Day 2

So I was texting with JB last night, and today I let Mairead know what is going on.

I was up till 12:30 am last night and was in a deep sleep when they collected the trash this morning - the noise woke me up at 7 am. But I was having a nice dream so rolled back over to try to catch the ending. I woke up again at 9 am when my alarm went off - I don’t like to waste time sleeping so I have my alarm set to go off every morning at 9 am. I had been getting up at 7 am when I was working - having a cup of tea and a mini bagel or English muffin in bed while I watched CBS This Morning or Morning Joe until it was time to log onto work. But today I got right up and made myself French toast with Canadian White Bread - it was delicious!! I made my second cup of tea and “went to work.” I called Fidelity to set up my 401K monthly distribution - I kept getting kicked off the website so I finally called. Once that was done, I called BCBS to set up a Medicare Part D drug plan and a Supplemental plan. I had a couple of questions about travel coverage so I did the application on the phone - it took forever. By now it was noon!!

Then my sister-in-law called from Kenmare to find out how I was. Monica said she called Mike today about 9 am Irish time to see if we were almost to Sneem. She was shocked when Mike said I had to cancel the trip. We talked about me for a couple of minutes, but then talked about restoring the old house. I was telling her that I had large pictures of Uncle Tim Burns and his wife Ellen who was the first relative to come to the US in 1852. He became a merchant and land developer in Cambridge, and was able to bring out his nieces and nephews when their sister Mary was married to John Curran, and they took over the homestead. 

Mary’s brother David brought out Mary and her 5 children when she was evicted from Gortdromagh - he helped her to save enough money to go home and buy it back. I have a large picture of him as well - plus a mug with his name on it and a large heavy milk jug. Aunt Helen Murphy gave me these things, and I plan to take them back to the old house once it is renovated. Monica said that we think the same way - she thinks it is great that those things are going back to the old house plus Nana Murphy’s set of blue and white dishes that are in the new house now.

I didn’t realize that my PCP was trying to call while I talked to Monica. Her voicemail said that she had received a call from Dr Dimond’s office re my Creatinine and BUN being a little elevated. No mention of the GFR of 29. She said that it is probably a little alarming to hear this - she wants to check how many NSAIDS I am taking for my hip. (NSAIDs are non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.) I rarely take any but have been taking Ibuprofen recently after dental surgery. She wants to set up a renal scan and repeat the labs next week. She said that she asked Dr Dimond to keep my spot open for the 15th. I called her back, but she was with a patient. I left her a voicemail message that any time next week was okay for the tests - I said that I would be by the phone this afternoon.

Do I really want this revision? I don’t have good feelings about it now. Do I want to have Dr Dimond hold that spot? I can function ok now - I can walk short distances - my hip kills me if I walk further - but Lidoderm patches help somewhat if I am traveling. I can’t lift my right leg more than a couple of inches off the floor - I have to throw my pants onto the floor and wriggle my foot into the pants. I can’t stand for extended periods of time - but that is more likely my back than my hip. So I could survive the way I am. But my fear is that I’ll get to the point that I won’t be able to lift my foot to drive. So that is my dilema.

By now it is after 3 pm. So I head into the Stop and Shop so I will have some food tomorrow - I had thrown everything out yesterday when I thought I was going to Sneem. So I stocked up on fruit and veg. It takes a while when you are reading food labels - I’m used to checking for sodium, but now I am reading ingredients because potassium and phosphorus are not normally listed in th percentages - you have to read the ingredients for them - and of course, they are in small print!

I drove home along the shore. I had heard wind last night when I was in bed. It must have been strong because there was sand all over the road near Maravista. The town has piled up sand at Maravista and Menauhant Beaches because of the erosion. Every storm wipes it out - then they replenish it. It must cost thousands.

I worked on this blog until it was time to head to Johnny and Vicky’s at 5 pm. I went over for dinner. It was very nice - they are always up to something with their estate sales. Tonight Johnny gave me a box of books about William Shakespeare - I am to share them with you Jody!! Then he showed me 2 fascinating books on Ireland - one was a history of Irish food and recipes - the other was written in 2006 and has pix and stories of every day Irish people. I loved the faces! Johnny gave them to me to take home. 

