...and 6+1 acts
And so it happened that one Saturday evening at the end of October I was back home. With a PEG. You don't know the back story yet? Then it's worth taking a look at the first three parts of the story:
Done, knocked out, with hellish pain when positioning, sitting down, moving the PEG. But at home. And actually a bit satisfied. After all, I can now party for three days straight without having to worry about my fluid and calorie intake.
And I am finally rid of the whining of my carers. Never again will anyone feel the need to tell me what I have to do with my body. Yes, yes, I know, no one would ever tell me that I "have to". They just recommend, show me the benefits. But that's over now. The problem has practically taken care of itself'(Insider: and no, an ALS patient certainly does not build up new muscles if, against medical advice and contrary to what is written on the package insert, he is given at least 6 to 7 sip feeds with 3,000 kcal a day via the stomach tube. Discussion over).
Think again. Rejoiced too soon. Now the whole discussion is starting all over again. Only this time it's not about the PEG, but about the cannula. Really? C'mon guys, give me a fucking break, please. Besides, I can't do that until I have a competent nursing service that manages to bill the health insurance company correctly and informs the patient about possible costs before they arise. The unplanned €7,000 transfer is still heavy on my stomach, as you can easily see. Now I have sold 200 Lufthansa shares to make sure that my credit card debit, which was due on the same day of all days, does not bounce. That's all I needed. You could hardly have thought up a worse time to do it. Want a chart?
By the way, the red line represents the time of the sale. You are already doing your calculations correctly. If we look at the costs of opposition, the action with the PEG cost me over €10,000. Am I annoyed? Oh yes, and how.
But I just remembered that I promised some of you that I would write something about shares and investment. There was something. Unless something unexpected happens again, it will follow right after this post.
For those interested, here are three quick links with a short description:
- My profile on Parqetmy portfolio management. Here you can see everything. What I buy, what I sell, where there are dividends, all historical data, analyses and evaluations.
- My profile on Getquina much simpler and, unfortunately, less sophisticated portfolio management tool. Rather something for smaller portfolios. Still quite nice for a quick overview and exchange with other users. To be honest, I don't know if I will stay there. Somehow their netiquette is strange and it bothers me that there are so many senior teachers who think that a personal opinion of a company can be wrong per se.
- My profile on Wikifolio. You can register here and help me to make my own equity fund investable. Actually, I've been this far before, but I had to create everything from scratch because it's not possible to change the e-mail address. What a cramp.
I'll write about it in detail in a separate report soon. I don't want to bore anyone here.
So. So I'm home again. Nice. The final tests were all extraordinarily good, blood values top (insider: and that despite bleeding gums, no emergency doctor necessary), wound is clean and healing quickly, ventilation parameters are exactly the same today as at my last visit over a year ago. Even a little better. I have to live with the abdominal pain I still have for a while, they say. As far as possible, they are kept in check with painkillers. It is an intervention in the body and it complains with pain until the wound has healed. Which it usually does relatively quickly. After one or two weeks, they say, the pain has subsided.
But I wouldn't be me if everything wasn't different again from everywhere else.
Of course, I first caught a discreet germ. Even though no one really wanted to believe it, in the end we had to "treat" for weeks with Betaisodona ointment and Novalgin in rough quantities - and accept that this variant does not work. As is often the case, at some point I got so fed up with this plugging that we switched to other methods. What works in intensive care, where some of my best friends work, also works in the wild. And so we move on to antibiotics, Lavanid and Secura applicator. Even though I have to pay for the Lavanid myself and the pharmacy... old administrator, I can't even pronounce how much they want for it. A three-figure sum, anyway. I then ordered it from a well-known webshop for a fraction of the cost. Somewhere, even my generosity has a limit.
Spoilers - some of you might find this disgusting. But sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Let someone tell me again that nothing can go wrong with a PEG in ALS patients. With us, everything is always a little different.
Okay, I've got one more.
