another day another...

Redbud, also known as Judas Tree, neither of which names seems at all accurate.

Grandma at the hospital, saga continues...

I went in after breakfast, but before the gift shop opened at the hospital. So when the gift shop did open I ran down to buy a flowering plant (any excuse) and told my mom that since I was leavnig the room someone would come by with important news. I returned to catch the end of a surgeon telling her things were not likely to improve on their own and he wanted to take out the bad stuff and then leave a "bag". See what I mean? If I had sat with her and waited all day no one would have shown up and nothing would have happened. As it was within 20 minutes he had convinced himself -and us -that the sooner the better was the best course. And since no one was prepared for this naturally I have never seen things move so fast at the hospital (ask me about my 2nd appendectomy sometime). My better half made it there about 2 minutes before she was wheeled into surgery. Then we went out for barbecue.

Three hours (and a little) later we (now my sister had joined us) saw her in her room. They said she'd done well. She seemed mostly asleep but when I repeated she had "done well" she was following enough to try and make some comment -definitely a sarcastic one. But any movement pulled her out of that safe place one goes after surgery -far away from the pain -back to the pain. Followed by us arguing with the nurse that she needed the morphine pump next to her and... let me just say this. Hospitals talk about pain management, congress talks about people too much pain medicine so one would think this should be an area that's covered. It's not. Don't get me started. I'm off to my shift now as a patient advocate and I'm not feeling very kindly towards low dosing. I'll let you knowhow that goes....