Connie (Mrs. WebSlave)

I am so sorry about Connie not feeling good. I am ECSTATIC she is doing "well" now.

"I was looking at COVID home test kits, but they are saying something ridiculous like "Positive results are accurate, but negative results are not." Oh really?"

Part of this is certainly specimen collection by untrained people. Also, the sensitivity and specificity of the test itself are going to have to give a little in order to make a test for a couple dollars.

Even PCR tests can give false negatives (in part because of the inherent possibility of errors in the replication process, I've just learned).

Good that they put this on the packaging, so that people know that even if they test negative they still need to take precautions.

Anyway, I feel bad that there are so many little hurdles for you to leap in all this. Hopefully getting them aired out here helps at least a little bit.

Originally Posted by Socratic Monologue

...I feel bad that there are so many little hurdles for you to leap in all this. Hopefully getting them aired out here helps at least a little bit.

Me too.

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Saying a prayer that all goes smoothly with the chemo this week.

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Hoping that the chemo treatment goes well for Connie. Hoping also that the impending tropical storm Alex does not add to the many miseries both of you are suffering.

Connie had her second chemo treatment today, and she seems to have taken it well. So far, at least. No negative reactions and she didn't come out of there in a body bag. Interestingly enough, no one made any moves to ask me to leave the infusions room, but I did wind up going back home for a few hours anyway. And the music volume they were playing in the infusion room was greatly reduced. Then on top of that, the office manager stopped by to talk with Connie and I after we had discussed with Connie's nurse that we would like to change oncologists. The current one is more a surgeon, and the one we would like to go with is an actual medical oncologist who friends of ours have been seeing for years and are very pleased with him. So Connie has an appointment with him next week.

They are also changing up some things, in that Connie will be taking one of the chemo meds once a week for four weeks instead of once every 3 weeks with the other two meds. This one med was the one that replaced Taxol after Connie had a very bad reaction to it. Oh, and we need to run in to the oncologist's office again tomorrow so she can get an injection that should help raise her white blood cell count. At least I think it is the white blood cells.

Originally Posted by Lucille

Hoping also that the impending tropical storm Alex does not add to the many miseries both of you are suffering.

Yeah, our luck for 2022 isn't running too hot, now is it? That sure would be icing to the cake to have our house destroyed by a hurricane. I think I would just dig a hole, jump in, and pull the lid over on myself.

Glad that Connie's experience today was a gigantic improvement over her first session. It's good for all of the patients that they have implemented many changes. I guess something good came of the awfulness Connie (and later because you love her, you) went through.

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Between Connie and myself, we have spent countless HOURS pulling off these surgical bandages that seem to be designed to survive a nuclear holocaust. Last week Connie had a monitor stuck to her chest to monitor her heart rate because her pulse has been elevated and a bit erratic. Stems back to when she had sort of a panic attack where her pulse rate "buried the needle" on our little pulse rate finger monitor. She still has some residue around the incisions of her surgery at the end of April. Oh, and she now has two belly buttons. You don't see that every day.

When I was in the ICU and it came time for me to get discharged, they sent in two pretty young aides to pull off my bandages. Half way through I said, "You know, I always through being manhandled by two young girls would have been a whole lot more pleasurable than this is turning out to be." They said "Not with us, it wouldn't!". Be careful what you wish for.

People who work at hospitals, and I guess other medical facilities, seem to just LOVE sticking people with needles and slapping adhesive with wild abandon all over the poor patients. Pretty much a given if you go into the emergency room or any other part of the hospital, the first thing they are going to do is to put an IV in your arm. Doesn't matter if they will need it or not, you ARE getting one. Maybe two. And if you are unlucky, you will get some bozo that it takes three or more tries before they get it right. I am thinking about getting a keyring that doubles as brass knuckles. Oh, for Connie, not me.

Originally Posted by Caryl

Glad that Connie's experience today was a gigantic improvement over her first session. It's good for all of the patients that they have implemented many changes. I guess something good came of the awfulness Connie (and later because you love her, you) went through.

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and !!

Starting to get medical bills rolling in.

Connie's stay at the hospital when she had her surgery rang up a bill of $206,000.00.

Fortunately Medicare/CHP health insurance took care of most of it.

I don't know what other associated bills will be showing up, since it seems that any doctor that sticks his or her head into your room sends you a bill for that. And I guess the surgeon's bill will be separate.

Can't wait to see what my ambulance ride, heart stent insertion, emergency room visit, and 3 day stay in intensive care comes to.

And there are Connie's chemo treatments.

Not sure why this had to happen to both Connie and I at the same time, but I do NOT appreciate God's sense of humor one least little bit.

Connie seems to be doing OK so far from her chemo treatment on Wednesday and that additional injection she got on Thursday. They said she may get flu like symptoms from it, and then likely bone and joint pain. The purpose of the injection is to help build up her white blood cells by stimulating the bone marrow. Not sure I know what that is all about. Heck, not sure I WANT to know. But puzzles me why they would be trying to stimulate cell growth during a chemo treatment. Seems to be counterintuitive to me. But what do I know? For all I know I had some brain cell death during my heart attack.

Heck, i guess a few more monster medical bills and I'll be having another heart attack anyway. Takes a while before the eyes wander on over to the column that says "What you have to pay." By then, it could be too late.

But a word to the wise, don't get cancer if you don't have good health insurance. Probably not a good idea to have a heart attack then neither, I am guessing.