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bethbethbeth I found a different way to discourage spammers so I've reenabled it, anons just have to use CAPTCHA if they want to comment.
What follows is Adventures in Elder Care with Bonus Food Poisoning, and it's long and whiny so I am cut-tagging it so those who don't want to read it don't have to. Last week my mom had another 'spell.' The facility where she lives called my brother and told him she'd fainted and they called paramedics, but she insisted she was fine and refused to go to the emergency room. He called me because he was too busy at his new job to deal with her, so I called her and she said she was fine and she hadn't fainted at all, she heard everyone but just couldn't get her mouth to work right to respond. I thought that sounded weird and told her to call her doc and get an appointment to go see her ASAP. I called her a bit later and she'd made an appointment for the next day but needed me to take her to it. I arranged to get half a day off work and take her.
Next day, I show up to pick her up and talk to the nurse there about what had happened, and she tells me that Mom was out for at least ten minutes and that she'd had extremely low BP (I think it was 80/40) and they had a hard time finding her pulse. This is a lot worse than I'd realized. When we got to the lobby, the front-desk person called me over and told me that the doctor's office had just left a message with them (I have no idea why they didn't call MOM!) that they wouldn't be able to do all the tests that she needed and she would still need to go to the emergency room to get them done. So I figure we'll have to do that after we see the doc. With some difficulty get her loaded up in my car (her walker does NOT fit well in my little Subaru!) and drive out to her appointment... only to find out that the front-desk person had failed to tell us the really important thing. The Doc had CANCELLED HER APPOINTMENT because there wasn't anything she could do without Mom having gone to the ER first. ::headdesk::
So, I load her back in the car and drive to the ER. On the way there, as we're talking, it becomes more and more clear that she really *did* pass out for quite while (she remembers calling the desk to ask someone to come help her move her laundry from the washer to the dryer, and the next thing she remembers is the paramedics arriving. That's a good 10-15 minutes missing. We get to the ER, she gets checked in and they start all the usual tests. Her brain scan was fine, no sign of a new stroke, and her heart's fine, no sign of a heart attack, but she's pretty dehydrated and her blood sugar is very low and her sodium is dangerously low again so they're going to admit her overnight to get her stabilized again. At that point, she reluctantly fesses up that she hasn't taken her salt tablets or eaten much in several days due to her mouth being sore from some oral surgery. She's supposed to take 3 salt tabs a day due to her chronic sodium deficiency, but she just hadn't bothered to take them! And the facility restaurant would have been happy to make her some soft food to eat, or protein shakes or something! This is the THIRD TIME she has had to go to the ER because she's not doing basic things! SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING!!! I told her that if this happens again we're going to have to have the facility up her level of assistance, which will cost her money, so hopefully that will motivate her to drink her water, eat some food, and take her tabs! Grrr.
Then, to cap things off, over the weekend I got a RAGING case of the runs... not sure if it's something I picked up when I was with Mom at the hospital or if I got it from picking up and throwing out a contaminated package of salmon spread that our housemate had left on the counter because she's too frakkin' lazy to do it herself. She got a nasty case of food poisoning from eating the out-of-date contents, and the next day I came down with the worst case of the trots I have ever had in my life so I suspect that was the cause. I ended up having to take 3 days off work at one of the busiest times of year because I couldn't get more than a few steps away from the bathroom.