Mairead called as we were watching Victoria on PBS. She asked how I was doing. She said it was pouring rain in Seattle, and she had just heard lightening. She had wanted to watch the fireworks but thought they would be canceled. There was a party, but she was comfortable in her 3rd floor sitting room and didn’t know if she would go.

When Mairead hung up, I decided to head home - it was almost 9 pm. There was a lot of traffic out as I drove home - people going out to celebrate? I got home and was going to jump into bed to watch Rachel Maddow, but my bed is so full of junk that I am sitting in the living room. I worked on the blog as I watched Rachel and then turned on CNN for New Year’s Eve coverage. 

It is now 12:13 am on New Year’s Day, and it is time to clear off my bed and jump in!

December 30, 2019 - my first day of retirement

So the first day of retirement did not go exactly as I had planned. I got up at the same time as usual - 

7am - to be at Falmouth Hospital by 8:30 am - the time I had recently started working. I headed off for 

preop testing thinking that I would finish packing for a quick trip to Ireland after I saw the surgeon at 

10:30 am. I was flying over tonight to check out the architects/engineers about renovating the old house.Everything went very smoothly - I registered - had labs and EKG - chest Xray - then the preop 

interview with a nurse. All that was left was to meet with the anesthesiologist. She thought that my PCP had done a great history and physical. She got the lab results and asked if I knew I was anemic - I was 

surprised at that. Then she asked if I had kidney disease - I was shocked at that! She said my BUN and

Creatinine were quite elevated. I said that I might be a little dehydrated - I had only had time for a half 

cup of juice this morning. Then she said my Globular Filtration Rate was 29!! I don't know that much 

about kidney disease BUT I knew that kidney dialysis starts at about 15!! I was in shock! She was 

explaining that the GFR is normally 60 or higher. She checked my labs from 2 years ago and said that 

the GFR at that time was 40 - didn't anyone look into it? At that time the surgeon was checking for 

Titanium poisoning - he wanted to rule it out when I went to him about a hip revision. He told me that 

there was no poisoning - that was all I was concerned about! I had felt fine - why would I think there 

was anything wrong with my kidneys?!?!

