Political Animal Australia

annielaurie wrote:Boss, I honestly feel I don't have very long now. Sleeping all morning, need to sleep about twelve hours a day now. Can't eat, tried to eat a macaroni and beef in tomato sauce frozen dinner last night, tasted good, but could only eat half.

Shortness of breath now becoming extreme over a major part of the day, then more normal for awhile, then bad again. Dunno how long this will go on.

annielaurie wrote:Oh there you are, boss! Time is 8:30 am here, cold as winter and partly cloudy. Went out for a ciggie, had to wear two coats and a scarf and my shearling ugg boots. First full day of summer, and brrrrr ... freezing ..

When I woke up the TV was on and turned down low, and felt fine, but then I got up to go to the bathroom, and felt a wave of terror coming on. That's the wave of sickness and fear that feels like death coming. Is happening almost every day now ..

(snip)

Fixing morning Starbucks canned expresso coffee and vanilla ice cream smoothie right now .. yummmmm ...

annielaurie wrote:Boss, are you around? I've been sleeping a lot more lately, daytime.

I now have my Doctor's Order for Terminal Sedation drafted and signed, have my original and a copy. Original goes into a zippered compartment inside my shoulder bag, and the copy is taped to the refrigerator door.

That is for sudden sickness needing an ambulance, then they evaluate me at the emergency room and determine if it is the "end" for me yet. If it is near the end for me, they will admit me and start the meds my oncologist has ordered to induce twilight sleep.

This could happen at any time from now on. Just the fact that I had to call an ambulance that other weekend shows something could happen to me anytime - a heart attack, a blood clot, a stroke, etc.


Nursing care in my apartment at home won't start until I am too sick to get out of bed, unless I want to hire a private duty nurse myself. The caregiver agency has them, their duties are real nursing at home - helping with showers and dressing and personal care - not errands and shopping. So I would still keep my ordinary caregiver, and later add a personal care nurse.

But I don't need nursing care yet. Today I actually walked to the mini mart without my oxy canister in my backpack (too damn heavy and leaves no room for the groceries I need to carry home) and I did well walking down there and back again with no oxygen.


I may not get sick and bedridden first - there could be a terminal event while I am still up and walking around. The doc's order for terminal sedation has me covered for the end now, so I am safe.

annielaurie wrote:Hi again boss! Went to Waxing Lyrical but couldn't find your bits you've mentioned. The whole thread is great, tho! Went for a ciggie outside and again the shortness of breath, getting back upstairs.

Time is almost nine at night, twilight now and still light out there. Summer solstice on the 22nd. Did you know that June 11th was my own mum's second anniversary since passing away? Bless her and keep her and let light perpetual shine upon her.

Thanks for another fun talk on the phone. You know how much you mean to me, and how you have helped me along these past few years, without you there have been times I would have wanted to pass on - too lonely and scared with no one to care about in a genuine way.

Have just taken one of the new strong pills, and a tranquilizer. They really work together and help my breathing too. Am gonna go watch some tele now, there are some good British programs on the PBS channels for tonight, deary!

annielaurie wrote:Hi again boss! Went to Waxing Lyrical but couldn't find your bits you've mentioned. The whole thread is great, tho! Went for a ciggie outside and again the shortness of breath, getting back upstairs.

Time is almost nine at night, twilight now and still light out there. Summer solstice on the 22nd. Did you know that June 11th was my own mum's second anniversary since passing away? Bless her and keep her and let light perpetual shine upon her.

Thanks for another fun talk on the phone. You know how much you mean to me, and how you have helped me along these past few years, without you there have been times I would have wanted to pass on - too lonely and scared with no one to care about in a genuine way.

Have just taken one of the new strong pills, and a tranquilizer. They really work together and help my breathing too. Am gonna go watch some tele now, there are some good British programs on the PBS channels for tonight, deary!

annielaurie wrote:Hi boss and AG darling, it is Monday evening here, just went to the corner market for a couple things to tide me over. Caregiver coming tomorrow, and doc appointment at oncologist cancer center.

I had a woman I know from church come to visit on Saturday. She brought me roses from her garden and we were sitting at my dining table talking, and suddenly I started having severe pain in my face!

My entire jaw was in agony, and the pain radiated down the sides of my throat, and down into my lungs when I breathed, and spread through my shoulders and arms.

Heart attack! That's what she and I were sure of, and we got my stuff together in a backpack in a hurry and dialed emergency for an ambulance.

Help came quickly, sirens screaming and lots of paramedics and pandemonium, absolutely crazy, the whole neighborhood was out there gawking and trying to see the "victim" (me) and what was happening.

I was transported to the nearest hospital emergency ward and monitored for three hours, they drew blood and took x-rays of my whole body.

Turns out it was not my heart, it was a sprained cervical spine (upper part of the back of my neck) and it was the cause of the severe pain radiating around the jaw and throat and chest.

The resident ER doc gave me hydromorphone (Dilaudid) one of the strongest narcotics ever made, just one pill will take the pain from a ten to a zero on the scale in twenty minutes!

I have taken one a day since then, and boy do they ever work for the pain! But they only last for three hours, and cause shortness of breath worse than usual for someone like me.

