Taking care of the care givers can be costly...but it is worth the cost!! ;)

And while we all love the dedication and support of our caregivers, and quite possibly would not make it through all of the challenges we are presented with without them, we do have to be mindful of the costs involved in properly showing our appreciation for their devoted service.  For instance, my wife, partner, companion has been my chauffeur, always on standby, always ready to take me hither and yon, adjusting her own schedule and obligations to ensure that I don't feel too much like I am under house arrest because of the stroke and the complications of an unusually severe winter.  As payment and payback, especially given that celebrations of our wedding anniversary suffered and the usual valentine's day festivities were a bit stilted although I did manage to get out and get a lovely bit of lingerie for her, we dipped into our savings and inked a deal to replace an ageing and potentially unreliable  Jeep used heavily during the winter because of its 4x4 capabilities with a VW Tiguan AWD. On balance, it is a small price to pay...  ;)  And she does like our new Tiguan. 

What are you doing for your caregivers?  When was the last time you sent them out to a movie with their friends, or treated them to a mani-pedi, or even made the phone calls to have dinner delivered?  Give it some thought; how would your current life be without them?

And it keeps turning...

Well, in spite of the silliness of so many of the world's leaders, their inability to engage with the people whom they govern, and their clumsy interactions with the other leaders they absolutely must deal with, the world keeps turning.  Yes, well, we've got a volcano with renewed activity out there showing that the planet is developing indigestion likely from the antics of its parasites, and some pretty confused and confusing weather patterns.
But on the home front, things are becoming a bit more stable and the future is looking far less bleak.  We are exercising regularly, in fact it is becoming part of the routine, which coupled with the rehab efforts, including the continued use of Lumosity.com website's exercises, is by all reports, making a difference.  The potential for personal financial calamity is decreasing, and we are making some headway with the filing of benefits claims on the various disability insurance policies. I still question the bureaucracy that surrounds the way the claims are processed.

One of the high points of recent days are the Olympics, and Canada's medal count and the potential for continued success in curling and hockey.

On a more personal note, high points of the Family Day weekend included time with one of the grand daughters and the two grand nephews.  The visit with one of the grand nephews was made so much brighter by his introducing me to the world of Bey Blades. Wow; battling tops, revisited 40 years later!  So much fun!

I don't mind a challenge or two, but this morning we've reached the point of 'enough!'

I guess that just challenging fate by surviving cancer and working through the effects of this damned stroke isn't enough... the universe has to pile it on higher and deeper.  So, with the stroke comes the responsibility to tell the ministry of transportation that there has been a life altering change in my medical status.  I did that yesterday.  Now it's official; I cannot drive until the doctors sign off on my 'fitness' to get behind the wheel.  Let's layer on the mess with my disability benefits coverage for the mortgage.  Add the general embargo on 'working' which will eventually affect how I return to work, coupled with the unsuitability of my home work station to get done the writing that I really want to be working on, and the continued sense of being under 'house arrest' because of the loss of independence by being forced to rely on others to get any where and let's not forget to mention how the bloody cold keeps me and any relatively sane human being from just going for a quick wander around the neighbourhood to shake out the cobwebs.  Its actually been so restrictive that I haven't been able to get out to get anything for  Valentines' Day. You know, on balance, I think I can cope with all of that and I may even be able to contrive something acceptable for Valentines.  But continuing to sift through the other layers that the universe is piling on... G.'s family in the UK is having some significant issues, and she is emotionally affected, largely because she isn't there to help or to intercede, as the case may be.  Saturday evening while we were hosting some young friends who have returned from Wales to make a home with their three year old daughter here in Canada, an old friend of G's and part of a past life died in Vancouver.  There was of course the thankfully brief personal recriminations about not being there when she passed.  Now there is a bit of drama around the timing of the Memorial service, and how G. and the others who were close to the woman on this side of the mountains could get there.  Somewhere in all of this, my G. has gone missing.  Where is my G., the woman that I married and with whom I have lived a full and somewhat tumultuous life.  I miss the woman who was so full of joy that she practically pranced around the house being obnoxiously 'positive' and trying to find the good and the meaning in all that happens.  And then yesterday she was feeling physically beat, not just emotionally whipped, but her core ached;  she put this down to over doing it at the gym in the past week.  Her muscles hurt, and generally she had no energy and not much of a spark at all.  We didn't get out at all, which considering the cold it wasn't surprising that we chose cocooning, although it was more about be inactive than cocooning.  G. spent time on the phone with contemporary of her mother's who with her radiologist and slightly hypochrondriacal husband has lived here for a good 40 years, talking about the challenges they are facing with the real health issues he faces and the ongoing drama with one of her adult daughters.  Now G's sleep patterns are odd at the best of times, and only get more complicated with stress and anxiety, and so this morning it is truly unfortunate that not only did she not sleep well, but G. woke physically ill; nausea, stomach cramps, diarrhoea.  This now complicates the day.  She can't take me to the rehab centre, so we're scrambling to find me a ride there and back.  G. will also have to cancel her class at university, and arrange to do a make-up class for her 30+ students.  Add to the mix the drama of a friend who's car finally gave up on her.  This woman is a teacher with a horror for a principal... so she's gotta go and go now.  Well, G. isn't well enough to drive her to school, and I don't dare because of the license suspension that is pending.  So we lent her the Jeep for the day, which further restricts our mobility if something goes pear shaped.    By having lent her the Jeep we give up the child car seat that would allow us to rescue the granddaughter from daycare/kindergarten.  Our very pregnant daughter now has no real backup in case picking up the granddaughter becomes a necessity.  All of this just serves to reinforce the complexities presented by my inability to drive.  What happens when the next granddaughter is birthed?  How complex does it all get, then?  Well we did manage to arrange a ride to see my occupational therapist, and a ride home.  It really is time to work out a better, more reliable system for getting around.
I'm getting concerned... where is the joy?  I'm finding it a chore to be happy when the people who orbit my world are in such disarray and distress. This is getting tougher.  I find myself teetering on the brink of depression.  We can't afford for that to happend when G. is in such a state of anzieity so much of the time lately.  I'm gonna have to 'step up my game' and find some unique ways to bring the joy back to her.  When she's happy, I'm happy.  Gotta get this solved, and stop the petty dramas that interfere with with our journey.

