Handling Our Health Crisis in 2022 – How It Changes Everything! Part Two

On April 13 2022, my husband went to the hospital with what we both thought was a heart attack.

It was kind of a panic-stricken time when we weren’t sure but, with his previous problems, agreed that the Emergency Room can decide for us.( He has had Atrial fibrillation for several years, on various rhythm medications, cardioversion done many times, but always reverts.)

If you missed Part One, see it here.

I drove him myself even though my car was parked on the street. We are only a few minutes away from the hospital and we didn’t want to wait on an ambulance. Our driveway had just finished and car isn’t even parked on it yet!

So a hectic next few months began. He wasn’t actually having a heart attack but his heart was failing. My husband was in the hospital for the next eight weeks, most of that in Cardiac ICU.

But I am not going to focus on his surgery and recovery but more about how that affected our day- to-day life when a health crisis like this occurs.

How Can I Do This Myself?

I am not going to go there about “What if he didn’t make it?” Yes, all those emotions were there for 8 weeks of sleepless nights, but I won’t focus on any of that.

What I will focus on was handling all the “little things” that become monumental when you are doing it all yourself. Just remember, never take for granted those “little things” that are so little.

We needed a lawn mower for our property this year because last year we had used a service. Deciding to wait until spring to get a mower, now it’s left to me to go shop and make a decision!

What a nightmare! Bringing photos back and forth, discussing with my husband, we realized that our ideas were so different. I wanted a simple riding mower, he wanted a 62″ wide zero-turn super tractor that we couldn’t even get into our 2 car garage!

With my son’s help, I chose a smaller riding mower that fit our budget. Little did I know (Do I not get out much?), it arrives via transport truck and is encase in a wooden box!

Ordinarily, I don’t worry about that kind of thing because my husband would just “Do it”, but now I have to get a time my son can come do this for me (with as much help as I can provide).

A Garden Storage Barn ( I can’t call it a She Shed) next. We had waited until driveway was finished, but I had to have someone quote a “pad” to put it on. Who knew?

Chose a barn, got the bigger ( or maybe I should say Medium ) one since he wanted bigger and I wanted smaller.

Castle Yard Barn Sales built it and delivered it and put it on the pad we had to have built. More decisions. Face front, face side? Running back and forth to hospital every day and still getting this done.

And the spring days are passing when I would have been planning my flower beds, weeding, choosing where to place the hypertufa planters etc.

But I just couldn’t formulate my thoughts into my gardens yet when I was so worried and busy. My husband usually takes care of those sheds, and pads, mowers and all. You really take that all for granted.

Did I mention I hated learning to mow? I wrote notes on how to set choke, release choke, move blades, release deck and so forth. I messed up a lot and learned how to lug gas cans to the station and fill.

We won’t even go into getting the mower in and out of the garden shed. I am NOT known for my backing up skills….or my pulling forward into small spaces…ooops! In hindsight, do I wish I had stayed with a service? Absolutely!

How Is Recovery Going?

Still keeping the streets hot with appointments at his internist, cardiologist, kidney doctor, lung doctor, Compunet Lab tests, nurse visits, therapist’s visits…….Oh my, we both want normal back.

But he seems to be doing well. And my gardens survived and even thrived after I got out there and relaxed. So much easier when he was home and I could be outside, then run back in to make sure things were OK.

I’ll soon have a video of some of the highlights of this Health Crisis and all the things we worked out.

I am really looking forward to a Normal spring this year. Keeping an eye on his meds, watching his sodium intake, following up on all the bills! Thank God we have a good insurance supplement via his Medicare.