Dilaudid is a perfect choice for an alternate medication for me. But it is contraindicated for patients (me) already taking hydrocodone (because both of those meds cause severe difficulty breathing)

That was my weekend, a complete chaos. Tonight gonna watch some favorite programs on tele, then bedtime and caregiver and doctor tomorrow.

Will be back tomorrow, poor darlings!

annielaurie wrote:Just checking in with you boss, since our phone call. Time is now 1:38 am in the morning of Sunday June 8th. Scott called to say he wll be bringing me communion tomorrow at noon, after church.

I am still in some pain but not really bad, and now I will make a smoothie with Ensure and some ice cream, must have some food in my stomach, have not eaten a thing all day.

What an effing scary day!

annielaurie wrote:Well it's not that I don't want to prepare the food, either frozen or fresh ingredients. I have all new cookware and the right utensils now, and a better kitchen area to make meals.

It's that I cannot chew and swallow the food without starting to gag. And everything tastes terrible to me.

Twice I actually made my own tomato sauce with spices and garlic, in a skillet with olive oil and ground beef and onions and real tomatoes, not canned sauce. And I cooked a small handful of good brand spaghetti to perfection in a pot, not dry or sticky but nice and slippery and moist.

I made a plate and spooned my delicious sauce over the pasta. The sauce was wonderful and I ate all of it, but the spaghetti tasted horrible and could not eat any of it, left it on my plate and threw it in the trash.

This happens with most meals, fresh dishes or frozen dinners. I can eat some of the food but most of it makes me want to run to the bathroom and purge.

Cannot eat normally anymore. The only food I love is ice cream, vanilla or caramel, but almost any flavor is good.

This is why I live on blenderized smoothies, made with nutrient drinks mixed with different flavors of ice cream, and either a raw egg or a chopped banana blended into it.

And I will take a vitamin pill when I drink it. This is what I have been living on for months on end. I suppose I have been starving to death.

Can't seem to change this, and I even start to cry when I realize that I cannot eat. I have plenty of foods in my pantry, boxes of grits and rice, canned foods and chili and beef stews. They sit there in the cabinet, untouched for months.

annielaurie wrote:Yup, it was his comment to me in a pm about taking selfies together here at my apartment, and then posting them on PA, to show that we know each other in person, and then he added, "I suppose that would make Monk jealous? I'm close enough to come visit, but he can't."

I replied that Monk probably wouldn't like it. Later I told Monk during a phone call that he is planning a business trip out here to the San Fran area, and wants to come see me. Monk said he doesn't begrudge me having friends, he was gracious about it.

But more and more crap happened on PA and since then I've decided I don't want to meet AIA after all. I will have to tell him I'm too sick for company.

It's mainly the photos he wants to take of us that turned me against the visit.

Now for somebody who is sick and also late sixties, I don't look bad at all. I still look about ten years younger than I really am. My hair looks good, did not fall out from chemo, and I look good dressed up with blowdried hair and lipstick. You can't tell I am a sick person, just tired and frail.

But I don't want my pics all over PA for them to make fun of, you know?

annielaurie wrote:Oh boy boss, it just gets worse and worse about Atlanta, doesn't it! He's not fit to be admin there, I can see that now.

Don't know if he's actually coming to San Fran this July on a business trip, but he had wanted to come visit me across the bay. He will want to take selfies of him and me together, and then post them on the board over there.

He even mentioned taking selfies together just to make yooooou jealous that he is close enough to come visit me but you aren't, Tom. Well I didn't laugh.

I don't want my picture up on these forums, because when I pass away they can do and say anything about me they want. They can abuse me after I'm dead. God knows what they could do. I don't trust it at all.

He does not know my street address, so if the subject comes up again I can say that I am just too sick to have visitors. Or I can even pretend to go to the hospital for treatment or something, and say I won't be home that week.

Something like that.

A.G wrote:

HBS Guy wrote:Annie knows I am doing a tiny bit of friendly nagging. I don’t nag much, now I don’t even nag about the smoking because it doesn’t matter anymore and I was never judgemental about the smoking, I remember my own battles with Devil Nicotine!

I am watching an episode or two each night of The Sweeney, English cops & robbers show from the 70s. Christ—they were always smoking in those days! And had to use public phones to ring the office

LOL public phones sound like relics now...smoking all over the TV then. tsk tsk.

annielaurie wrote:Boss, are you around? Easter Day here for us, and gorgeous summer weather.

Adele, a friend from my church came over and brought me some tall white easter lillies with long stems and curling green leaves. Said they were from her garden. That was lovely, I put them in a pretty glass vase with water on my dinette table.

Yesterday Scott the priest brought me Communion at home, and today Adele came. She is eighty-four, big Dutch woman, very healthy and youthful.

I am doing all right for the time being, but only because of my medications. Might take a nappy poo later.

annielaurie wrote:
He [AiA] asked me what you would think since he made me a mod, and I said I told you and it seems okay.

I told him I was not comfortable going into his account and that I would not be doing that ever.