The anesthesiologist was saying that at least there were 2 weeks before the surgery to investigate what
was going on. I said that I guess I should postpone my trip to Ireland tonight - she was very apologetic - she said that she knew how much went into a trip like that - but it was best to cancel and maybe the
revision should be canceled as well - she would talk with the surgeon.
As I walked out to the parking lot, I was asking myself "do I feel dizzy? a little lightheaded? maybe
nauseous?" I don't remember all the symptoms of kidney disease - was I feeling anxious and trying to
come up with symptoms? I went to call Mike who was driving to Shannon today to meet me at the
airport tomorrow morning at 6 am, but I had forgotten my phone at home. I drove down to the surgeon's office - I had hip X-rays - filled out paper work - then was told I could go home - someone would be in touch. I had told the receptionist about the kidney results - she was going to tell the surgeon and
scheduler that the anesthesiologist would be calling.
I got home about 11:15 am and texted Mike - he was halfway to Shannon. He asked if he should come
home - I told him there was no need - I feel better with someone in our house over there. I made a cup of tea and had a mini bagel - then sat down to ponder this turn of events. I was tempted to look up the
symptoms but didn't - I thought maybe I would imagine myself into having them.
I knew a GFR of 29 is stage 4 kidney disease - one step from dialysis. I wondered if it was caused by taking Ibuprofen for my recent dental surgery on December 9 - I had been taking a lot of it for swelling and some pain. Could that have done it? I'm not sure. I started Hydrochlorthiazide for my blood pressure in the last year. I also started Fish Oil to avoid or delay dementia. I did increase my Vitamin D3 to 2000 units in the last year of so. Could any of that have cause the kidney issues?
I know that hypertension can cause kidney disease, and I have had it for years - my blood pressure has been a little elevated since my physical last February. That would be more likely to cause kidney disease or worsen it.
Well, I am not going to go crazy worrying about it until I have repeat labs and any necessary testing. So what am I going to do? Well, first I unpacked and hung up all the long sleeve T-shirts and slacks that I had ironed last night so they wouldn't wrinkle in the suitcase. Then I looked up a renal diet - I know low sodium - I already try to limit sodium because of my high blood pressure, but I do go crazy now and then and have Chinese food which is loaded with sodium/MSG. And Saturday night I bought a 2/$6 Whopper and Crispy Chicken sandwich at Burger King - I ate one Saturday and one last night. They were delicious and not anything that I would normally eat. And they were the last ones I will have for a while because they are likely high in sodium and fat.
Next I checked out information on low potassium foods, low phosphorus foods, low protein! Dear Lord!
So, until I know something definite, it is back to fresh fruits and veg - except NO bananas, NO oranges, NO tomatoes!! And worst of all  - No POTATOES or sweet potatoes!! How am I going to do this? I have no will power! NO will power! But, on the bright side, I can eat white bread again - I haven't eaten it in years! White rice is okay again too. Lots of fruits and veg - my digestive system is already pretty good - I hate to think how good it will be now! I'll really be farting all the time!!
I got sick of reading about this diet so I went upstairs to look for my broom to sweep the kitchen floor. JB and Tina moved to Florida the day after Christmas and had been busy cleaning the room up there before they left. I picked up a few things in the front room - swept the floor - washed it - swept down the stairs - swept and washed the front hallway - moved the summer folding chairs back into the closet and moved the table back out there. Who says there is something wrong with me?! How could I do all this and be anemic? Or have kidney disease? But what exactly am I trying to prove?
In the meantime, I had talked to Johnny Manning who was going to drive me at 2:30 pm to the Braintree Express where I could get the shuttle to the airport. He was very supportive - told me to call if I need anything - his wife Vickie invited me over for lunch or dinner tomorrow for New Year's Eve - my tradition of getting Chinese food at Dynasty Buffet at 4 pm then bringing it home and eating it later is definitely out the window now.
I talked with Danno who was at MGH for appointments. He told me to take care of myself and get enough rest. Beth offered to come down, but I said to wait till the weekend. Julie was in disbelief in Spain - she would ask our friend who worked at BIDMC for years about a renal specialist if needed.
Danno had once said that I am the type who tells everyone everything, but I decided to hold off today. Then Christine texted to ask if I was on land or in the air. So I texted her  - she called and was as surprised as everyone else. Mary Breen called me when Christine told her - what a change that was! Telling Mary about myself instead of us discussing someone in the family or a patient!!
So now I am putting how I spent my first day of retirement into a blog!! I think I would rather be working! Danno told me to write down my retirement memoirs - but what a way to start!!

A little background

So a little background - 

I babysat for my Huliston cousins when I was 12 years old - I suppose I was more company for them 
than a babysitter - Joanie was 10 after all - and life was simpler - no locked doors - no worries about 
someone breaking in. I went on to babysit for the Griffin cousins, neighbors, and I don’t know who else. I was babysitting on Common Street the night the Boston Strangler escaped - I remember being 
terrified that he would find his way to Watertown! 

I think I was a sophomore at St. Pat’s High School when I got a job on Saturdays from 9 to 2 
collecting money from the Watertown Press paperboys. That was a dream job because I had a 
huge crush on Paul McCaffrey - he went on to become Watertown’s Fire Chief.

The nuns at St. Pat’s High School recommended me for a job after school in the library at Perkins 
School for the Blind when I was a junior. I would walk there after school - then worked there during 
the summer. I used to put the Braille books away in the stacks or wrap those big books to be 
shipped to someone’s home. I lost a lot of sympathy for the blind when the teenage students used 
to shut the lights off in the basement when I was down there stocking books - they chased me 
around in the dark. I guess that put me on a somewhat level playing field with them.

