Good words...

I wanted to write about the second physical therapy appointment, but I am just so tired!  And today was a long, long day for me.

The nurse from the community health program left.  This was the nurse who replace the nurse who took another position.  The social worker who has been checking in on me asked if she could bring the nurse coordinator as a stop-gap measure until a new community nurse is on-board.  It is hard for me to deal with new people, but I agreed.

Mostly, I talked to the social worker, not trying to ignore the coordinator, but because it was easier.  However, I will say that I was greatly blessed by her presence because she is a fantastic reflective listener and she is very, very, very good at giving someone alternative thoughts to think, coaching on better words to use in communicating, and in making plans.  She's a natural born counselor.  Still, what we talked about was a brutally draining as a counseling session.  I was so exhausted.

Firewood Man arrived before they left and waited for me in the back yard.  He came over to measure what we need for the pad beneath the trash cans (instead of replacing mine that I made from old bricks, he's bringing leftover paving stones from a project to use) and then he brought over a copy of the pattern I chose for the pavers to see which direction I wanted it to run.  Before Tim showed me the photo, I thought I did not have an opinion, but when I saw it I knew which way I'd want it to go.

Whilst he was here, he went ahead and measured for the raised bed he's going to make for the space across from the day lily bed.  I have gone back and forth on adding any raised beds, but I really would like to grow a bit more than I currently have space for in my current raised bed.  Mostly, I'd like to keep my herbs in one place and my vegetable attempts in another.

Since he was measuring, he went ahead and measured to repair the back sidewalk.  Once when splitting firewood, Tim broke one section of the sidewalk, but the steps are broken, as are five other sections.  We discussed him going ahead and doing so and my just pulling money from retirement and working on paying it back later.  It makes more sense when he has the helpers to do this kind of work to take advantage of them.  IF the thyroid scan remains constant, then I wouldn't have a larger outlay of medical stuff and could figure out a way to pay for the sidewalk by gouging my grocery funds for the rest of the year.  Eventually.  It makes sense.

And there is this thing ... I have been in a melancholy spiral of sorts with all the things happening to my body that I cannot control and how physically miserable I am at times.  But I can control ... or fix ... things that are wrong about the house.  I can stop looking at a broken sidewalk even if I am still broken!  And I can have my haven.

I think that Tim is already excited about how much I have savored the space at the back of my yard now that the alley view is blocked off.  I've eaten out there twice and last night I spent some time lying down on the crushed rock just enjoying the view.  His excitement over my excitement gave him another idea for the space: an outlet for a laptop!  What a GREAT idea.  The conduit would need to be buried beneath the pavers, so he can still get that done since only the crushed stone is down.  He's even going to run the conduit up the back side of the fence so all you'll see is an outlet on the far side of one of the posts.

Snow has cropped up in the forecast for Saturday, so Tim is trying to adjust the plan to working on the pavers on Friday, doing the leveling work Thursday evening.  Sweet of him, because that means taking a day off work.  Otherwise, if it doesn't work out then, we will have to wait another week or so.  I prefer sooner!

Answering all the questions he needed to ask about the size of the raised bed (six feet long and 26 inches deep) and the changes in the sidewalk (it is a non-standard size currently ... switching to 42 inches wide between the back steps and the garage, as well as removing the curves and making it an angled sidewalk since the doors are offset).  Sometimes, I just want someone else to think, to decide.  At least Tim teases me and lets me tease him back.  When we talk, sometimes, I am not ill.  I am just ... me.  That is simply wonderful!

Walking about the space, Tim pointed out that the bench really should be in the back corner.  The table can be up front where the bench is in the last photo, since that will eliminate any problems with the chair legs and the opening in the pavers around the tree.  With the fountain going by the garage wall corner, that would leave space for one of my folding lawn chairs beneath the tree by the fountain and still have space for a fire pit thingy in the front center if I want.  I, of course, wanted to swap the table and bench immediately, but that bench is HEAVY concrete and he's already moved it three times with the work he's done.  He'll have to move it to do the pavers, so I can see it in the corner then, right?

Basically, Tim created a PLAN for the space, an orientation for the bench and table and water fountain (not that I have one) so I'll know where everything fits.  I LOVE ME some plans!  He even started Googling homemade water fountains because I'd really like one made of found stuff.  Then he started texting me screen shots of ones he likes.  Funny.  Fun.  Sweet.  What a merciful God to send someone to help me as he has at such bargain rates!

I really, really, really hope the pavers can go in Friday.

The other PLAN for today?  The nurse coordinator is going to make arrangements for me to visit the emergency room at Parkview Randalia, the emergency room closest to me that is in-network.  She knows the head of the department and thinks that we could do a walk through of what an asthma attack care would be there.  That would be really, really, really, really helpful.

I fear so much going to the ER for asthma, as much as I wanted to be in one 9 days ago.  I am ... well, the social worker and the nurse coordinator gave more positive words to say ... more complicated than I was when I went to many ERs in Alexandria.  I didn't have PTSD then (or at least I wasn't triggered).  I didn't have dysautonomia and Sjogren's and a pacemaker and all the crazy/crappy medical things I've accumulated since then.  I didn't have anxiety.  I didn't melt down.  I am really fearful of being put in a situation where lots of people are touching me and I'm in distress and yet still have to battle all the other stuff.

Parkview practices patient-centered care.  The community health program is trying to knit together a care program tailored to me that is promulgated across its medical care centers and that includes what will make me feel less anxious and safer.  They showed me a page from my electronic chart.  Emblazoned across the top in RED and BOLD are instructions to have only female personnel where possible.  That embarrasses me and defeats me and comforts me.  I know ... complicated.  I felt greater comfort that if the cardiologist creates an asthma treatment plant, then it will be in the chart where anyone can pull it up, even at the emergency clinics that are scattered around Fort Wayne.

The other thing the nurse coordinator suggested is that I ask for help considering if my asthma is getting worse again, as I think it is or if this is another new normal, if I simply cannot do things I used to, like carry out the recycling bin because my body has changed, not so much my lungs.  She wondered if maybe I need to carry out the recycling in smaller amounts.  Or perhaps using my emergency inhaler before I do something that will trigger my asthma.

I have felt like no one has heard my concerns about my asthma because it hasn't been bad yet here and I have been using my emergency meds at home.  I didn't have it as a child and only got it after moving to Virginia.  As long as I have had asthma, no one has ever really taken the time to teach me about it.  I did have a sort of a plan in Alexandria (do not nebulize more than twice in a day without going to the ER), but I don't have one here.  And I need one since the meds I'll get in an ER will spike my BP and heart rate but I need for those reactions to be either allowed or treated as reactions and not a systemic problem.  And, of course, I have that pesky pacemaker.

I have better words now, to try once more to be heard about this.  My GP has not really heard me and the two visits to the immunologist and asthma specialist did not hear me.  I have better words that are devoid of emotion and the past, focusing on moving forward.  Good words.

I'm grateful.