Showing posts with label Hospital. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hospital. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Sad Update
Well, Dad's not going to get better. He is getting radiation to reduce or remove the pain in his spine. After that---I don't know yet.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
What I bought today
For Dad while he's in the hospital (I bought movies too). He's getting better because he's getting bored. It was on sale, only $65, marked down from $85.
Macey thought it was for her but it's actually a modular drawer so I can straighten up the laundry room
In other news, we had 3 inches of rain last night and another inch or more in the last hour. I can't look at the rain gauge because it's being guarded by a spider in an orb web. Ewwwww
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Home and Recovering
Dad is doing fine, recovering, still a bit sore and taking it easy, eating good. Poor guy, he had a hard time in the hospital. Before I brought him in Saturday afternoon he wanted to eat but I discouraged him from doing that because I knew the hospital would want to run tests.
I brought him to the ER and he was admitted that night. The bad thing was, they didn't feed him anything but broth and jello the whole time he was there, but they also didn't do the colonoscopy until Monday. They did a CAT scan of his torso in ER, but that's it! NOTHING until Monday---no tests, no food, no information, major STRESS. Because he also has Essential Tremor (which I hardly notice at home, and I didn't realize this until after it happened and I looked it up) going that long with no food and no beer (which suppresses it) and all the stress causes the tremor to really get bad.
Sunday night the night nurse brought the colon prep for him to drink. She said it would be best if he could drink the whole thing by midnight. He finished it at 11 pm and the nurse even checked to see that he had. A few trips to the bathroom and he tried to sleep.
Now, I had a colonoscopy in January, and although it's not as bad as some might think, the prep makes it so you can't sleep. There's just something about it that puts your body out of whack and gives you the jitters.
Dad couldn't sleep so they brought him something. Monday morning he called me bright and early at 7:30 am. He thought his test might be soon but he didn't know. I called the nurse and she said it was scheduled for 1 pm. After spending some time catching up on all the things I needed to do I got ready to go to the hospital. I called dad at 10:30 and I could hardly understand what he was saying...something about still being there. I told him the test was at one and he said no one seemed to know.
So I get to the hospital and he's in a weird way, not himself at all. He was grouchy, really grouchy. So I talked to the nurse. She said he was agitated that morning so she gave him something. They gave him a unit of blood. The IV was hurting so they moved it to the other arm. He said the IV had been pulled on three times.
While I was there he told me they wanted him to be seen by a neurologist because of the tremor. He tried to tell them he had already seen doctors about it in the past.
After the colonoscopy they brought him more broth and jello. They said he couldn't eat until a surgeon saw him because there is one large polyp they couldn't remove and he needed surgery. By then the wacko drug from that morning had worn off and dad said this is too much, he needed to go home and eat something. I mean, he hadn't eaten since Friday night for cryin' out loud! Plus that he doesn't have medigap insurance (yet) so we have to pay 20% plus whatever Medicare doesn't cover.
So I talked to everyone and got the discharge. It was very stressful and now I'm sick again. Sore throat. Anyway, I got him home and fed. He went to bed early.
Tuesday----all the drugs have worn off, so he has a clear head. The Tremor is calm, his color has returned, he's eating well and resting. So he starts telling me about the ordeal. Aside from the no food problem, he said they kept telling him different things. One person would tell him to get up to go to the bathroom and the next was complaining that he wasn't supposed to be up at all.
Then there was the thing with the colon prep. When the morning nurse came in she saw the empty jug of prep and said he was supposed to leave half of it for today (Monday). Now you have to understand his Essential Tremor was way out of whack and he hadn't had anything solid to eat since Friday night AND he was jittery from the colon prep AND no one seemed to know when the colonoscopy was scheduled or they didn't hear him ask or something. So he told her that the night nurse wanted him to finish it by midnight. Well, I don't know what happened because I wasn't there, but the nurse popped him with some kind of noo-nee noo-nee drug. She told me he was apprehensive about the test. Now I know men aren't the best patients but come on, he wasn't hitting anyone.
Then there was the IV. It went bad, stopped working. Why? Housekeeping tripped over the line and pulled on it. Then at two different times aides pulled on it, I'm sure accidentally because the noo-nee noo-nee drug made him flop around. So he was hungry, he hurt, he was drugged up, and he wanted to go home.
The large polyp? It was biopsied. As soon as I get over this stupid cold I'm going to chase down the results. My nurse friend in Missouri said a polyp is a polyp, though they can be pre-cancerous, but they grow very slowly. She said a mass or a tumor doesn't look like a polyp. So we feel there is plenty of time to get moved. There are plenty of hospitals downstate. One in Paoli, two in Bedford, one in Bloomington, Salem, several in Louisville, KY. We'll get through this. Now if I can only get over this crummy cold.
