"Be strong Ann." "You are such a strong woman, Ann." "Bill is so lucky to have such a loving angel wife."

I've heard it all before and I know I'll hear it again. I just noticed my last blog entry was last week after our Tuesday ER adventure. Since then we've been to the doctor, back to ER and now I'm making doing the hospital thing again.

It's amazing to me - in the 3 weeks prior to his hospitalization we've been to Urgent Care twice, the doctor twice and Saturday night made the 2nd trip to ER.....in the five prior visits I guess it never dawned on anybody to do a CBC....So, by Saturday evening his hbg was 7.2......about 1/2 the "normal" count for men I'm told....Sunday they decided to check the iron level.........13 - about 1/4 what the iron should be. The diagnosis "iron deficient anemia"......the cause, now the search is on. I had been telling these people Bill doesn't imagine not feeling well. I told them we'd gone from walking unassisted in the house to using his walker with my assistance. Why is it the medical community can't trust that it isn't the survivor's or caregiver's imagination that something is wrong? I guess they decided to take me seriously when I told them he'd asked me to help him write his obituary and was giving me instructions for his funeral.

In the mean-time, yesterday Bill was completely crazy - I mean, everything - right down to his shoes was a conspiracy. Last night before I left he said he'd been doing logarhythms all day - and pointed somplace in the distance that they are "right out there". Today comes the suspicion - I'm the conspirator - I always have been according to him.

Yes, I'm a strong woman. I know what is going on. Put a patient with dementia in an unfamiliar setting and the confusion escalates. His way of attempting to maintain control is the constant requests for coffee, attempts to make me feel guilty and elicit sympathy. I know all that - to know it and to live it are two different animals I'm finding.

So, the tests continue. Lovanox has now been added in an attempt to bring his coumadin level into the therapeutic range. Since he hasn't been therapeutic since the end of July there is some concern about getting it regulated - finally. The gastroenterologist is trying to hold off on a colonoscopy because in order to do that he will have to be taken off coumadin, put on heparin then after the test go back on the coumadin/lovanox combination. Even though in 90+% of this type of anemia the source (culprit) is a colon cancer - what would they do if it is? Bill can't have surgery, chemo or radiation....I guess they'd know the source and that's about the extent of it.

I'm not even sure how I feel anymore. Tonight Bill is angry......angry that he is there, angry that I am home, angry because he thinks I'm conspiring against him. I'm numb. My feet hurt - the plantar facaitis is driving me crazy and the only way he feels he has any control is to ask for coffee - on an hourly basis.......As I've said before - there is one thing worse than caring for a stroke survivor. It's when that stroke survivor is a recovering alcoholic but doesn't have the capacity to work a 12 step program. There is a difference between being "dry" and being "sober"........

I know I have to turn this all over to my God. I don't have any control over his emotions and at times I don't have any control over mine. I sure don't have any control over the medical community - but I can choose to take it a day at a time, not project into the future and remember the Serenity Prayer.