Update on Jerry

I hesitate to start this post tonight because I am so hurt and upset about something.  I'm going to TRY to not go into overload and blast you with it.

Chemo day was yesterday.  I should have KNOWN from the beginning that it was NOT going to be a good day.  I had let Jackie -- our 11-week old puppy -- out into the garage the night before to visit with the cats.  I don't know WHY I did that as the cats look at her as though she is an alien from the great beyond.  They hiss and wave a paw, and then they both run and hide under the cars.  In just a few minutes, I opened the laundry room door and she came running back into the house.  The cats were nowhere in sight!

Now it is yesterday morning, and Jerry and I have to be at the hospital at 8:45 for his lab work.  As often happens with me when I know I have an appointment in the morning, I didn't sleep much at all Tuesday night.  I saw 2 AM and 3 AM and 4 AM go buy on the clock next to my bed.  I got up a few times.  I turned my pillow over and around and puffed it up a dozen times.  Just could NOT get to sleep.  Jerry was sleeping soundly next to me except for all the times I woke him up pounding on my pillow.

My alarm went off at 6:30, and I got out of bed feeling like someone must have poked me with a pin during the night and drained every ounce of energy out of me.  I went out to the kitchen to get a cup of coffee and landed in my glider to sip it.  Jerry had already been up for an hour and had done payroll.  He KNEW I hadn't slept and was super sleepy.  He suggested that instead of my staying with him for five hours at Chemo, that he just take himself.  NO WAY!  I wasn't about to do that.  I did suggest that maybe I could just drop him off -- come back home and take a quick nap -- and then pick him up after Chemo.  He said that was fine.  So that was the plan.

Before I went back to my bedroom to get dressed, I had to go get something out of my car in the garage.  When I walked out into the garage I smelled something NASTY.  I looked around to see if the cats had died during the night or something, and then I saw it.  Jackie had pooped in THREE different places on the garage floor.  AARRGGHH!!!  I decided to leave it until it was dry, and then clean it up.  I went back in and got ready to go.

It is 8:00 AM and we are leaving to go to Braum's to have a quick breakfast and then go to the hospital.  Just before I turned the doorknob to enter the garage, I said to Jerry: "WATCH WHERE YOU WALK.  THERE IS POOP ALL OVER THE GARAGE!"

Jerry goes ahead of me to get in the passenger side and guess what?????

He steps in the poop! Yep.  He has his brand new Christmas shoes on, and the heel of one is now covered with smashed poop!  I growl something and run to grab some paper towels and a wet wipe for him to clean his shoe off.  We finally get in the car and head to Braum's.  I order a bacon/egg biscuit and he ordered a Big Country Breakfast.  We sit down across each other in a booth to eat.  I take my biscuit all apart -- as I always do -- and put the bacon in one place, the biscuit flat on its bottoms side by side, and the egg in another place.  I salt and pepper the egg.  I put butter and jam on the two biscuit halves.  I pick up a fork and I start eating.

As I'm eating, I stare at Jerry.  As I am staring at Jerry, I notice that he has the WRONG shirt on.  He is supposed to wear a button-up the front shirt so the nurses can unbutton it to get to his port.  I tell Jerry.  He says we have to go home so he can change.  I tell him we will be late.  He says we have to go anyway.  I toss the rest of my breakfast and so does he, and we head back home -- just five minutes away.  I tell him I will run in and grab the shirt and he can change at the hospital.  I came out with the shirt, and he started peeling off the two shirts he already had on and put on the new shirt.  I was not happy driving without his seat belt on him, but I did.  He finally got the shirt buttoned up -- the seat belt on -- and we got to the hospital where I dropped him off at 8:49 AM.  Already late.

Jerry went up to the third floor and checked in.  He sat and sat and sat.  He noticed lots of people coming in after him and then being sent to the lab where he was supposed to go.  If I had been there, I would have said something immediately.  Jerry isn't me -- thank God -- and he just waited.  After a while he finally went up to the window to discover that they had FORGOTTEN to tell the lab he was there.  That made him late for Chemo which is on the fourth floor, but he finally got there too.

MEANWHILE, back at the ranch, I wasn't at the ranch.  I got the idea to go to PetSmart to get some things for Jacque.  I was just going to run in and run back out, but I got mesmerized by all the doggie things they had.  I also went into the grooming salon and talked with the two people in there who had no animals to work on.  One was a very nice young man who came out of the salon and lead me all over the store from item to item that I asked about.  When I checked out, the nice young man handed me a package of Puppy Coupons and told me that I should buy them because I could get all this "free stuff" including a free Puppy Training Class.  I said, "Fine".  I paid $20 for the coupon book and the cashier lady told me I needed to choose a date for my "FREE" Puppy Training Class.  I looked at the calendar she handed me and circled a date.  Then she said, "That will be $109.00."

