I'll leave it to her to tell the complete story, when she gets home. The short of it is that she's got chronic asthma, acute bronchitis, a dangerously low iron count, and diabetes. To make matters worse, the drugs are all fouling each other up. The iron count is low in part because she's been having her period for several weeks straight. The estrogen they gave her to stop that is raising her blood sugar. The steroidal inhaler she uses for her asthma raises her blood sugar. The antibiotics they've given her for the brochitis - go on, guess! - raise her blood sugar. The drugs they're giving her to get her blood sugar back down increase her heart rate and make it difficult to breathe. So they're fighting in circles and expect her to be in the hospital for three to five days.
We had gone over to her place on Saturday to game, but she hadn't been feeling well, and had gone to the emergency room. She said she was feeling better when she came back, so we stayed and talked for a bit, then went home. Sunday morning, Kevin called us to let us know that when the adrenaline they'd given her at the emergency room wore off, she'd felt the need to go back, and this time they hadn't let her go home. He'd been up all night and was just getting home.
So we went to see her last night, and she looked quite a bit better; only had a little bit of wheeze to her breath and could actually talk. Aside from the IV shunt stuck in her hand, she even seemed fairly cheerful, in a K.T. sort of way. (Which is to say, she was cheerfully complaining at the nurses who came in to give her pills and shots, and rolling her eyes at us over her mother-in-law's well-intentioned but annoying busy-bodyness, and picking at her mediocre-looking hospital food, and gleefully refusing to eat the lettuce in her salad or wear the stupid hospital gown.) So she seems to be improving and I hope she'll be out of the hospital soon.
They have commanded her to lose some weight, so in her honor I am cutting short the deliberate break from my diet and going back on the wagon today. I've promised to be her diet-buddy, and we'll complain about nasty diet food to each other, and keep each other in line and who knows - maybe it will actually work.
But last night, leaving the hospital, I was angry. I told Matt I was grumpy so he would just be quiet and not try to be silly and jolly, but it went well beyond grumpy and into full-blown anger. I'm not sure even now if I can explain why.
Angry at the universe for allowing things like this to happen. Angry at Kevin and his mother for bringing their McDonald's food into the room while K.T. is having to contemplate a diet in which that food would be forbidden. Angry at Kevin for bringing his mom with him at all when he knows very well K.T. doesn't much like her. Angry at Matt for telling me to shut up when I was talking to try to keep things light. Angry at myself for not knowing when to shut up on my own and for letting the surroundings make me nervous. Even angry at K.T. for being so concerned about appearances in reverse: She wouldn't go on a diet because she didn't want people to think she was doing it just to look better, so she neglected to do it for her health.
Talking about it isn't helping, either. Matt just came in to give me some information and I bit his head off. Maybe I'll write more later.
12:45pm
Okay, I'm feeling more cheerful now. so I'll tell you about the good thing that happened yesterday: We bought a table.
When we got married, my grandmother gave us a check with which to buy a new dining room set. For this reason and that, we kept putting it off, and Grandmom has been getting more than a little impatient with us. We picked this table out from Montgomery Wards back in January, and decided to come back and buy it in June. June almost slipped by us unnoticed, but we managed it!It was weird, though. We found the table again easily enough, and then went to the service desk. The lady at the desk promised to be with us as soon as she'd finished with this other couple, and we went back to the table to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
While we were waiting, we noticed something odd: There were two different sets we could buy: The table and four chairs, for $500, or the table and six chairs, for $400. HUH? No, you didn't read that wrong, and no, I didn't type it wrong. Apparently, getting two extra chairs would be $100 cheaper. Now, I've seen some weird sales before, but this took the cake!
I theorized that maybe one of the two prices wasn't supposed to be displayed - left over from last week, or maybe in preparation for next week. We pored over the signs, looking for something that would explain it. Nothing.
Finally, a clerk wandered over and asked us if we needed help. Having given up on the original clerk, we told this fellow that we wanted to buy the set. I asked which price applied, and he answered that we were buying the cheaper set that came with more chairs. And then he told us that because they had a 25% off sale going, we were going to get our set for about $300. Holy Windsor chairs, Batman! If we had bought the standard set and the two extra chairs, this would have run us almost $800!
Okay, I'm aware of the fact that the entire set of table and six chairs probably costs no more than $100 fresh from the factory. And I'm also aware that probably no one buys these sets at the displayed price, because there is never a time when there is not some sort of sale. But they succeeded in making us feel superior, so we're enjoying it while it lasts.
Sometime toward the end of the week, they'll call to let us know that the set has been delivered from their warehouse in Maryland, and we'll get my dad to help us go pick it up, since he's got a pickup truck. Of course, we won't actually get to use the new table until we move into our house, but that's only (hopefully) another two months!
Yay!
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