Not so good times…

Well. I have no clue where to begin. It’s been yet another lovely month for us. The month started out a bit better. Dave was recovering from his latest stint at the hospital and we were trying to pull our lives back together. We went to a Genesis concert down in Chicago and had a great time. It was fun to go on a mini-road trip and get away for a bit. The music and performance were awesome. We both love Genesis and they played a nice selection of their music throughout the years. There was old stuff, newer stuff and some of their more annoying “pop” hits that aren’t our favorites. But all and all it was completely enjoyable!

Dave was still feeling off, but doing much better on the antibiotics. I had planned a “Girls weekend” with some of the amazing ladies I work with and that was coming up quickly. I wasn’t sure about going in the first place and now with all that happened, I really didn’t think it was a good idea. But Dave knew I was hitting burn out and he felt it was extremely important that I get away…if only for a few days. So I went.

The trip itself was amazing. It was nice to get caught up on sleep a bit and get to know the ladies. We ate a lot of yummy food and would go and get coffee and just sit outside in the gorgeous weather for hours at a time. But on the downside…the C-diff came back and David ended up in the hospital again. It wasn’t as bad as last time. He went to ER for more fluids after meeting with the GI doctor and then ER admitted him into a normal room in the hospital, not ICU. He was in for 2 ½ days this time. I wanted to come home the moment he was admitted, but David was told he would be out by the next morning. But of course he wasn’t. Once he was admitted they went into the same routine as last time. Trying to control the big “D” and doing C-diff tests like crazy. They haven’t gotten a positive test result yet on C-diff and one of the doctors says that at this point, 8 tests later…they will never get a positive result for it. So, in essence they still have no clue what it is. But it must be either C-diff or something extremely similar to it…because the antibiotics for it are the only thing that stops it. David had me stay in Vegas. He felt it was extremely important that I re-group a little. It was extremely hard being there, trying to have a nice time while he was home in the hospital. But I understood where he was coming from. He felt fine…just dehydrated. And all he did was sleep in the hospital, but it just felt wrong for me to be so far from him. But I it worked out and David is out of the hospital and doing better. The Antibiotics for this round were a whopping $1500…and that’s with our kick ass insurance. That was a bit of a shocker, but what can you do. If it is actually going to kill this thing than it’s worth it. They say it is extremely hard to kill and it sometimes takes 2 rounds of antibiotics. And this second round of the pricey stuff is made specifically for this and not just a broad spectrum.

So here we are. David is completely exhausted. He’s on so many meds at this point we had to make a spreadsheet to keep track of them all and the different times to take them. It should all settle down a bit once he’s off both of the antibiotics and what not. Ironically this has been much harder on his body than the cancer treatments. He’s lost 10 lbs, looks so pale and is so tired all of the time. It’s breaking my heart to see him so sick and I wish with all of my heart there was more I could do.

A dear friend reminded me last night about something I had once said. We knew this was going to be a long road and we knew at times it was going to be hard fight...but damn. Some days it’s just hard to get up, smile and keep fighting. Lately I feel like the moment I even begin to feel optimism the universe just slaps us down again. But she gave me good advice. She gently reminded me that we knew there would be these dark times but that we just needed to tuck our heads down and keep moving forward and we would get through this. We will get through this and Dave will kick this somehow. We don’t need to know how…just that he will be ok. She said she saw on a card once, “If you’re in hell…keep moving.” That made me smile. So that’s what we’re doing. Just barreling along headfirst and trying to get through this. Hopefully things will settle down soon and my next post will be filled with renewed optimism and hope.