With the election only one week away, I feel as if I should be commenting on the two campaigns, the polls, and prognosticating the outcome. I can say it in a sentence. I'm tired of the negative ads (McCain); I'm pleased by the polls (Obama leads); and I'm surprised that Sarah Palin thinks she will play a role in future national Republican affairs. That's it. I'm equally tired of alleged friends who send me Obama smear material, hoping I will .....what, rise to the bait? Disprove the information? Still believe they are my friend? Fuggetaboutit.
No, my attention has been on my mother who has been in the hospital since last Wednesday, with apparent kidney failure and possible pneumonia. Without going into the whole episode, I would like to make a few observations about healthcare in our country, or at least in my local area. If you are reading this blog entry, you may wish to start stockpiling drugs, so that you can avoid this scenario in your future.
I took mom to her primary care physician on Oct. 12, to seek treatment for a bad cough which seemed to be getting worse. He prescribed Robitussin D and scheduled her for a kidney ultrasound 3 days later because her blood chemistry was bad i.e. she was building up toxins in her blood which meant the kidneys weren't fully functional.
We go to the ultrasound and mom confesses to total exhaustion and is unable to eat lunch upon return to Langdon Place.
I purchase juice boxes and try to get her to drink one morning and afternoon. Mom does worse and worse, eats little and drinks less.
By last Wed., she can't get out of bed, can't eat, and has bad pain in her back in addition to her worsening cough. We're waiting for an appt. with the kidney specialist, and numerous contacts with the nurse at her primary care office and the kidney specialist doesn't produce anything. The staff at Langdon Place is happy to wheel her into the dining room where she sits and can't eat her food.
On Wed. morning I take over applesauce and bouillon cubes for some broth, but I find her in such bad shape that I insist she go to the ER by ambulance.
My most favorite moment occurs when the ambulance driver arrives and asks if I am her sister. WOW! Time for me to get more rest, dye my hair, go to the gym, or SOMETHING.
My second favorite moment occurs when the ER physician pronounces that she can go back to LP, and I go off to fill prescriptions, somewhat incredulous that they think she can go back to the lack of care at Assisted Living. I go off to fill prescriptions (which may be sitting at Hannaford's as we speak), get a coat for mom to wear, and return to the ER, to find that mom has vomited the food they tried to feed her, and they have decided to admit her.
She has an acute bronchial infection, and failing kidneys. Not in her favor is the fact that she is nearly 93 years old. She has not had a good few days, nor, might I add, have I. Yesterday was the worst, when she started crying as I tried to help her eat some "dinner." No matter what I did or said, she couldn't stop crying, nor could she say what was causing her to cry. I kept trying to get someone to come in to see what they might do (sedate her? sedate me?) to no avail. Finally, in a momentary lull, at 6:30 p..m., I left. It was a two-glass-of-wine night for me, and predictably a bad night's sleep.
By the light of day, I thought about how no wonder she was crying; how I had done all I could; how my lying awake worrying wouldn't make anything better; how I needed to insist (again) that the nurse's aide be there to help her at mealtime, not me; and how I needed to curtail my visits to about 45 minutes and let the chips fall where they may. I also thought about how by today, she wouldn't even remember that she had cried last night. These realizations made it momentarily easier for me to go to yoga this morning, and time my visit this afternoon so that I could chat, read to her, and then firmly leave when it was still light enough for me to go for a walk.
None of this is easy. She has the doctors somewhat buffaloed, I think. Her kidney numbers are improving each day; the new scan of arteries yesterday showed no blockages in the arteries feeding the kidneys; a chest x-ray today didn't show pneumonia. Still, she doesn't feel good, and is improving in microscopic ways. On the other hand, there was talk of discharging her tomorrow, which her nurse today vigorously opposed. (me too).
I asked the nurse to sign her up for a Reiki massage. It can't hurt, and mom thought it sounded like it would be "kind of neat." On that note, I said my good-bye for today, and I will end this blog entry. In yoga, my intention was "to be peaceful, to be joyful and to stay strong,." Namaste.
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