Emotional Words

So. An interesting thing about the written word is that you have to express emotion through it, without the use of volume and animation and tone. You could just say "I feel ____." but I think writing is so much more powerful if you can help the reader to FEEL what you FEEL. I don't know if I can do this today, but I'll give it a shot.

Monday I was suppose to hear back from the Doctor in Salt Lake City about Frank's cultures. I didn't. I called them. There were no results in the computer. Tuesday I never heard from them and forgot to call myself. Yesterday, there were still no results in the computer, so I had to ask if we could contact the lab to check on the status. I was given a phone number. I spoke to a very helpful Microbiology Lab Tech, Andrew. He could see Frank's name in the computer, and NO RECORD of an Lab Work. Andrew offered to call the ENT Clinic and called me back.

"I don't have very good news" Andrew said. The doctor remembers collecting the sample. The nurses remember taking it down. And then nothing. Nada. So, it's been lost (physically or by misspelling in the computer) or damaged. No matter what, we probably won't recover that information.

Frank's wound looked and felt better on Sunday and Monday, but Tuesday, it started looking and feeling worse again. Presently, there is no infection coming out... which is a good thing for healing, but a bad one for answering questions.

The nurse and doctor never thought to follow up or bothered to call me without my first contacting them and pushing the issue. The doctors (WY ENT and SLC ENT) were both very kind to speak with me on the phone (or in person) yesterday, but I had to make the calls and leave messages including the phrase "please have the doctor call without me having to BADGER them!"

Both doctors thought we could "empirically" put Frank back on antibiotics. Then they switched and said I had a good idea to wait for any more infection to turn up. So. That's what we'll do. Keep cleaning the wound regularly and IF more infection starts to come out, I'll take him right over to our local clinic's lab, where an order is waiting to collect a sample and test it.

We're six weeks into this and still don't have any conclusive answers on what's going on. We'll probably never know what exactly caused all this.

How would you react?

I spent seven hours yesterday with a passionately raised voice and or crying.

I feel so frustrated, worn out, worried, and just spent.

Today we're "logging out and powering off" (computer and phone). I'm going to spend the day with the boys, cuddling, reading, watching movies, and playing. No school or errands or "have-to's". We're going to play "hookie" and Ditch Life today.