On Being 74

My birthday was celebrated when I came out of bedroom Sunday morning and sang “Happy Birthday” to myself. My son might have said something, but, since I’m hard of hearing (my brain doesn’t process some sounds), I didn’t hear what or if he had said something. That pretty much says a lot about our relationship. He lived with his grandmother until she went into nursing homes to die. He’s under the assumption that’s why I moved back from Texas to live with him until I go into a nursing home to die. I moved back because I had been given the opportunity to get new knees. I felt the hassle of doing all of the going into a rehab facility for a month and being restricted to my apartment for six weeks didn’t make sense if I could get new knees here.

Unfortunately, the opportunity to get new knees has been put on hold because I had an atrial fibrillation episode three weeks before the schedule surgery on my left knee. The anesthesiologist definitely wasn’t going to put me under if I have a bad heart. So, my arthritic knees are going to have to suffer until my cardiologist gives the green light.

I had a visit at the Cardiology Clinic at the Seattle VA Medical Center on 8/9. Unfortunately, I was a little overwhelmed with everything that was going on to ask the Resident or the Attending about getting knee surgery. I sent a message to them, and, hopefully, they’ll respond with the authorization. Well, the Cardiology Nurse Coordinator responded to my message and said Ortho Surgery will coordinate with Cardiology whether my heart situation will complicate knee surgery. That’s a plus.

Yesterday, I saw an ARNP in the VA Urology Clinic about my bloody urine. He scheduled me for a cystoscopic exam of my urinary track. They’ll be looking for cancer in the bladder. I had a CT scan, but those are only good for looking for cancer in the kidneys or ureters. Other methods for looking for cancer in the bladder include MRU and PET scans. The VA always operates on the lets due the cheapest tests first in the hope we don’t have to expensive tests. After all, the VA is just another federal agency that has a budget that sometimes precludes the best care Vets can expect.

I’m fairly certain the bloody urine is going to stop knee surgery until the cause can be found. The CT scan didn’t find anything. Hopefully, the cystoscopy won’t find anything. That will probably indicate the blood thinner I’m taking is probably the culprit. I’ve been taking blood thinners for a long time due to blood clots I’ve had in my left leg. I’ve also taken mega doses of aspirin to help with the arthritis in my knees. I had episodes on bloody urine in 2013 and 2019, but the follow-up cystoscopies didn’t reveal any specific cause.

So, I’ve got a bunch of medical maladies going on that have made this birthday quite depressing. That is what I’m going to have to discuss with my psychiatrist when we meet next Wednesday. For a person who takes medication for depression, medical maladies can be very stressful. Then having to take care of the dogs while my son is at work throws on stress that I can do without. For me, too much stress drives depression through the ceiling, or is that through the floor?

It would help if my son could be a little more caring as to my situation, but he has his own psychiatric issues, which he refuses to medicate. Just one more stress to have to deal with. If my son wasn’t so conservative in his views, I might be able to get along with him. He claims to be a right-leaning centrist, but he keeps spouting off so much QAnon conspiracy BS I can’t even talk to him. Whenever something comes up in the news, he’s always spouting off it was the Liberals who caused the problem, even if it was a conservative Republican who clearly was a fault. Needless to say, his hero is Trump. The man has and can do no wrong. The way my son talks, he’d be happy if Trump established himself as king of America, if he wins the 2024 election.