Lori, your post just leaves me speechless. My heart goes out to you. Sometimes life, especially quad life, seems more than the human spirit can handle. It may sound trite, but turn your heart toward God and hold fast to His promise. Above all, don't despair. Please don't dwell on all the negatives in your life. It will bring you down like a rock. Try to stay positive. You are in my thoughts and prayers. God bless.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: *Lori Michaelson* <[email protected]> Date: Sunday, April 10, 2016 Subject: [QUAD-L] Just a question and a statement To: quad-list <[email protected]> I have been lost without my beloved husband who was absolutely everything for me. My primary caregiver [while hiring morning caregivers and teenagers to clean for us], a computer software/hardware engineer who used to work for NASA, a photographer, a genealogist, a mathematician and statistician, pretty much my doctor without being able to write prescriptions for me because he went to medical school and worked in the medical field for several years before getting his degree in mathematics because of the time he was going to medical school there was reversed discrimination going at the time - colleges taking "persons of color" to meet their quota over white/Caucasian Americans. I had everything on June 10, 2012 and the next day, after a cardiac arrest and unable to revive, I lost all of that and more. We shared our love for Golden retrievers and we used to love to do things together both indoors and out. I was doing better when I was able to live with family until they wanted me to "move on" and I have fallen apart since. After moving back here is unaware my husband and I lived for 11 years and whereby the weather and the accessibility is awesome but I had no idea that, over the last couple years, primary care physicians are not taking patients who are on pain medications and Medicare certified home health agencies are being discriminatory when it comes to a quadriplegic if they're only insurance is Medicare. I began to have my symptoms of a UTI last Thursday and need to get a urine specimen to be set out for culture and sensitivity. My husband used to purchase the urinary test strips to, every once in a while, and just for the hell of it and for curiosity get the results for my urobilinogen, glucose, ketones, bilirubin, protein, nitrate, pH level, blood, specific gravity and leukocytes. He could read those test strips because he used to be a cheap slap technician and did not for a living so I knew how long to wait for each and every result for each of those things (less than 30 seconds however). He could not do a culture and sensitivity because, obviously, we did not have the laboratory with laboratory, the slides, the petri dishes and everything else required. After his passing, I began to have more non-systemic UTIs. This is probably because different people begin to do my bowel regimen and even though they were as clean as possible... I knew my husband would do a better job and making sure I was clean down there. That was clear since I did not have any non-systemic UTIs prior to his passing. I now feel so alone whereby I feel that my family could have "shared the care" but they wouldn't and I have so very little family left (2 much older sisters and 2 nieces). After moving to Arizona the first nurse who changed my catheter insulated the balloon inside my urethra and I discovered this after she left and it was left in my urethra for a good 45 minutes before she could get back and I am suffering from the consequences of that even now. I have had spontaneously urinary leaking around the catheter. My urologist (who is familiar with there are neurogenic bladders) is at a loss as to what to do except for to increase my oxybutynin (which she did do the maximum dose) but it has not solved the problem completely. She offered to increase the size of my catheter but there are pros and cons to that. A bigger size Foley catheter will stretch my urethra even further. Yeah, I know, I could go with a suprapubic catheter but I have never had any problems before that nurse did that to me and since my urologist has been in my bladder twice to remove stones (the last one was in late 2012) she says my bladder looks like a bladder that has never had a catheter in it - it looks like the bladder of an able-bodied person who has never had a catheter so why her fix what is broken. I will get rid of this nonsystemic UTI with whatever antibiotic she gives me after the results and go from there because things were getting better until my pain began. This is the second nonsystemic UTI have had since moving here in the middle of January. My nurse was scheduled this Tuesday for my catheter change and I had my urologist order taking a urine specimen for culture and sensitivity to treat whatever is causing me pain but now she wants to change that to Thursday because of a mandatory agency meeting and I was okay at the time she told me that on Friday but that was before my pain got worse and my catheter did not want to irritate and my sediment buildup is horrible. I am so exhausted with everything. Absolutely love this town but not the treatment I am getting for people who are supposed to be helping me. Long story... can't go into it because it is so long. ~Lori C4/5 complete quad, 36 1/2 years post On Sun, Apr 10, 2016 at 12:34 PM, Eric Olson <[email protected] <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','[email protected]');>> wrote: > try being married. LOL! > > On 4/10/2016 8:29 AM, john owens wrote: > > How is everyone doing this morning? I hate being single it sucks very > badly. > > > > > <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=oa-2200-b> > Virus-free. > www.avast.com > <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient&utm_term=oa-2200-b> > -- "Petting, scratching and cuddling a dog could be soothing to the mind and heart and deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer." ~Dean Koontz