I brought him to the ER and he was admitted that night. The bad thing was, they didn't feed him anything but broth and jello the whole time he was there, but they also didn't do the colonoscopy until Monday. They did a CAT scan of his torso in ER, but that's it! NOTHING until Monday---no tests, no food, no information, major STRESS. Because he also has Essential Tremor (which I hardly notice at home, and I didn't realize this until after it happened and I looked it up) going that long with no food and no beer (which suppresses it) and all the stress causes the tremor to really get bad.
Sunday night the night nurse brought the colon prep for him to drink. She said it would be best if he could drink the whole thing by midnight. He finished it at 11 pm and the nurse even checked to see that he had. A few trips to the bathroom and he tried to sleep.
Now, I had a colonoscopy in January, and although it's not as bad as some might think, the prep makes it so you can't sleep. There's just something about it that puts your body out of whack and gives you the jitters.
Dad couldn't sleep so they brought him something. Monday morning he called me bright and early at 7:30 am. He thought his test might be soon but he didn't know. I called the nurse and she said it was scheduled for 1 pm. After spending some time catching up on all the things I needed to do I got ready to go to the hospital. I called dad at 10:30 and I could hardly understand what he was saying...something about still being there. I told him the test was at one and he said no one seemed to know.
So I get to the hospital and he's in a weird way, not himself at all. He was grouchy, really grouchy. So I talked to the nurse. She said he was agitated that morning so she gave him something. They gave him a unit of blood. The IV was hurting so they moved it to the other arm. He said the IV had been pulled on three times.
While I was there he told me they wanted him to be seen by a neurologist because of the tremor. He tried to tell them he had already seen doctors about it in the past.
After the colonoscopy they brought him more broth and jello. They said he couldn't eat until a surgeon saw him because there is one large polyp they couldn't remove and he needed surgery. By then the wacko drug from that morning had worn off and dad said this is too much, he needed to go home and eat something. I mean, he hadn't eaten since Friday night for cryin' out loud! Plus that he doesn't have medigap insurance (yet) so we have to pay 20% plus whatever Medicare doesn't cover.
So I talked to everyone and got the discharge. It was very stressful and now I'm sick again. Sore throat. Anyway, I got him home and fed. He went to bed early.
Tuesday----all the drugs have worn off, so he has a clear head. The Tremor is calm, his color has returned, he's eating well and resting. So he starts telling me about the ordeal. Aside from the no food problem, he said they kept telling him different things. One person would tell him to get up to go to the bathroom and the next was complaining that he wasn't supposed to be up at all.
Then there was the thing with the colon prep. When the morning nurse came in she saw the empty jug of prep and said he was supposed to leave half of it for today (Monday). Now you have to understand his Essential Tremor was way out of whack and he hadn't had anything solid to eat since Friday night AND he was jittery from the colon prep AND no one seemed to know when the colonoscopy was scheduled or they didn't hear him ask or something. So he told her that the night nurse wanted him to finish it by midnight. Well, I don't know what happened because I wasn't there, but the nurse popped him with some kind of noo-nee noo-nee drug. She told me he was apprehensive about the test. Now I know men aren't the best patients but come on, he wasn't hitting anyone.
Then there was the IV. It went bad, stopped working. Why? Housekeeping tripped over the line and pulled on it. Then at two different times aides pulled on it, I'm sure accidentally because the noo-nee noo-nee drug made him flop around. So he was hungry, he hurt, he was drugged up, and he wanted to go home.
The large polyp? It was biopsied. As soon as I get over this stupid cold I'm going to chase down the results. My nurse friend in Missouri said a polyp is a polyp, though they can be pre-cancerous, but they grow very slowly. She said a mass or a tumor doesn't look like a polyp. So we feel there is plenty of time to get moved. There are plenty of hospitals downstate. One in Paoli, two in Bedford, one in Bloomington, Salem, several in Louisville, KY. We'll get through this. Now if I can only get over this crummy cold.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The good and the bad
I wanted to write about what a wonderful time we had, and all about talking to the nicest people, and finding such a beautiful area that we want to move to, that we have found our "somewhere" in Indiana, but tonight dad is in the hospital with internal bleeding. An ulcer maybe. So everything will have to wait. Here is a picture of us in Paoli. Dad looks happy and healthy. I'm sure he will recover just fine.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Long time without posting
I just haven't felt good this month. It seems like my asthma has been getting tighter and tighter ever since I was switched from the Armstrong brand of Albuterol to the ProAir brand of Albuterol. It just does not seem to be working.
