Where We Are Take II

Yesterday, late afternoon, Jeff managed to bury a (relatively large) piece of an old dried rose bush in his foot. Don't ask how.

After trying every tool we had in the house to remove it while the blood poured out, we finally had to give in and Jeff went to the Emergency Room. Some time around midnight as I struggled to stay awake Jeff came home. Foot still containing the branch. Uncleaned. Un-cared for. The doctor tried to see the piece with an ultrasound but failed. He said they would have to get the Orthopedic surgeon in to remove it, but returned and said that Plan B was to go home and call the ultrasound tech and surgeon ourselves in the morning.

Oh, he also managed to mention that he was going through litigation regarding the death of a 27 year old man from a foot splinter he treated. Nice.

So, Jeff returned home, foot still weeping and dirty, with a prescription for antibiotics and codeine. Jeff doesn't take antibiotics unless his life is in immediate and certain danger, so we treated with Golden seal, both at the site and internally, and went to sleep. Or Jeff did anyway. Simone, who is cutting her first two teeth was up most of the night, so I was up the whole night.

We also had the pleasure of finding out that Jeff is severely allergic to codeine by way of 7 hours of vomiting. Yay!

Around 8:00 am Jeff took Simone and the kids so that I could try to get some sleep and he could call and make his appointment. about an hour after I fell asleep Jeff woke me to tell me that we needed to leave (all three kids dressed, fed and in the car!) in 30 minutes.

I dropped Jeff off at the clinic and took the kids to Nichola's ballet class, where only fifteen minutes after arriving I was given the message that Jeff was waiting to be picked up.
I prayed that this meant that it was a simple procedure and all healing would begin now because, Um, we're trying to move out of our house, sell all of our furniture, replace the stove, propane tank, and black water tank on the RV and clean and ready the house for our impending move out date -- In 12 Days!

Yeah, no. I picked Jeff up, foot still carrying the stick, uncleaned and hurting more. This surgeon, America's Best and Brightest, with all of his years of education in "healing" didn't so much as clean the foot. Nope. He wanted to do an x-ray. When Jeff mentioned that the previous doctor did not believe that the wood could show up on an x-ray he said that "Well, sometimes you can see a little haze." Uh, huh. A few hundred dollars payment for them to shoot radiation at Jeff's foot to see a "little haze" that would tell them "maybe something." In the end... the advice? Go home and wait for it to turn into an abscess so that it might be able to be cut open and "all the contents including the stick may spill out."

Yep. Another shining example of the incredible care you can receive here in the "Most Medically Advanced Country" on the globe.

WHEN, pray tell, did a surgically trained physician stop receiving education in the removal of SPLINTERS FROM FEET??????????

Oh, they'll cut you right open to pull out a baby or an organ, but a splinter?? Nope. Too risky.

???????!@#$%@!?????????
Please insert expletive of your own choice. I'm making up new ones today.

So, now that our propane tank was delivered today (a week late) and Jeff has a to-do list a mile long, we are supposed to wait for his foot to get worse while he stays "off of it" so that... well... we don't really know... maybe it will resolve itself.

And for all of this fun and excitement we got to PAY! Yay!
Yay for doctors!

Please keep us in your thoughts, we need all the help we can get right now. I don't know the first thing about electrical, propane or plumbing work.

Grrrrr.... more uplifting writing coming soon, I hope.

xoxo