Bad Day in Marriage Land

I hate days like this.  Hubs  is in a foul mood.  Nothing I can do about it.  He is angry that my medical care is interfering with his life.  He is also angry that this all could have been avoided.  His response: "you really need to get a new doctor".


Yup, it was another trip into medical stupid land.  Two weeks ago I developed a very small tic-tac shaped clear bump on my big toe.  It appeared to be full of fluid.  It was tiny.  It didn't hurt.  It didn't itch.  I decided to leave it alone and see what happened.  Last week I saw my doc for a routine follow up for my CFS.  Catch up on bloodwork, symptom lists and meds.  I asked him to look at my toe.  The tic-tac had now resolved into three small lumps that had a dark red almost black centers.  He took out his magnifying glasses and declared that they were bugs bites.  More specifically "breakfast, lunch and dinner."  Cute.  He decided to leave them alone since they weren't bothering me.


Over the course of this past week, more clear lumps showed up until a dime sized patch was covered with them.  The entire area was red.  Hubs said the toe was slightly swollen.  My masseuse, who used to be a dermatology nurse, said it looked like an allergic reaction and asked me if I had been in contact with anything weird.  Why, yes.  I had walked through the garage barefoot a few days back but I'm pretty sure the lump was there before I did that.  Timelines really aren't my thing since becoming sick.  I get events out of order all the time and can never figure out how many days pass in between events.  Anyway...


Yesterday, some of the clear lumps filled with pus.  Great.  Think its time to take care of this.  I call the doc and talk to the nurse.  Doc decides that he wants me to go see a dermatologist rather than go back in to see him.  The nurse emails me the contact info late in the day right as I'm going out the door to see my chiropractor.  There is no way I can call during office hours.  I'll have to wait until tomorrow.


Overnight, I discover a second patch in between my toes.  This one is a vicious red and it looks like some of the lumps have burst and bled.  Can't really tell because it is facing away from me and I'm not enough of a contortionist to really get a good look at it.  All I can tell for sure is that there is a dime sized patch of small bumps there as well.  So today I call the dermatologist my doc wants me to go see.  He is booked until October and his colleagues are booked through the end of July.  Well, the way this situation is rapidly deteriorating that isn't an option.  I call my doc's office back and tell the substitute receptionist that I can't get in to see the dermatologist.  She talked to my doc and then got back to me.  The regular office manager will try and set up an appointment for me with a dermatologist on Monday.  However, she has been out since her daughter is getting married and substitute doesn't think she will get to it on Monday but just call back if I don't hear from by the end of the day.


I promptly feel myself descending into medical hell.  I have a rash that is spreading and probably infected and a doc that wants to foist me off on a specialist rather than reassessing the situation and giving me drugs so that this doesn't get worse.  Next week is July 4th which is a HUGE holiday and poof it is on Wednesday.  People are either taking the entire week off or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off.  I have my IV on Monday and I'm going to VT on Tuesday night for some unknown period of time.  If I go to a specialist I need 1) a facility that is wheelchair accessible (no kidding this is a problem in lots of places) 2) a driver 3) a person to push my wheelchair.  I also have to schedule the visit around the other doc visits I have and preferably in the afternoon so that I'm not a mumbling idiot when I go see them.  Both hubs and kid are now working full time, my regular ride is going to NH for the entire week and I've already tapped my alternate ride for my IV on Monday.  I'm basically f'ed.


After hubs gets home from work, this idea pops into my head.  Lets head up to the walk in clinic.  It is after hours so they can't call my doc.  The regularly treat skin rashes or at least stabilize them so they don't get worse before you can see your regular doc.  They will prob give me drugs to treat this. If it is really bad they have a podiatrist on staff who might be on call (if it comes to that but I doubt it is that serious).


So already grumpy hubs drives me two towns over to the walk in clinic.  The staff is great but the check-in is kind of stupid.  I have to go back and forth between the triage nurse and the check-in desk.  Hubs goes back out into the waiting room first chance he gets.  For some reason he doesn't like waiting with me in doctors offices.  I get triaged, signed in and make my co-pay.  It is about 30 mins between walking in the door and actually seeing a medical professional.  Not too bad.  It is a quiet night.


I finally see a nurse practitioner.  She used to work for my doc many years ago.  She remembers my name and vaguely remembers me.  I look totally different than I used to and I'm in my wheelchair so I'm not too surprised that I didn't look that familiar.  Anyway, she tells me that yes indeed I had an active skin infection and the patch between my toes looks like a fungal infection.  So I get scrips for cream for the fungal infection and antibiotics for the skin infection.  Woohoo!!  Hurdle number one overcome!  No trips to the ER this weekend!


I check out.  We head over to Walgreens at the end of the road to get the scrips filled.  I have never EVER used them for my scrips before.  I use a local mom and pop pharmacy which of course is now closed.  I give hubs the scrips and my Blue Cross card.  I settle into the truck to read my Kindle.  Much later he emerges and asks me for my ExpressScrips card.  Turns out I don't have it on me.  Of course I'm too muddled up in the head to explain the BCBS covers our meds.  I have an unusual plan.  ExpressScrips is for buying pills through the mail not from the pharmacy.  Now he really gets his panties in a bunch; grouses at me for not having my card and stomps back into the pharmacy to cancel the transaction.