I became a nurse’s aide at Waltham Hospital as soon as I graduated high school - I remember 
shaking down a handful of glass thermometers and accidently hitting them on the metal counter - 
they shattered of course, and there was mercury everywhere!! We just swept it up and put the glass and the mercury in the trash - today you would need a Haz Mat team - actually, do they still make 
glass thermometers? I worked there most of the summer until I developed mononucleosis and was 
sidelined until I started nursing school at BC. I worked at Waltham every weekend, every school 
vacation, and the next summer. 

When I was a junior at BC, I moved over to Sancta Maria Hospital in Cambridge because not only 
could I take blood pressures like I did at Waltham, but Sancta let me change simple dressings. I 
loved the staff at both Waltham and Sancta - we would go out to dinner - Waltham Head Nurse 
Mary McNamara would order me a Dubonnet because I was underage. At Sancta we had 
Christmas parties, birthday parties, any kind of parties. One of the cleaning ladies lived around the 
corner - one day we took turns going to her house for a big Italian dinner. Sancta was a great place to 
work despite Sister Mark telling me that my white uniform was too short or to take the Tootsie 
Roll out of my mouth.

My friend Beth and I had talked about joining the Navy when we were in school, but I wanted to 
take the summer off - after all, I had been working since I was 12! I stayed at Sancta for a year to 
get my med-surg experience. I was put in charge shortly after graduation from BC. A man on the 
unit was having a seizure - it was the first one I had ever seen - I didn’t know what to do. We had 2 
great LPNs from Holy Ghost Nursing School in Cambridge working with us - they jumped right into 
action. I had never really bought that distinction in nursing with the degree nurses above the 
hospital nurse above the LPNs - hospital nurses and LPNs always had more clinical experience 
than I did - didn’t they staff the floors in the hospitals? That day with the seizure made a profound 
impact on me - I knew who should have been in charge - and it wasn’t me. Hospital nurses and 
LPNs had my undying respect from then on.

I left Sancta to have weekends off during the summer - I did some private duty nursing. One patient wassuicidal - she was about my age and lived in those apartments near North Station - “If you lived here, 
you’d be home now.” She spent most of her time in her bedroom - I wasn’t allowed to knock or enter it.So I watched TV with 2 crazy Siamese cats racing around the apartment until the patient 
was ready to walk to Newbury Street to get something to eat or to shop. I remember having 
Gazpacho soup with her or was it borscht? I had never had it before and probably never had it 
since.

That fall I gave up private duty to take a job at Winchester Visiting Nurses. I loved that job! We had a 
contract with the town to do school nursing in the morning - I was assigned the Muraco School. I 
remember checking classes for lice - I had never known anyone with lice - had never seen a louse - had no idea what I was looking for! Then I would visit mostly elderly patients in that same area - we had no home health aides in those days so the nurses gave baths. I had one elderly Italian couple - the husband had the heat on at 85 degrees in the middle of summer so his wife did not get a chill. I would be a ball 
of sweat when I left there. In the later afternoon I would visit the new mothers - the VNA had a contract with the Winchester Board of Health. So sometimes I would visit the kids at school, see their 
grandparents after that, then visit their mothers in the afternoon! It was a great job!

Winchester merged with Arlington and Lexington VNAs so they could all survive. I left at some point 
to return to med-surg nursing - I felt like I was stale - I needed to get back into the hospital. So I went 
back to St. Elizabeth’s - we had done some of our med-surg training there. I was assigned to a 
medical floor in the new Medeiros building. I was still learning - I had never worked with trachs for 
instance. 

At some point I went back to the VNA - I was working at Oyster River Home Heath Agency in 
Durham, NH. It was rural back then - I loved that job - I loved being out in the country on the farms - 
the people were down to earth. 

I also later worked at Lynn VNA - I had the best hours!! I worked 10 am to 6 pm - I was able to go out 
to the pubs in Boston with my friends at night and didn’t have to crawl out of bed too early - I missed 
the rush hour traffic in both directions. I left that job during the energy crisis when I ran out of gas twice - we could only get gas on an odd or even day - I ran out and couldn’t get home.