WHAT??????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you BELIEVING that day, and it wasn't over ....

I tell the clerk the class was supposed to be FREE!  She looks at my coupon and figures out she has put the wrong class in the register.  I wait for her to fix all of that, and then I have to choose a different class.  Before I left, I also made an appointment for Jacque to be groomed at 1:00 on Sunday.  I FINALLY got back home where Jackie was waiting in all of her fluffy cuteness for me to tell her how adorable she was. By then, it was too late to take a nap, so no nap got taken.  I decided to go to lunch and then go get Jerry, which I did.

I walked into the chemo room which was surprisingly quite vacant of patients.  I walked around the whole place, and I finally had to ASK where Jerry was.  He was around a corner and in a corner.  When I walked over to where he was, I immediately noticed several puddles of water in front of and next to his chair.  I turned and said something to the first non-patient I saw and mentioned that there was water on the floor.  The non-patient turned out to be Jerry's nurse-for-the-day named Bonnie.

This was her response to me:

"Yeah, I KNOW.  I spilled some ice on the floor earlier."

My mind thinks, "SHE KNOWS?, and she is doing NOTHING about it?"

Think of it.  It was ice.  It fell and splattered and then melted, so it was in several places -- not just one.  I could very easily have slipped and fallen on the hard floor if I hadn't seen it first.  The patients get up out of their chairs -- and they are weak and sick -- and they have to roll the drug holder thing with them to go to the bathroom.  HOW are they supposed to see the water on the floor which was RIGHT in the walkway to the bathroom?

Bonnie walked away after her pronouncement.  I ASSUMED she would return and wipe up the melted ice puddles.  NOPE!

I decided I would just clean it up myself.  There was a coffee/water/snack bar nearby, so I figured there would be napkins or paper towels nearby.  There was a man volunteer standing near it doing nothing, so I asked him if he knew where I could get a paper towel to wipe up the water on the floor.  He reached over a counter and grabbed a few paper towels -- and instead of wiping up the water himself -- he gave them to me.  Whatever.  I threw the paper towels down into one of the puddles and stepped on them with my shoe.

Here's a picture:

I shuffled the towels around with my foot to the other spots, and found a trash can to put them in.

Later, Bonnie showed up to tend to Jerry's drugs.  I said something to her about water on the floor being very dangerous for these sick people to be walking in.  She informed me it had been there for ONLY ONE HOUR, and she was busy.  She said if I had a complaint I could talk to her charge nurse, Renae'.  Renae' was just a few feet away and she turned and Bonnie pointed her out to me.  Renae' wasn't the least bit interested either, and she turned and went somewhere else.  I never spoke to Renae'.  Jerry and I just left.

The day did not get any better.  Many more things happened, but the worst part was the scolding I received from a friend at how inconsiderate I had been to the poor nurse who spilled the ice.  She thought my mentioning the ice would make the nurse be mean to Jerry on future visits.  I should have just cleaned it up and never have mentioned it.  OH!  I forgot to tell you that the TV on Jerry's chair was broken and had no sound.  I did ask if anyone had advised someone that the TV needed repair.  I was told by Bonnie that he could just sit in a different one.  The same friend told me that I should have just kept quiet about that too because Jerry probably didn't mind anyway.

It is now Thursday night.  Chemo was yesterday.

The good thing is, Jerry did just fine through the Chemo.  He feels pretty good today, although he has those little red bumps all over his back and his front again, and his face looks like he has a slight sunburn.  He says food tastes like metal, and his body feels strange.

The not so good thing is I received a frantic phone call this morning from the Manager of our Kingston store.  Due to several things going on down here beyond her control, I have had to rush back to Kingston and Jerry is now alone in Edmond.  We are 150 miles apart.  He swears he will be fine.  I pray he will be.  Tammy had to come get my baby, Jackie.  I am so sad to have to leave her as I was really getting attached to her.  Tammy, of course, will check in daily on her Dad.  Her husband is having surgery on Monday, however, and I imagine she will need to stay with him after that.

ANDDDDDDDDDD, remember my concern about spelling my puppy's name "Jacque" or "Jackie".  I gave PetSmart the spelling "Jacque" because it is still on her tag.  When I called to tell them I needed to cancel her grooming appointment today, the girl asked me my last name.  I told her.  She responded, "I will cancel Jock's appointment.  I will be getting a new name tag, lol.

I better go.  I am still tired from yesterday, and I need to be at work early in the morning.

Hugs, Joy