Updating Disability Insurance Conundrums

This morning I had a phone call from a lovely sounding young woman who will be my Disability Insurance Case/Claim Manager.  It was a really nice chat, and quite informative with regards to how things may work going forward.  She is working on the approval and doesn't see any real challenges in the approval process.  One of the questions she asked  that caught me by surprise was her request that I describe to her the reasons why I shouldn't be returning to work right now.  Be prepared for this question. It felt a bit bit odd at first, but I’m pretty sure that she was just trying to make sure that the employee, employer and physician are all speaking the same language and with one voice.  I know that I was being a bit of a brat by encouraging her to reach out to my doctors to hurry up the neuro psych evaluation.  She countered with a request for a listing of all the appointments currently scheduled, which I gave to her verbally.  I think we’re good.  I am not concerned about the approval, and I believe that she is on my side in terms of getting me back to work as soon as practical.  She also seems to be genuinely concerned that I don’t find myself back at my desk unable to do the job, facing failure.  I liked her.

I still have one question which I am going to follow up on almost immediately;  the question of international travel while drawing disability benefits.  There is a requirement to inform the insurer if one travels out of the country.  I’m just really curious what that is all about.  It may be in the wording.  I will look it up, but it may have said ‘leave the country’ as opposed to ‘travel outside the country’.  The lovely sounding young woman got back to me on this.  The intent is not to restrict or prevent travel, but rather to ensure that when travelling accommodation is made for rehab, therapy, doctor's appointments, etc.  They are interested in protecting you, and your recovery, and then your long term health.  They will want your doctors to 'sign-off' on your fitness for travel.  This is a positive effort on their side.  Now to be fair, I did get the impression that this isn't about that quick jaunt across the border for some cross border shopping.  This is about long term excursions that will affect your rehabilitation and any ongoing monitoring by your doctors.

the other, more pertinent piece of information that came out of this morning’s conversation is that benefits payments are made once per month.  This may pose a challenge for some folks, myself included.  My current payroll structure is for pay checks every two weeks, so that I get twenty six pay checks per year.  Things like my mortgage and other payments are scheduled to be withdrawn from my chequeing account one or two days after scheduled pay days.  So now I'm going to have to do a ‘reset’ on how a few of those work.  I also did some calendaring and realized that there will be a gap between last pay check and first benefit payment.  Oops.  Could be tight.  S I began by calling the bank to speak to my Account Manager to look into things like changing the mortgage payment schedule and to look into whether or not and then how the disability insurance we have on the mortgage works and can get triggered.  I ended up talking to a gentleman from the insurance side of the banking house who discovered that when we renewed the mortgage a year ago the disability insurance got dropped.  We still have the mortgage life insured, but no disability insurance.  Damn!  We’ve done the math, and theoretically we will be fine financially with just the disability benefits from salary insurance, but it will be ‘tight’ while we adjust the way we live. I should mention that we are pulling all the mortgage documents to review prior to meeting with the bank, because we can’t think why we didn't ask for the insurance, and suspect that we did.  But we need to review the documentation.  interestingly enough we did get a letter from the credit card arm of the bank just the other day pleading mea culpa for not charging us for over a year for disability insurance on our credit card, but not to worry as they were going to be treating things treating things as if the insurance was in full force, and they won’t be asking for past premiums, but will be tacking it onto the monthly bill going forward.

Advice; right NOW check the status of your disability insurance on all your loans, mortgages, and leases.  Pick up the phone today and ask.  Don’t leave this until you actually need them, ‘cause you can’t qualify for the insurance coverage while you are on short term disability, or if you aren't actually working. Get this sorted out right NOW!