As we get back on the road home, I start telling him the details of our health plan and how every time I go to a new pharmacy they try to use the wrong card because they don't get too many BCBS accounts that cover meds.  They never believe me until they call the companies themselves.  So now Mr. Crankpants decides he wants food.  Screw the pharmacy.  So we stop in Longhorn which is on the way home.  It is another half hour wait.  He plays with his phone the whole time.  He is pissed.  We eat in silence.  Only swapping a few words here and there.  He texts his friends more than he talks to me.  Food done, we head home.


As we leave the parking lot, I tell him that I have accounts at CVS as well as at Smith Drug.  We should be able to go to ether place and they should have my records.  He drives towards our house.  He is in lala pissed off land and drives right by the turn that would take us to the pharmacies.  I say "drugs" and point down the road we just missed and he grunts.  He goes the long way round to a different Walgreens.  When we are parked I ask him to look in his wallet since he should have the drug card himself.  He does.  I tell him if there are any problems just pay for the stuff and I can get reimbursed from BCBS after the fact.  Why in hell he didn't just go to CVS down the road is beyond me.


He goes in and it is a long wait.  I'm too messed up to read by this point so I watch some kids in the parking lot hang out.  One of them lights off a bunch of firecrackers and they scatter.  Next thing I know the cops are there.  The manager is outside.  Everyone is grousing about the kids.  Hubs finally emerges and tells me that Walgreens no longer takes BCBS.  WTF!?!  He just had to pay $50 for my meds.  No biggie really.  If it were car parts he wouldn't even blink.  Instead he is even angrier.  He had to pay FIFTY DOLLARS for that!  OMG!  I would have had to pay more than that if I ended up in the ER over the weekend from the infection getting worse.  But no.  He is in full tilt crank mode.


We get to the house and he has to help me inside.  I can no longer walk and I'm doing a very poor job with my gross motor skills.  Not quite headbobbing but damn close.  He leaves me on the bench in the vestibule and disappears into the garage.  Now I need my walker to get around at this point.  I need someone to get it for me since I can't walk.   I'm not even sure where it is in the house.  He doesn't come back in.  I hear the floor jack.  This means he is fixing cars and won't be back into the house.  I'm stuck on the bench.  I have to sit and wait until I'm able to get up and hobble around until I find my walker.


He spends the next several hours outside.  He is ANGRY.  He finally comes in only to discover the pile of stinky dishes he has been avoiding all week so now he has to do dishes.  Something he hates. I think it has become a symbol of my disability.  He gets really really angry when he has to do housework.  So now he is stomping around the kitchen.


This whole thing reminds me of some horrible YouTube vids called Tourette's Guy.  He is this man who has Tourette's Syndrome and anger issues.  He will do something which gets him angry and then he does something stupid because he is angry which usually results in him injuring himself.  During the entire debacle he is swearing his head off (which is the Tourette's).  CJ often reminds me of him.  He gets angry and acts out of anger or because he isn't thinking clearly because he is angry and the whole situation just escalates until he is walking around swearing.  If he just calmed down and thought things through it wouldn't get nearly as bad.


OMG I hate days like this.  There is nothing I can do about them.  I can't fix him.  This is his own crap he needs to deal with.  I have no idea what to do with him so I ignore him.  He finally tells me that he is going to bed because he is getting up early in the morning.  I ask him where he is going and when he is going to be home.  He has set up a little boys getaway for tomorrow without telling me about it.  He is going out first thing in the morning to get his noisy car so that he can put it on his trailer and take it to a car show tomorrow night.  I'm going to be at home all by myself for most of the day.  I remind him that we were supposed to go to the farmer's market tomorrow noontime.  He explodes.  I HATE going there!  IT is the SAME thing every week!  It is SO repetitious!


I just look at him "you are spending all day tomorrow doing car stuff and you can't spend 45mins taking me around the market?  Besides you like what I cook with what I get from there."


Silence.  He is in bed at this point so he just turns out the lights.  I give him a lame kiss and leave him to stew in his own juices.  I wish he enjoyed his time with me.  Instead I just seem to be a huge inconvenience to him.  I'm in the way.  I have to be wheeled around.  I can't do stuff on my own.  I have to be helped.  Makes me wonder about our relationship.  It also makes me glad that I'm dragging him into my next counciling session.


I've done the best I can.  I've got medicine to stop this infection from turning into something serious. I've managed to do this outside of work hours so that no one has to take time off.  I've avoided a potential trip to the ER.


I will probably still go see the dermatologist since this fungal infection seems to be spreading all over my body rather than going away.  My toe isn't the first place it has shown up but it is the first time it turned into a full blown skin infection.  At least going to the dermatologist is no longer a time sensitive thing and it won't matter if I have to wait a couple of weeks.


Hubs on the other hand is on his own.  I don't know how to fix him.  He is broken.  He doesn't/won't appreciate the fact that disaster has been averted.  He is angry that he had to take me to the clinic.  He is angry that he had to spend money on meds.  He is angry that he has to take me to the market tomorrow.   And to think two days ago he was a happy camper and was actually kind and understanding and willing to help me out....  I just don't get the mood swings.  And you know what the kicker is to this whole thing.  He will NOT ever apologize to me about it.  Don't ya just love marriage!?!