hard not to whine!

The last picture I posted, the Cisterna Plum, may have been the proverbial straw, because on April 5 Rocky said, "Your flowering plum has the most beautiful fragrance; be sure to go out and smell it today." So I did. I poked my head into its branches, and then took its picture. Indeed, it had a delicious fragrance.

Later that afternoon, I could feel my chest tightening and my head stopping up. The next day I had a chest cough. With no fever, I kept self-medicating with OTC. By Good Friday, April 10, I was so short-winded that I could not make my bed without resting and actually hooked my personal nosepiece up to Rocky's oxygen, and sat in a chair using it all day long. By 5:00, I decided to call our doctor. When she heard I'd been using Rocky's oxygen all day long, she literally ordered me to go to the ER.

I followed orders and sometime after midnight was admitted to the hospital where I remained for the next eight days! Now, you know, in this day and age, if they keep you in the hospital for eight days, you must be some sick puppy. Or should I say, "old dog." But still no fever.

After three chest x-rays, a flu swab (that was a nosy experience), intravenous shots of steroids and antibiotics, they found no pneumonia or flu and diagnosed me with severe bronchitis and athsma. May I add, it was the first time I have ever had athsma. The first doctor I saw, shall we call him Dr. Don't Giveadamn, actually said to me, "I don't think you have athsma, so don't go around telling people you have athsma."

Sunday's doctor, Dr. Don't Speeka d'English, shed no light on the subject.

Monday's doctor, Dr. Handsome Rajah InAPureWhiteSuit, told me, "You have athsma with bronchitis." Woah, Rajah!!! "I was just told by Dr. Don't Giveadamn that I don't have athsma," I said. "The word athsma means wheezing," the Rajah said, "The bronchitis is the infection."

Ohhh!

Now they add insulin shots in my belly because the intravenous steroids are making my glucose levels spike, in spite of the fact I do NOT have diabetes. The nurses promise me that my glucose levels will go back to normal when the steroids are stopped.

I'm confined to my bed because if I get up, this little pad on the bed plays a little tune, and the nurse call lights up above my door. This means I have to have "assistance " whenever I get up.
But the first couple days I am happy to just lie there and let people wait on me. I remember thinking, "someone else will have to take care of Rocky now because I need someone to take care of me."

Poor Rocky did o.k. through Easter and the day after. Two friends brought him Easter dinner, and Paul and Diana Conco brought him up to see me. But by Tuesday, he couldn't keep up with chores anymore and he had an emphysema attack combined with back pain, and was admitted to the hospital through the ER that night. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that he had been complaining of progressive back pain, and on March 31 when we had our cholesterol check-ups, he told the doctor about it. She ordered an x-ray, with those results requiring an MRI, which showed he has a crushed vertebrae, a fresh fracture, and several old ones, all in the thoracic area.
The docs speculate that the massive doses of steroids he's been taking have caused his bones to deteriorate rapidly.

When Rocky was admitted, I went into social worker mode, and with the bed tray as my desk, the telephone and pen and tablet handy, I began finding resources for us and journaling our options. And while I was at it, I ordered a hair styler from QVC. (Daytime tv offers a lot of junk shows when QVC is the most interesting program to watch.)

Recently, I reviewed my experiences with my daughter, Sherry, over the phone. "I know I slept a lot," I said, "but I remember being awake a lot, too. I think I was alert."

"Oh, you were alert, all right," she said, "I thought the next thing I would have to do is to call in an exorcist!"

I guess I ran my mouth. And evidently, not too tactfully!

I do remember scolding a student respiratory therapist in training for acting unprofessionally when he turned his back on me like I was the "invisible patient," and proceeded to discuss campus politics with his supervisor.

