The Malik Report

Hello, and welcome back to The Malik Report.

Here’s the long story as to why I haven’t been around:

It’s been nine months since my now 81-year-old aunt fell down the stairs and broke her back and neck. Shortly thereafter, she found out that she had congestive heart failure, she got COVID at the nursing home where she spent much of October.

After a relatively quiet November and December, January and February included two more hospital stays–one for the entire month of February–due to a really horrible flare-up of ulcerative colitis, an illness we didn’t know she had until it hit her like a truck of bricks.

She then spent a couple of months regaining her mobility (spending a month bedridden is not good for you), learning how to deal with a slate of new medications, and getting used to her new life.

My life also has changed significantly over the course of the last nine months. I’ve become Aunt Annie’s primary caregiver a much more hands-on sense of the term. Aunt Annie needs help from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep, at least in terms of medications (she takes 21 prescriptions, which I organize and refill when necessary), mobility (she’s using a walker right now), meal preparation, and sometimes wound care (thanks to a fall this past weekend).

It’s a different kind of life. I’ve gotten used to it, but it’s not easy. And we both understand that it’s never going to be like it was prior to her fall.

She and I have also talked about possibly re-starting the blog, especially with the 2023 NHL Draft looming, and the Red Wings’ summer development camp around the corner.

Continue reading It’s been a long nine months, but tonight, TMR is back

A short update and an “ask” this morning:

Aunt Annie ended up spending a month in the hospital in February, and was ultimately diagnosed with ulcerative colitis.

She came back home on February 27th, and, since then, we’ve been working very hard to claw back some of her mobility and adjust to a slew of new medications necessary to treat her UC. I’ve taken over the medication distribution as she’s up to 18 prescriptions, and we’re doing our best to get by as her mobility is limited–she’s supposed to use a walker to head to the restroom and back, and that’s about it.

We’ve worked with physical therapy and occupational therapy to increase her endurance, and, in general, my caregiving job has been completely engrossing over the past two months.

I barely have moments to breathe, and while I’m able to Tweet during playoff games, that’s about as much as I get in terms of free time as I prepare meals, I’m on call to escort her to the restroom, and I take on the daily tasks involved with caring for her, sometimes at the expense of my own mental and physical health. That’s just part of the job, however, and I’d much rather be doing it myself to help keep her at home.

The “state of the blog” remains on hiatus as we hope for a more stable situation for the aunt’s health, but I fully plan on returning to work as soon as I am able.

In the interim, things are rough financially as plain old bills have caught up to us, and we’ve got yet another GoFundMe going to try and make ends meet.

That’s where the blog is at and where I am at. I’m trying to keep up with Red Wings news, but it’s hard when I have so very little free time, and things are just tough all over right now.

Here’s a short update as to what’s going on away from the blog:

We’re in month six of my Aunt Annie’s health care adventures, and over the past two weeks, we’ve had to make two trips to the ER at Beaumont in Royal Oak (a.k.a. Corewell Health).

Aunt Annie was having some significant confusion from a UTI, had imbalanced electrolytes and showed the signs of having had a cardiac event when she headed into the hospital in mid-January.

She was discharged on the day of the big blizzard a week ago Wednesday, but sent home with a vicious intestinal bug called “C Diff.,” and from last Friday on, well…

I’ve been changing diapers up to ten to twelve times a day. She was placed on a course of heavy antibiotics last Tuesday, but she didn’t improve, and she became more and more fuzzy-brained, so our home health care nurse gave us the, “Time to go back” nod and helped us wheel AA out of the house and into the car via her wheelchair on Friday.

After a very long day yesterday, she was diagnosed with having C Diff., having another UTI and displaying some odd kidney functions.

Despite the fact that she was very foggy, she asked me to stay home and enjoy the All-Star Game today, however, and I know that she’s in good hands at Beaumont, so…

We’re hoping that this weekend’s stay, combined with some post-hospitalization physical therapy = a more stable situation.

In the interim, yes, I have a GoFundMe set up (https://www.gofundme.com/manage/wt4t5h-george-and-anne-malik) to help with the bills and things like getting back and forth to the hospital and, very frankly, paying for medical supplies. Right now is a pretty desperate moment due to some blog bills coming due, but it is what it is. I wish I was providing some content in exchange for charity right now.

Continue reading Away from the blog, it’s Groundhog Day at the ER…Again…

I do this reluctantly, but:

Since I last spoke with you, my Aunt Annie has been hospitalized again, and has come home with a stomach bug. We are “underwater” as far as paying our bills this month, in no small part due to blog expenses that I cannot pay while I’m not working, and on top of that, we need to buy some medical equipment to help AA out.

I have a GoFundMe up here (https://www.gofundme.com/manage/wt4t5h-george-and-anne-malik), and if there is any way that you are able to lend a couple of bucks, we’re in a time of pretty desperate need.

Thanks.

Hi, everybody. It’s been a LONG time since I last updated you on the state of the blog, and it’s time to do so again.

I apologize for the lack of posts over the last couple of months. Aunt Annie and I have been dealing with our post-medical adventures life, which has involved a lot of unpacking of the events that took place for AA (who likened her emotions to PTSD), some depression and anxiety for me, and financial stress on top of it all…

But we’ve gotten through with the support of family and friends, both online and “IRL,” and many of you know that I’m at least trying to show up for Red Wings games on Twitter.