Boss, I am in pain after cooking dinner and trying to eat. Something wrong with my right hip and leg, absolutely killing me, saying nighty night!

annielaurie wrote:Yes boss, I read it, but it's not the sort of fiction I would be interested in.

I'm struggling with my illness now, very tired and sick, having to keep constant track of doc appointments and dates when I can get my meds, and days when Dennis can drive me or do errands, cannot go anywhere now without help. It would even be risky to take a cab by myself now. I never know when the next breathing attack is coming.

I can hardly keep track on the forums now, I am deteriorating ..

annielaurie wrote:Will do that, if it gets worse. I don't think it will. It's not that important, and I was dreading the mess and having to move my furniture around for the guy to do whatever he was gonna do.

Have been feeling stress since last November worrying about this floor and what they would have to do to fix it. Now I don't have to worry anymore.

Dennis is coming tomorrow, we will go down to Oakland to my periodontist to have my teeth cleaned.

A.G wrote:I agree with that Emma- lost my mother very young through a very aggressive lung cancer- a very traumatic time for me and all our family- she should have lived another 30 years- so sorry cancer has also touched your family ~

HBS Guy wrote:71

annielaurie wrote:Hello boss! Now Thursday morning for me. It rained again last night, soaking everything. Dry today.

Just a note on Obamacare here in the USA! The great majority of Americans hate it, or parts of the law, because it has unintended consequences to those in the middle class income range (such as myself) by raising premium rates through the roof, and creating donut hole gaps in our Medicare Part D coverage (covers medications) so that now we have to pay huge out-of-pocket amounts for each drug, where we got them for free before Obamacare kicked in.


There is only one good thing about Obamacare, really, and that is the part of the law that prohibits insurance companies from turning away applicants with pre-existing medical illnesses and conditions, those who could not get insurance coverage before.

Almost everything else about the new law is bad, both for doctors, small business owners with employees, and most patients. There are thousands of doctors who are now opting out of accepting patients with insurance coverage, and will accept only cash-pay patients. There are many thousands of patients who now must change their doctors, who now must wait months to see someone new, who now have to start over with new teams of docs on networks in their area.


Contrary to the news on this that has reached Australia, the situation is generally worse for us than before Obamacare.

Many states have NOT expanded their Medicaid programs (supplemental insurance coverage for low income patients) and so therefore many thousands of poor people who could get coverage before, now cannot and are left with no way except to go to emergency rooms if they get sick.

The very rich don't need to worry. By very rich, I mean multi-millionaires.


We middle income patients are the ones who get the coverage easily enough, but whose premiums and out-of-pocket expenses have gone way UP!

My premium taken out of my Social Security cheque every month is now a hundred dollars more per month. My premium owed to my supplemental insurance company every four months are now over a hundred dollars higher than last year.

As for meds, I could get my ventolin and combivent inhalers for $0.00 before. Now the ventolin costs me $40.00 and the combivent costs $65.00, every month. My other pills now also cost me $65.00, every month.

My pain med used to cost me $0.00 dollars. Now costs me $17.00, and the strength is weaker, and the amount of a single prescription has been lowered from 180 tablets per bottle to 160 tablets, and must last a month before a refill is allowed.


Our country is in one mess after another. Obama tried to do the right thing, but his healthcare reform is basically a disaster.

annielaurie wrote:Yup!

Well things are changing for me, boss. We shall see what happens next. I sure wish I could still take my laptop down to the coffee shop, or go to the movies downtown like I used to do, or go shopping up on the Avenue the way I use to love.

Life as I knew it seems to be over for me. I have Dennis and my doctors and the nursing staff at the oncologists office, who seem like friends to me, people I can count on.

And I have you, my poor darling, even though you are much too far away to help me in an emergency. But it feels like you are my next door neighbor. Hard to believe you live 12 thousand miles away!

annielaurie wrote:The intestinal sickness seems to be gone, that could be because I have started eating solid food again, and got rid of old foods that might have been spoiled.

Seems that I can taste foods like delicious crisp bacon and anything sweet. Can't taste most other foods now. This is a recent problem, within the past couple of months or so. Everything tastes the same in my mouth when chewing, I can get the textures but not the flavors. No enjoyment eating anymore, I have to force myself to fix anything now. I can barely feel hunger, either.

I have read that this symptom comes with advanced stage lung cancer. Patients want only sweet foods. This was happening to me back in 2010, just before the x ray that showed the big tumor in the left lung. No hunger, and no taste except for sweet foods. This is because sugar is what the cancer comsumes in order to grow.

I now have a new CT scan scheduled for March 4th, and oncologist appt for March 11th. That small tumor in the right lung is probably growing. I am starting to notice some local pain in the right lung, and also both lungs when I breathe deep down.


The res manager David has been gone again for two weeks. Don't know what's happening with him, but he might be staying with his sister in San Fran, which is near to the airport where he works. I have the idea they might get a new res manager sometime soon. This is not for sure, but seems to me that he is not doing very much work around here anymore and is hardly ever around.

Dennis is coming today at 11 am. Time is now just before 4 am. I am up almost every night and then go back to bed in the early dawn for a couple more hours.

Happy birthday to your mum next week, boss ..

(noodle nose)