So.. continuing on from my last blog but more slowly sine now I have this cast thing-y on my hand. The doctor said I'd still be able to type but there is really only one usable finger on the right hand -so basically my usual typing skills. Any way I foolishly thought what with the Lyme's disease and shots and injuries I'd just laugh at the next thing. Ha ha ha. Then the phone rang. Grandma's blood was at the recharge level and since the doctor for that is in my sister's state he wasn't at all sure where we would get blood. She actually kept saying that until I had to bite my tongue not to explain to her that here in my county and state we just pick up some at Walmart - but only if Sheetz's is all out. So finally they say, aha -call her primary care where you are so I think hey I have this covered. Only it turns out he doesn't do blood... or hospitals so call back the out of state doctor who says just go to an ER and they'll handle it from there. I should have laughed some more. I did wait for someone (my poor daughter) to make come with me since the O2 etc etc was proving difficult to drag behind the wheel chair all with one hand. The wait time at the ER was only about 10 minutes just as they advertised. And then of course we waited 3 hours for anyone to do anything. And what they did was to admit her as soon as I left for a nap at a friends house. The "ED" wanted her to see a GI doc because of some blood -present right where you would expect it to be present if one had been swallowing blood from several nights of nosebleeds. Also her blood numbers looked higher she was dehydrated so that was misleading. I was pretty mad but the mischief was done and since I didn't trust the hemoglobin number an overnight seemed reasonable.
Next day the first doctor who calls says she is looking much better from her transfusion. What transfusion I say. Oh, wait he misread the chart - she needs a transfusion because the numbers are now the same as what sent us in to begin with. Next doctor calls and suggests perhaps she has MDS - yes indeed I say just as I told everyone last night as you can confirm from the number of her hematologist I gave them. Basically he then goes on to get her entire history from me just as I had given the first doctor just as I gave in the ER and just as I gave at 1am in the floor room. The 3rd doctor (you did see this coming right?) calls when I was driving home from my evening visit with her. He's there for a GI consult and seems bemused because he has been told there was a 96 year old, anemic, possible intestinal bleeding and a history of "multiple colonoscopies" - that took me a minute, it really did. "Perhaps you mean she has a co-lost-omy?" I ask politely. The next pause was all worth it. I gave him her history but more loudly than before and with a few comments regarding the ED thrown in. Gratifyingly he was in complete agreement. He told me he'd kept his surgical team on hand when he got the report of this in extremis 96 year old only to come in and find her "chowing down" (the nurse told me this morning he used that actual phrase even in his notes on her chart). The nurse also told me this morning the "family" would be bringing in her thyroid but I (the family) told her no one had mentioned that to us. So now she (grandma, not the nurse) is on her way home and I am on my way to bed. I looked for a picture for this post and find the above from just a little over a week ago I wonder why I can hardly remember May at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment