Roberta Writes – Thursday Doors: A trip to the hospital, a poem and a micro read #hospital #microread #poem

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/11/17/pleasant-update/

This has been another surreal week. On Tuesday, exactly four weeks after the previous repeat surgery on Michael’s sinuses, he underwent another procedure. The surgery last year failed because he is getting significant post operative cartilage overgrowth and scar tissue build ups. This has the effect of completely blocking the artificial drainage openings that the surgery created. This results in complete surgical failure over time.

Last year, when Michael had surgery, he was given very high doses of cortisone to try to break the autoimmune overgrowth response. He was also on an antibiotic for three months until January this year. This treatment worked until July when he had the first sinus infection in six months. He had sinus infections in August and late September. The antibiotic treatment for the most recent infection failed dismally and that is why we had to go the surgery route. Cortisone is no longer an option for Michael as the last lot caused high blood pressure issues.

Within four days of the operation, the doctor was already seeing scar tissue formation on the right hand side. We went onto an aggressive home treatment programme of steaming over boiling water and then douching with a saline solution before using cortisone nasules in both nostrils and an antibacterial nasal cream. Michael also had a second course of strong antibiotics. We did this for two weeks, but on Sunday, 6 November, the doctor admitted defeat. The right hand drainage had closed up completely and there was nothing he could do about it outside of surgery. Further surgery was booked for this week Tuesday and the plan was to reopen the drainage, clear out the infection that has formed behind the barrier, and then insert a stent to keep it open which it healed. The procedures should have taken about 1 hour.

The operation took 3-hours which was rather disconcerting because we didn’t know why it was taking so long until afterwards. during the week and two days from Sunday, 6 November, the left hand drainage had also started to close up with scar tissue and there was some infection in the left sinus as well. The doctor reopened both sides, removed all the scar tissue and infection, and inserted 6 stents, 3 on each side. Two were sponges soaked in cortisone and covered in plastic which were inserted into the sinus cavity to reduce inflammation and hold the area open. These ones came out today. It was a bit shocking watching them being pulled out. A bit like a Stephen King horror movie watching these egg-shaped wads coming out of his nose. Like giving birth to a small reptile eggs – shudder! I read to much paranormal!

The other 4 stents stay in until Tuesday next week and then the homecare programme starts again. Whew! Anyhow, the doctor was pleased with how everything looked today so that is a big plus.

These are a few of the doors from the hospital ward:

This is the view of Sandton from the ward window. It was at sunset and you can see the sunlight reflection off the glass fronted buildings.

A poem – Dragonfly strike

I haven’t been able to write any poetry since Michael first got sick again six weeks ago. Today, I managed to break through the barricade. Okay, its about a dragonfly eating a butterfly but still, progress is progress [smile].

Blissfully unaware

the butterfly lands

pale wings fluttering, she sucks from the flower

multifaceted eyes

watch with interest

***

Appetite satisfied

butterfly takes off

a whoosh of transparent wings; it disappears

the oblivious prey

of the dragonfly

***

An aggressive hunter

it resumes the search

for any unwary insect, pest or not

agility and speed

ensuring success

A new children’s book – Micro read

I have been experimenting with formatting my children’s books to improve the digital formats. I am not at all happy with the ebooks from Lulu.com and would prefer to publish any ebooks I create through Kindle Direct Publishing. This micro-read, The Christmas Bird, is my first attempt at this form of publishing. The story is 5,600 words long and is also available for free through Kindle Direct.

I am pleased with how it turned out. If you’d like to take a look and are subscribed to Kindle Direct, you can do so here: https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Bird-Robbie-Cheadle-ebook/dp/B0BMMB2H75. You can also purchase it for $1.14 which is the cheapest I can get on Amazon. This is an old fashioned Christmas story so no cell phones or fast paced action, but I am fond of it. It is semi autobiographic.

My highly creative friend, Teagan Riordain Geneviene, created the cover. Teagan has a wonderful new book, A Peril in Ectoplasm, Just Once More available and you can read more about it here: https://teagansbooks.com/2022/11/16/wednesday-writing-two-bookreviews-from-dan-antion-at-no-facilities/