Later in February, leading up to and through Valentine's and Family Day weekend we've begun conversations with the bank about the insurance on the mortgage, the credit line and the credit card.  We're dealing with really nice people, but the hoops we're jumping through are getting just a wee bit silly.  From what I understand about insurance in Canada, and I do admit that I need to do a bit of research, but it seems like if you apply for and are refused insurance, or a claim is accepted or denied, the insurance provider registers their decision about you with a central insurance board.  This centralized organization maintains a file on you so that other insurers, or potential insurers can research and understand your history.  I understand the efficacy of doing this, so why hasn't the Insurance Board figured out a way to share more information from their central database amongst licensed insurers so that claims can be processed more efficiently and in a more timely manner rather than forcing claimants to generate reams of paper and demanding that over worked and understaffed physicians provide multiple iterations of the same information?  Now seriously, why couldn't we file all the pertinent information about my disability once, just once with that organization rather than having to provide separate blocks of paperwork to each individual insurer which is really just the same information presented in different manners and formats for each of the other insurers that we need to consult with to file for disability benefits?  At this time we are dealing with three different insurers; that's three sets of paperwork each saying the same thing, in slightly different ways.  That's also three different demands on the physicians who are trying to manage my care.

The question of privacy on the Internet and in this blog...

I was reminded this morning that this blog is open to the world.  I had three images on it which contained way too much personal information, so I have taken those images down, to be reposted when I can make a couple of edits to trim the more sensitive material from the images.

We've all heard the reviews about internet privacy, that once its up there, or out there, its there forever.  Obviously the big caution is for young women, for those interested in a career in politics, and anyone whose behaviours could be considered career limiting if they were widely known.

I apologize if you came to this blog looking specifically for those images.  I can only ask for your patience.  The images should be restored fairly soon, and with the appropriate narrative.  I must admit that I am finding it difficult to find the time to do this properly.  It will be done.

Thank you!!

Angiogram Was Scheduled for /Monday of this week

Well this should be interesting...  let's run some dye up through the femoral artery and then take some snap shots of the brain and dura and just see how well the embolization is holding.  I have every confidence that it worked and that its holding.

So we met a new guy for this procedure, a Dr. Rempel.  Nice, really nice guy.  Heck, all the teams I've run into at the University of Alberta Hospital have been really very nice.

When I asked the good doctor if I could get two 8 x 10s and four wallet sized copies, he took it in stride and did mention that I could get in touch with AHS (Alberta Health Services) and get them to burn a disk of my xrays.  This is something I will definitely be looking into.

Above image borrowed from
the Wikipedia image bank

There are warnings that go with any sort of invasive procedure, and you should read them and pay attention, and take them seriously, especially when it comes to the recovery period..  For a Cerebral Angiogram there is something like a 0.5 percent of 1% chance of the procedure causing the creation of a small clot, which then in turn could cause some additional problems, like a small stroke.

Ha!  

Remember that my GP even said "that's two!" when we met to discuss the stroke and embolization just a couple of weeks after the fact.  Two out of nine leaves seven...  and ratcheting up the counot of the number of lives used isn't going to be because of something so pedestrian as some glue that didn't take.

  Ha!!

The actual procedure is quite simple.  The They put a small cut in your femoral artery from a point in your groin and then slip in a small catheter or tube.  They use that catheter as guide  .They then thread a line in through this tube/catheter and up to your carotid artery, and into the vascular system in your brain.  They inject some 'contrast' or dye which the x-ray gear (I need to verify, but it looked like fluoroscope gear this time) can pick up and watch where it all goes.  And yes, when you stop and think about the simplicity of the statements being made, it is kind of scary.  The implication is that there is a direct connection from from your groin to your brain.  Not quite.  Your femoral artery tracks like all the major arteries and veins to, from and possibly through your heart.  Hmmm... interesting.  I'm going to dig out my copy of Gray's Anatomy and have a look at how all the plumbing works.
the image that follows is a teaser to get you to stand by and wait for me to write this up properly.  The image is one of the shots taken on February 3rd and was provided to me by Dr. Michael Chow, the gentleman who fixed the problem and must be credited for saving my life and my quality of life.  ;)

Angio of the 'pre-treatment state of my brain's vasculature.

I have removed the images until I can do a bit of an edit on them;  there is way too much personal information on the images, far more than I want out there in the great wide world..  sorry.  The images should be restored later today or early tomorrow.
This is one of the images with the offending personal data redacted;  this is the angio taken prior to the embolization while the fistual was still a problem. I have put it back in a slightly larger format so you can see the real detail in what was happening in my brain.  I may reduce the size to make it easier to view in the context of this blog.

Consider this posting a 'draft' version.  I will return to write a description of the procedure and the events of the day.  I will then post an update on the meeting with the surgeon who did the repair work that we were checking today.