Thursday Turmoil ~ Trading Stories

This morning has been a bad one in the Murphey Saga household. We awoke after ten this morning. In my case awoke again.

I awoke originally at 3 AM. Basically that's when my husband woke up from his nap at the desk and came to bed. I reached over to get the things for his injection. I administered it and was monitoring his vitals when the urge to empty my bladder hit. As you know from previous posts, I haven't the sensation that tells me my bladder is full unless I shift positions.

I groaned trying to maintain control over my excretory system while I donned my compression hoses one handed, put on my AFO and shoe, rose to a seated position on the bed, and then slipped into my other shoe so my step wasn't way off balance. Meanwhile in the middle of all this, Patches Kitty decided to jump up on the bed. Her claws digging into my bare foot. And then she jumps full force on my husband sits bolt upright knocking his pants and spare oxygen cylinder to the floor. All the time I'm fighting this "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!" urge.

My DH (darling hubby) with bleary, drugged eyes and hands is trying to assist me. He was more hampering than assisting. As I stand he asks, "Are you coming back to bed?"

To answer him I have to stop and turn back towards the bed so he can read my lips. "I gotta pee and I don't know."

He mumbles something and pulls the covers up to his chin after adjusts the oxygen mask over his face. We switched to a mask from a nasal cannula  because most of his sleeping time he was mouth breathing. But I digress...

I move towards the bathroom, a mere thirty full steps from our bed. Except my walking has taken on a pigeon toed walk while I try to control my bladder. It's not doing my balance any good because I having to hold onto things to keep going forward.

As I step the small step up onto the marble threshold, I start losing control. I feel a warm trickle release from my body. "Come on four more steps, pull down my britches, and sit," I encouraged my body in its control efforts. Opening my thighs to pull down my panties to sit on the commode all efforts of control was lost.

After cleaning up the mess, a shower, and a clean change of clothes, I was awake and there was no going back to sleep. I walked into the office and started going through my usual morning routine of business and reading trying to get my mind wake enough to write. By six, I had taken my morning meds and found myself drifting off at my computer. Screw it, I'm going back to bed.

I awoke after a weird dream about ministering with a start. I glanced at the clock 10:30!  My husband's meds were past due. Things I have to get done today are now backed up three hours.

(His version)
My husband stumbles into the office. "Boy, what a morning! I feel like I've been beaten up with a baseball bat. The anti-constipation meds finally worked, but I took off my oxygen before I went into the bathroom. I had a bad session on the 'mode. Now I can't breathe."

"Slow, deep breaths." I reminded him, grabbed his tubing off the bed, and placed the mask firmly on his face. His respiratory rate was thirty per minute. I looked over at him gulping down oxygen through the mask like a starved man at a banquet table.  Did I forget to mention his oxygen condenser now has twenty-five-foot tubing.

He nodded and complied. His heart rate dropped by fifty beats a minute and respiratory rate fell to twenty but his O2 sats were coming up to the 80s just by doing it. I sighed with relief and as I watched the numbers fall. "I almost sh!t my pants! And then, I had to get dressed. Now I have to make coffee to get awake." He gives a chuckle. "But you know what? I'm praising God that I'm still alive!"

Yep, my DH pretty well summed it up with the last sentence. While alive we can complain, laugh, correct wrongs, and make the right choices, but once we are dead--that's it.

How is your Thursday shaping up?