And then there was the day they discharged Rocky, and the nurses and case managers got the benefits of my displeasure. I had been discharged on Sat. evening, and they discharged him the following Monday afternoon. A friend of mine had just arrived to be with me while I made some bigtime life adjustments. (My scoliosis kicked in after 65 years of being controlled, and I am now walking with a cane. Because the crooked spine is pressing against my lungs, I cannot get a really deep breath so remain short-winded and must use oxygen when I need to walk a distance or carry something.) When I objected, they told me I could put him into a nursing home. I hit the roof! I know he's 79 and they see him as an old man, but in my eyes he is my best friend and still a 44 year old highly educated newspaper editor. I had to ask three times before they would page the doctor. The doc spoke calmly with respect in his voice in spite of the fact that he wasn't going to change his mind. He, too, said that if I couldn't care for Rocky here at home, then he could be admitted to a rehab center or a nursing home. My reaction? "Doctor, would you want to sleep in a nursing home bed tonight?"

Well, I lost the argument and my friend, Norris, and I brought Rocky home that night. Poor Norris, who is only a few years younger than I and has her own health problems, didn't know what she'd gotten herself into. She worked really hard catching up our laundry and making dinners. Tuesday was rough, but then Wednesday and Thursday got easier, and she left Friday.

I will stop here, and tell you that we are doing o.k. I will give you more details in future posts.

Coltsfoot Rock

Remember when I wrote about coltsfoot a few days ago? It's the plant that looks like a short dandelion, sort of.  Wikipedia says that the coltsfoot leaves were dried, then smoked, as a treatment for athsma. They also said that in England the extract is made into a candy-like confection that is a cough suppresant called Coltsfoot Rock.

Well, thanks to Google, I found the company, Stockley's, that makes it in Oswaldtwistle, United Kingdom, which is near Lancashire, and I sent for some. They evidently sent it Express because it arrived only a few days after I placed the order. I'm posting a picture of its packaging.

Of course, we had to taste it! The listed ingredients are sugar, liquorice, gelatin, paragoric, capsicum, Oil of Aniseed, Coltsfoot (Extract) .0012%, no artificial coloring. (Capsicum is "a tropical American pepper plant.") The box contained four 6-inch sticks that looked like 6-inch cigar-colored pieces of chalk. It tasted pretty good, but we are saving it for an athsma attack. 

There is a drawing on the back of the box of three coltsfoot flowers in front of a hoof-shaped leaf for illustrative purposes only since the flowers and leaves do not appear at the same time.

It was fun sending for something from "the old country."

Tussilago farfara "Coltsfoot"

I did a little research in Wikipedia on Coltsfoot, Tussilago farfara, our harbinger of spring around here along with the forsythia and daffy daffodils.

Tussilago means cough supressant and evidently its qualities as a soothing relief of sore throats and chest coughs were well known when European immigrants settled in the Appalachian mountains two centuries ago.

Today, we notice the coltsfoot flowers because they are similar in looks to dandelions, but without leaves. The "hoof-shaped" leaves, thus the plant's name, do not appear until after the plant has bloomed and set seeds. Early peoples dried the leaves, then smoked them for relief primarily from athsma-like conditions. The flowers were also crushed and were thought to be a cure for skin conditions. In addition, the plant is edible.

A confectionary business in Oswaldtwistle, United Kingdom, Stockley's Sweets, maintains it is the only business in the world that makes a confection from coltsfoot, known as Coltsfoot Rock.

It is located near Lancastershire. Since Rocky suffers from COPD which includes athsma, I sent for some, so I'll let you know what it tastes like if I can find the right words, and whether it helps us suppress coughs or tastes medicinal (or yummy).

The plant likes sunny locations along roadsides, although it is not as common as dandelions.

We first noticed coltsfoot a decade or more in the past growing down the middle and on the edges of our gravel road. Our road is paved now with asphalt and the colonies of coltsfoot are decidedly fewer.  But it survives at the edges of the asphalt in little groups. I noticed the ones the other day where Rocky feeds his pet grouse millet. 

Neither one of us was acquainted with the plant and had to look it up in a wildflower book to verify what it was. However, as happens so often when you become aware of something, we started to find references to it in local and regional media.