Missing in Action

Rick? Where have you BEEN?

First of all, I would like to apologize for starting a blog/substack and vanishing rapidly right afterward.

Back in November, last year, on the 1st day of the month, my dear wife and XYL, KB0IRW finished her last of six infusions on her FORTH TIME through chemotherapy since 2014. She was not doing well, and was suffering from high blood pressure (something only people with hypertension tend to suffer from). One of the chemo drugs caused her massive problems. On the 17th of November 2022, she started to go into seizures, and had a stroke during the whole thing.

I spent 140 days driving daily to the hospital 40 miles away, and back home at the end of the day, for a total of 11,200 miles, at about $1600 for gas, plus a few hotels in the area for a couple of nights, at least 600 dollars for car repairs, I have no idea how much food was costing me, and 10s of thousands of dollars in hospital bills.

I stood guard over her, because after she was moved out of the ICU, a night shift doctor wrote an entry in her records about her “being a terminal cancer patient” (Which was clearly UNTRUE if they had bothered to actually read her records from her oncologist who’d stated she had NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE) and in the order, told the staff to stop suctioning her tracheostomy (I won’t detail that other than she wound up with that because they damaged her intubating her not once, but THREE times). The night he wrote that, she suffered a cardiac arrest for lack of oxygen (her tracheostomy was clogged with fluids. Fifteen minutes of CPR brought her back put her back in ICU and I almost lost my mind.

I’ve been now caring for her at home since 29 March when she got out of rehab, and she’s still having major issues, low BP, can’t walk well (and only for a few moments, with a walker) she’s mostly in a wheel chair and can’t do a lot of things for herself yet. She can’t go to the bathroom easily, nor does she know when every time so I deal with that as well.

On Sunday night, it all caught up to me. I suffered what can only be described as “A Blood Pressure Incident”. I had my BP explode on me. I do have hypertension, and have been on meds for a lot of years now. Something happened and I thought I was going to die. I can’t leave her alone and I don’t have in-home help, nor family near by (All in Colorado, I’m in North Carolina these days). I called friends. Three of them came over. 1 stayed an hour, another came and stayed for 2 hours. Finally I found someone to come and stay with her, and her husband took me to the ER (hours later).

Mean time, my BP landed at 200/100 and I suffered from a broken capillary or three, one of which is inside my left eyeball, leaving a blood trail inside between the lens and retina. I see massive amounts of floaties now.

ER tested my heart, EKG, my head with a CT scan, ran some blood work, and determined I had not had a stroke or heart attack. They also determined that I had mostly LIKELY had a stress attack, whatever that is. Stress they say can mimic many things including heart attack and stroke. I have a Doctor’s appointment tomorrow to talk to her about my BP, about stress, about my eye (and get a referral) and try to figure out how to get someone in here a couple of times a week to take over for me.

Ok - there’s my excuse for not being here, creating this place and nearly abandoning it, and here’s my apology. I’m sorry.

I’ll do better I hope.

For now, know that I am alive, and kind of well… inundated with work at home, more than I ever had as an engineer and caring for a loved one. I will try to do some more blogs here for those who are interested in learning.

Find my group on Telegram at Amateur Radio - The Learning Channel where:

We are here to give answers about becoming a ham radio operator. Also, ask anything RADIO related in here! We will do our best!

The group is nearly 300 strong, with several hams, and folks who come and go, asking questions. You’re welcome to join there and chat live from time to time with me and others.

Until later

73

Rick, N0NJY