The final straw was landing in the hospital for chest pains on the 22nd. I didn't get home until Tuesday the 27th. The hospital drew blood like a vampire. They stuck in an IV, did a chest x-ray and an EKG, put a nitro patch on my chest and admitted me. Then they plugged me into a heart monitor which I wore in a pocket. I was thinking they need to make them smaller and less heavy. Anyway, I did NOT have a heart attack, but they suspected angina. The doctor recommended a stress test, which I agreed to, since the problem seemed to show up with exertion.
The stress test was supposed to happen Friday, but a delay in a delivery of radioactive material for the imaging machines caused the test to be rescheduled for Saturday. The stress test takes quite some time to complete. First they check your legs for blockages or blood clots with ultrasound. Then you lie down in an imaging machine while it takes pictures of your heart at rest for 20 minutes. When that's done they hook you up to an EKG machine and put you on the treadmill. They got me to the "tromping up a steep incline as fast as I could walk" speed which translated into significant pain across my entire upper chest. It was a bit uncomfortable until my heart slowed down and I stopped feeling like I was going to pass out. Then you have to lie in the imaging machine for another 20 minutes while it takes pictures of your heart after the stress.
Because I "flunked" the stress test the doctor recommended an angiogram which showed 30% blockage in two arteries. That's not really enough blockage to cause angina, but that's what I'm getting if I over-exert myself (like shoveling all of that snow we have been getting). I really don't know what's up until I follow up with the doctors.
One thing of note is that respiratory brought the "old" Albuterol for my asthma therapy. One of the nurses asked what asthma spray I was using at home, so I took out my ProAir and showed it to her. I told her it didn't seem to be working. She said everyone has been saying the same thing. She said if it was just me she would question it. If you are wondering about the controversy between the old inhalers and the new, CFC free ones, just google "proair complaints". I filled out a couple petitions while I was there.
Anyway, I am feeling better. I am healing up just fine from the angiogram. I thought it is interesting that the hospital uses Dell OptiPlex computers to run their imaging equipment with APC battery backup. They also have free wireless Internet in all rooms and allow cell phones. I didn't know that so the first time I used my phone I hid under the covers. Ha ha! I learned that is pretty standard now. Dad brought the laptop so I was able to stay in touch and do a little work here and there. The food was decent but it's sure nice to be home!! The cats gave dad a hard time but they elected me "kitty queen" when I came home. I am very sure they will not let me out the door any time soon.
The final straw was landing in the hospital for chest pains on the 22nd. I didn't get home until Tuesday the 27th. The hospital drew blood like a vampire. They stuck in an IV, did a chest x-ray and an EKG, put a nitro patch on my chest and admitted me. Then they plugged me into a heart monitor which I wore in a pocket. I was thinking they need to make them smaller and less heavy. Anyway, I did NOT have a heart attack, but they suspected angina. The doctor recommended a stress test, which I agreed to, since the problem seemed to show up with exertion.
The stress test was supposed to happen Friday, but a delay in a delivery of radioactive material for the imaging machines caused the test to be rescheduled for Saturday. The stress test takes quite some time to complete. First they check your legs for blockages or blood clots with ultrasound. Then you lie down in an imaging machine while it takes pictures of your heart at rest for 20 minutes. When that's done they hook you up to an EKG machine and put you on the treadmill. They got me to the "tromping up a steep incline as fast as I could walk" speed which translated into significant pain across my entire upper chest. It was a bit uncomfortable until my heart slowed down and I stopped feeling like I was going to pass out. Then you have to lie in the imaging machine for another 20 minutes while it takes pictures of your heart after the stress.
Because I "flunked" the stress test the doctor recommended an angiogram which showed 30% blockage in two arteries. That's not really enough blockage to cause angina, but that's what I'm getting if I over-exert myself (like shoveling all of that snow we have been getting). I really don't know what's up until I follow up with the doctors.
One thing of note is that respiratory brought the "old" Albuterol for my asthma therapy. One of the nurses asked what asthma spray I was using at home, so I took out my ProAir and showed it to her. I told her it didn't seem to be working. She said everyone has been saying the same thing. She said if it was just me she would question it. If you are wondering about the controversy between the old inhalers and the new, CFC free ones, just google "proair complaints". I filled out a couple petitions while I was there.
Anyway, I am feeling better. I am healing up just fine from the angiogram. I thought it is interesting that the hospital uses Dell OptiPlex computers to run their imaging equipment with APC battery backup. They also have free wireless Internet in all rooms and allow cell phones. I didn't know that so the first time I used my phone I hid under the covers. Ha ha! I learned that is pretty standard now. Dad brought the laptop so I was able to stay in touch and do a little work here and there. The food was decent but it's sure nice to be home!! The cats gave dad a hard time but they elected me "kitty queen" when I came home. I am very sure they will not let me out the door any time soon.
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