I went to the Watertown-Belmont VNA then - close to home! I loved working in east Watertown - I met a diverse culture of Armenians, Greeks, some Italians - remember this was in 1980. I had gone to St. 
Pat’s - we were all mostly Irish and Italian descent. I don’t remember seeing a black person in 
Watertown in those years - so the East End was very exotic to me. I tried all kinds of foods - I loved the Challah bread. I learned about the Armenian Genocide. 

I left there when I had Danno - I took some time off. I think I went back to St. E’s sometime around this time - my friend Julie was working in Human Resources and got me a job. I loved the variety - I was 
working in the Employee Health Center one day, and interviewing nurses for open positions in the 
evenings another day. My childhood friend Alice Nelligan was working at St. John of God in Brighton and suggested I apply there. I started working 11 pm to 7 am three nights weekly. I became part time 
night supervisor. I remember I would be falling asleep in the morning after work while watching 
Danno. Sometimes I was too exhausted to drop him off at Nancy Huliston/Torres day care. Those 2 or 3 nights in a row killed me.

I stayed at St. John of God until we left for Ireland - I thought for a vacation - Johnny was thinking 
about staying there.

We did come back almost 3 years later, and I went back to Sancta Maria Hospital - they were looking 
for a part-time 3-11 nurse. I stayed there when they changed to a skilled nursing facility, but eventually I left due to the chaos of the change. I had been working per diem at Maristhill Nursing Home in 
Waltham - so I went there part-time instead of per diem. I think I was there for 12+ years. I met some 
great people there - both staff and residents. I met the grandson of one of those residents at the benefit 
we had for Danno - I remembered him, his mother, and younger brother coming to visit his 
grandmother - his younger brother had cystic fibrosis.

I started working a couple of nights a week private duty for Mrs. Edwin Land - her husband had 
invented the Land camera. They had a big house on Brattle Street in Cambridge. I worked 11-7 and 
filled in 3-11 sometimes. This job helped pay for Danno going to BC.

I had always been the breadwinner - Johnny Murphy did landscaping and received no benefits. So 
I took a job at Fernald State Schoool - it was run by the State of Massachusetts for developmentally 
delayed children - now adults. My friend Gail Shutt worked there and highly recommended it - she said the salary was good and benefits better because they were from the state. So I took the 11-7 position in 
the medical unit. I loved those residents. I would have stayed here except I had to have a hysterectomy, and the lifting got to be too much.

My friend Beth was working at Visiting Nurse and Community Health - previously the Winchester, 
Arlington, Lexington VNA where I had worked before. She said they had an intake nurse position 
available working with her. The Monday thru Friday days clinched it - no weekends, no 3-11s, no 
11-7s. I loved this job too. It was the first time I worked with a computer - thankfully I was able to cop on to it. But a year of so after I started, there were rumblings of financial instability - the agency might 
close. I heard about an Open House at Tufts Health Plan which was in Watertown and had been for 
years. How many times had I passed it by! I went for an interview after work one evening, and they 
called me the next morning with a job offer. I grabbed it! The salary and benefits were so much much 
better than anything I had ever made. And it was Monday through Friday 8:30-5!

I soon began working with Uniformed Services Family Health Plan members - retired military and their spouses plus active duty families - and loved them. And who wouldn't love working from home every day! I was there 15 years last March!

I loved all the jobs that I have had. During the last couple of years, Danno has had his lung transplant, 
and he and Amanda are living in the house they bought in Leominster. Mairead moved to Seattle last 
August for at least a year. Mike stayed in Ireland in September. JB and Tina were planning to move to 
Fort Myers, Florida the day after Christmas. I would be living alone in this house and paying a monthly mortgage for another 15 years - we were old when we bought it! The house needs a lot of work so I 
would need to take a loan to fix it up. 

I have loved every job I have had, but I finally decided to retire and sell the house!! I would spend moretime in Sneem - Johnny Murphy and I had always planned to renovate the old house. So that is what I 
decided to do. So I resigned Friday, December 27, 2019!