Summer

It's been a tough summer. For most of it, we've been forced indoors by high temperatures, and moved from one air conditioned spot to another via the air conditioned vehicle. Even limiting the places we go, we've had trouble with fragrances. It's been annoying, especially so when we're home and the weather allows us to have the windows open but the neighbors don't. 
The doctors have changed our regimen in an attempt to reduce the number of steroid tapers. Instead, we inhale a corticosteriod via the nebulizer twice a day. I haven't noticed a difference, except that I bring up mucus about a half hour afterward. Mmmm, fun!

The weather is completely insane

For the first time I remember, the entire Eastern Shore is under an air quality alert due to increased ozone. That goes hand-in-hand with the crazy hot temperatures. It went over 100F at hour house, and the heat index was 113 at the height of the heat. There's no rain in sight, either,  but temps are supposed to drop in the next few days. 
We found some new masks in Lowe's. They are N95 particle masks, vented, with a layer of carbon sewn into them. They are much more comfortable than our other carbon masks, and also help with the fragrance issues. 
It's been a rough year so far. My sweetie's on her sixth prednisone taper of the year, and we are both on inhaled (via nebulizer) steroids as well as levalbuterol and a rescue inhaler when needed. Even with all of that, we frequently feel like fish out of water, gasping to get enough oxygen. 

Spring

   It's been a lovely spring. The weather has cooperated, so the flowering trees and shrubs, as well as the spring bulbs, have lasted. Unfortunately, the pollen counts have been through the roof, though they are lower today due to yesterday's rain.
   That's meant three big prednisone tapers for my sweetie and one for me, although I feel a second one coming on. We've both been hacking for the past few days, and a big contributor is someone upwind of us who's been burning wet and green wood. The smoke is a killer, and means the windows stayed closed and the air purifiers ran constantly. I lost one gorgeous day that was planned for yard work to it.
   Going out continues to be problematic. We limit the places we go, but still have no control over what others do. The nursing home is full of really bad perfume, most of it on the residents. Walmart is always a chore, and the Walmartians who annoy us aren't the outrageously dressed ones; they're the ones with the personal aroma cloud who leave a scent trail. Parking lots are becoming a problem, too, between tobacco smoke and the scents that waft from open windows. Guess what, dude, the 5-0 can still smell the weed no matter how many of those cardboard things are hanging from your rearview.
   Some things are still good, though: SuperCuts for haircuts, restaurant takeaway, having the windows open when we can. 

Going out is no fun

We've started marking on the calendar the days we leave the house. So far this month, we've been out three times more than we've stayed home. It's been tough to get time at home because my sweetheart's dad has been in and out of the hospital and nursing home. He is, fortunately, doing much, much better. Still, the old guy is 90 and has multiple medical issues, so we are trying to see him as much as possible.
Going out, of course, makes breathing problematic. We've both been using our nebulizers daily, and have had multiple course of antibiotics for the ever popular sinus infections. My sweetheart is nearing the end of a long prednisone taper, which has helped quite a bit. I haven't needed one since September, but I can feel it building up. 
All the going out also means that we are exposed to tons of things that bother both of us. The primary problem continues to be scents and fragrances, even at the hospital, which hasn't bother to follow up on our correspondence. I'll be sending them another letter, though, since our recent visits had the same problems. On more than occasion, we had to leave earlier than planned because one of the employees had a personal aroma cloud that lingered. I'd sigh, but that takes more air than I can manage at the moment. 

The nursing home

My father-in-law has been moved from the hospital to the nursing home. It, too, is a scent jungle, beginning at the entrance, where the receptionist has turned the foyer into her own perfume fort. Walking down the halls is one odor after another, and don't get me started on the employees. Twice, we've had to leave because employees have come into his room wearing enough fragrance for four people. 


I'd ask what's wrong with them, but I suspect I know the answers, and I'm really sick of people pleading ignorance, even after we've had a chat. 


By the way, not a peep from the hospital yet.

Hospital Odors

The title may have you believing this will be about gross bandages and bloody dressings and such, but most of the smells were pleasant. They just didn't belong in a No Smoking (even in your vehicle) Zone and a fragrance free environment.

We had problems with it both times I was in for surgery. People swearing they had no scent on because their child has problems too. Only to realize moments later that she had tried a new hair gel. Ding, ding. We have a winner.

Even those staff that do eliminate perfumes from their hair products, laundry products, deodorants, skin creams, etc. have to use the hospital's own hand soap and sanitizer. Both of which smell.

Now my dad's in the hospital for a longer stay than he realizes. We've been 'skunked' by staff and visitors. Then when my sweetheart has a coughing seizure they offer water. Why so she'll choke? People did the same thing to my mom and I didn't understand it then either.

It has turned out that we can see dad every other day so we can have a 'recovery day'. I can't even put into words how badly this pisses me off.