However, I am feeling quite a lot better now and am planning to go with Kham and one of his friends to see Avengers tomorrow after first having a DVD mini-Marathon of both Iron Man films, Thor and Captain America. I am SOOOO looking forward to that. Hot men on screen! Stuff blowing up!! Snarking! Rampant homoeroticism!! Women kicking butt! Good guys (in the non-gendered sense) saving the world! That's exactly what I need right now. And I promise I will post about the movie because I really must post something other than bitching once in a while!
bethbethbeth I found a different way to discourage spammers so I've reenabled it, anons just have to use CAPTCHA if they want to comment.What follows is Adventures in Elder Care with Bonus Food Poisoning, and it's long and whiny so I am cut-tagging it so those who don't want to read it don't have to. Last week my mom had another 'spell.' The facility where she lives called my brother and told him she'd fainted and they called paramedics, but she insisted she was fine and refused to go to the emergency room. He called me because he was too busy at his new job to deal with her, so I called her and she said she was fine and she hadn't fainted at all, she heard everyone but just couldn't get her mouth to work right to respond. I thought that sounded weird and told her to call her doc and get an appointment to go see her ASAP. I called her a bit later and she'd made an appointment for the next day but needed me to take her to it. I arranged to get half a day off work and take her.
Next day, I show up to pick her up and talk to the nurse there about what had happened, and she tells me that Mom was out for at least ten minutes and that she'd had extremely low BP (I think it was 80/40) and they had a hard time finding her pulse. This is a lot worse than I'd realized. When we got to the lobby, the front-desk person called me over and told me that the doctor's office had just left a message with them (I have no idea why they didn't call MOM!) that they wouldn't be able to do all the tests that she needed and she would still need to go to the emergency room to get them done. So I figure we'll have to do that after we see the doc. With some difficulty get her loaded up in my car (her walker does NOT fit well in my little Subaru!) and drive out to her appointment... only to find out that the front-desk person had failed to tell us the really important thing. The Doc had CANCELLED HER APPOINTMENT because there wasn't anything she could do without Mom having gone to the ER first. ::headdesk::
So, I load her back in the car and drive to the ER. On the way there, as we're talking, it becomes more and more clear that she really *did* pass out for quite while (she remembers calling the desk to ask someone to come help her move her laundry from the washer to the dryer, and the next thing she remembers is the paramedics arriving. That's a good 10-15 minutes missing. We get to the ER, she gets checked in and they start all the usual tests. Her brain scan was fine, no sign of a new stroke, and her heart's fine, no sign of a heart attack, but she's pretty dehydrated and her blood sugar is very low and her sodium is dangerously low again so they're going to admit her overnight to get her stabilized again. At that point, she reluctantly fesses up that she hasn't taken her salt tablets or eaten much in several days due to her mouth being sore from some oral surgery. She's supposed to take 3 salt tabs a day due to her chronic sodium deficiency, but she just hadn't bothered to take them! And the facility restaurant would have been happy to make her some soft food to eat, or protein shakes or something! This is the THIRD TIME she has had to go to the ER because she's not doing basic things! SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING!!! I told her that if this happens again we're going to have to have the facility up her level of assistance, which will cost her money, so hopefully that will motivate her to drink her water, eat some food, and take her tabs! Grrr.
Then, to cap things off, over the weekend I got a RAGING case of the runs... not sure if it's something I picked up when I was with Mom at the hospital or if I got it from picking up and throwing out a contaminated package of salmon spread that our housemate had left on the counter because she's too frakkin' lazy to do it herself. She got a nasty case of food poisoning from eating the out-of-date contents, and the next day I came down with the worst case of the trots I have ever had in my life so I suspect that was the cause. I ended up having to take 3 days off work at one of the busiest times of year because I couldn't get more than a few steps away from the bathroom.
However, I am feeling quite a lot better now and am planning to go with Kham and one of his friends to see Avengers tomorrow after first having a DVD mini-Marathon of both Iron Man films, Thor and Captain America. I am SOOOO looking forward to that. Hot men on screen! Stuff blowing up!! Snarking! Rampant homoeroticism!! Women kicking butt! Good guys (in the non-gendered sense) saving the world! That's exactly what I need right now. And I promise I will post about the movie because I really must post something other than bitching once in a while!
From:
no subject
Glad you're feeling better! We're going to see The Avengers (and why do I still see Steed and Mrs Peel when I say that) tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
From:
no subject
*hugs*