Right now, Aunt Annie is having some complications due to her congestive heart failure (again, “heart failure” is a very liveable-withable condition, which still surprises me) that we’re trying to sort out. It’s taken a significantly longer period of time to get her sleepiness diagnosed, and it’s been very stressful to care for her while worrying about her so very much…

So yes, part of me wants to come back to work, and come back to work badly; I miss covering the Red Wings and their hockey world, I miss talking to you, and I miss writing for a living. My blogging job is stressful some times, too, but it’s also fun. It is still my intention to restart The Malik Report, and I owe those of you who have supported the blog a damn hard effort at achieving that goal.

The other part of me wants to see some sort of resolution to figuring out what the flying flurk is going on with my aunt’s health first, and we don’t have a definite timeline as to when things will get sorted out.

It’s scary when a loved one is having new chronic health issues, and neither you nor your physicians quite know why they are happening. It’s stressful, it wrecks your attention span (an attention span is necessary to be a blogger), and it drains your energy reserves.

It also sparks ye olde anxiety and depression, too, and as we’ve faced some rough times without the income that the blog generates (it ain’t much, but something is still something), I’ve had a rough go there from time to time.

So the household remains in flux health-wise. My chronic health conditions are liveable-withable, and my aunt’s chronic health conditions are, when controlled, liveable-withable, so there should be no reason, long term, for TMR to not resume normal functioning.

But we aren’t in that spot yet. So we’re going to get her out of, “This is scary and we don’t know why it’s happening” territory, and then I’ll get my butt back to work.

Hi, everybody. I wanted to post a short update as it’s been a couple of weeks…

Aunt Annie got out of the nursing home a week ago Friday, on October 28th, after clearing her 10-day COVID isolation.

It’s been a big adjustment to go back to two people living together, especially with her severely-limited mobility initially, but after being basically bedridden for the better part of a month, she decided to get up and walk, and she’s doing a really good job.

We’ve got a slew of doctor’s appointments to cover over the next couple of weeks, but she’s doing very well as she learns to live as a heart failure patient, and we’re resting up after five weeks of heck and are recovering slowly.

As soon as I’ve got the energy to get back to blogging, this blog will be back up and operational. I miss you all and, quite frankly, I need to help the household by making some money, so I’ll be back ASAP.

We’re very relieved that we’ve made it through the hardest part of our Fun Fall Health Journey, and we’re very thankful for your well-wishes and prayers. They worked!

Aunt Annie has been placed in isolation for 10 days at the nursing home to combat her COVID symptoms. While she feels like she’s got the worst flu bug that ever hit her, she’s not exhibiting any respiratory symptoms. She’s 5 days into her isolation program, but the fact that an immune-compromised 80-year-old is hanging tough is a bit of a relief.

She’s still going to need at least 3-5 days of physical therapy once she gets out of COVID protocol as she’s lost a fair amount of strength on bed rest, and she’s hanging in there, but it’s not been easy.

Every time she lets me visit her, I don the PPE and get in there to cheer her up. I’ve also been navigating the health system as we try to get answers as to what’s going to be covered by insurance, what we’re going to be paying ourselves, negotiating with the nursing home staff to get updates as to how her care is going, coordinating and re-coordinating her post-institutional appointments, etc. etc.

It’s really a full-time job in itself.

Continue reading An update and an ‘ask’

I received an unwelcome call late on Sunday morning, informing me that my aunt had tested positive for COVID after three-and-a-half weeks bouncing in and out of hospitals and sub-acute care facilities.

The facility where she’s being treated has apparently had a small outbreak, and five residents have been affected, including an aunt who has been downright antisocial over the past two-and-a-half years to ensure that her immune-compromised body not encounter anyone who might have been exposed to COVID.

I took a test on Sunday (as I’d spent Saturday with my aunt) and tested negative, and I’ll continue to monitor my situation over the next couple of days…

Because I spent Monday afternoon in full PPE, visiting with a more-than-slightly-pissed-off 80-year-old who feels terrible, but is at least not dealing with the most acute symptoms of a virus that’s making her feel miserable, but nothing worse than that.

Continue reading And then the nursing home gave Aunt Annie COVID

It’s been three weeks since my aunt was hospitalized for the first time, and she’s been in the nursing home/rehab facility for a week now.

She’s utterly exhausted, mentally as much as physically, from living in a facility where there is no rest from constant noise and negotiation with overworked nursing staff for basic care.

I’m also exhausted from worry, financial and health-related uncertainty, worries about what will happen when she comes home, and, after two weeks spent in a hotel and two-and-a-half weeks spent alone at home, I’m pretty bloody lonely in an empty condominium.

We have a week to go (hopefully) in terms of Aunt Annie’s institutionalization. Our insurance coverage runs out on Thursday, October 20th, and the nursing home is essentially dumping her out upon the world six days from now.

Continue reading Three weeks in

Hockey friends,

On the day that the Red Wings establish their 23-man roster (with a few players placed on LTIR for good measure), I’m headed out to the nursing home where Aunt Annie has been placed for another visit.

She’s had an incredibly difficult time adjusting from acute care to sub-acute care, and as hard as the first couple of days in the cardiac ward were, I would argue that the last four days’ worth of fighting with both the aunt and fighting with her medical caregivers to ensure that she receives a high level of care have been more exhausting.

I’m doing my best to make sure that everything’s taken care of, but there are times that my little 80-year-old can be her own worst enemy, and that’s been innervating.

So I’m still on the IR for another day or three while we get Aunt Annie truly settled into her rehabilitative routine. I desperately miss “normal” life, working for you included, and I will be back as soon as humanly possible.