Hospital's reply, pt. 1

From yesterday's mail:

I am so fed up with the hospital

My father-in-law is in the hospital recovering from pneumonia, but my problem with the local hospital goes back to my sweetheart's first joint replacement surgery in September 2009.


The staff are instructed to not wear perfume, cologne, or aftershave. However, they aren't told to avoid scented soap, deodorant, lotion, powder, or hair gel, not to mention laundry products. There are far too many of them who regularly disregard the simple instruction not to wear scent. The one that infuriated both of us was the woman whose entrance into the room immediately made me start coughing, and who swore she didn't wear "any of that stuff" because her child has breathing issues, and in the next breath talked about her new hair gel.


We had issues with both surgical stays, brief as they were, because multiple staff members didn't get the memo, didn't read the memo, or flat out don't care that what they put on their bodies negatively affects patients, and mentioned it in both aftercare surveys from the hospital. 


All over the place are signs that the hospital campus is tobacco and smoke-free, including in your private vehicle on their property. There is not one sign suggesting that wearing any fragrance into a place where people are ill is a bad idea.


To top things off, the soap in the dispensers is strongly scented, as I discovered when I tried to wash off the hand sanitizer, which was so strongly scented that it caused an immediate coughing spasm. 


Today, we went in to see FiL, and it was a nightmare of epic proportions. We get into the elevator, push the button for our floor, and a woman comes in behind us. These are old elevators, with maybe 10 square feet of floor space, and as soon as the door closed, her fragrance became obvious. I reacted immediately and strongly, and fortunately was able to push the button for the next floor to get off the elevator and away from her. (Note to the hospital: Don't complain about obesity in the public when every stairway in the place requires a keycard to enter. Believe me, I'd rather take the extra time to climb the stairs to avoid being trapped in the insufficiently ventilated and regularly overcrowded elevators.) Anyway, after I caught my breath, we tried again. The second of two elevators was recently occupied by heavy tobacco smoker(s). The scent of stale smoke was thick in there, and again, I started coughing, as did Sweetheart.


We get up to FiL's room, and he had some other friends there, and I needed to catch my breath anyway, so I sat in a chair in the hallway and hacked off and on for 10 minutes. When his other friends left, I went into the room, and was standing at the foot of his bed when the roommate's wife comes toward the door. She got within three feet of me, and her perfume did it again. This time, I couldn't stop coughing, wheezing, and panting. 


I left the room to get away from the problem, and was leaning against a wall, barking like a seal and wheezing loudly with each inhalation. In the hospital, from "medical professionals," I heard these moronic questions:

1. "Are you/Is she all right?" Uh, do I SOUND all right to you? 
2. "Do you want some water?" I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on television, but common sense tells me that trying to make me drink water when I can't breathe without wheezing on the inhale and barking on the exhale is a recipe for drowning. Sweetheart answered for me, and forcefully told them, "No. No water. Leave her alone."
3. "Do you want to sit down?" If I wanted to sit down, moron, there's a chair two feet away, or the floor right under my feet. Plus at least one of the helpful medical professionals crowding around me was in violation of the hospital's fragrance policy, which just made things worse. 
4. Another of the helpful medical professionals kept repeating this sorrowful excuse for FiL's roommate's wife's offensive odor: "She doesn't understand." Guess what, folks, now she does, and if she does it again, I'm going to demand that one of them be moved.

That was my limit. I jerked my shirt up over my face as a makeshift mask, got my jacket and apologized to FiL, and hotfooted it out of there as fast as I could. The final insult was when I had to use the toilet on the way out. Guess what? I've literally been in whorehouses (a story for another time) that didn't reek as bad as that bathroom did with something to cover up some non-existent offensive odor. So I coughed some more. Went to the car. Coughed on the way. Sat in our car, played games on my phone and coughed while my sweetheart visited with her dad. 


Sweetheart reported the following on our ride home:

1. After I left, some female administrative-type person came to see what the hubbub was about, and Sweetheart told her the problem was "frangrances. We are highly allergic," and pointed out to her that Sweetheart is a lifelong asthmatic and that my breathing problems stem from working in a sick building infested with A. niger (black mold).
2. Roommate's smelly wife was bonus rude to the nutritionist who came around to get dinner orders. The first offer was something that FiL isn't permitted to eat. Second offer was a repeat of lunch. Third offer was acceptable. When the nutritionist went to roommate with the first two offers, smelly wife demanded to know what was offered to FiL but not roommate.

Tomorrow, I'm calling the president of the hospital. We're going to have a chat, during which I will give him every opportunity to explain why going to the hospital should make me ill. I'm hoping he'll be reasonable, but I doubt it. No one else has been, even when they've seen and heard what happens when they insist on a personal aroma cloud that exceeds their arms' reach and leaves a trail a congested child can follow.


I'll let you know what happens.