She’s out of it. don’t know if it’s the morphine (!!), pain or the fact she’s in the hospital or all 3 of those. she’s being cantankerous as hell and is yelling at everyone.

She’s scheduled for surgery on her wrist today. don’t know if she’s clear enough to say yes or no for that. both bones in her wrist are broken.

Had a discussion with her nurse after I spoke to you. Mom wwas waiting for the cat scan and it was going to be awhile before she’s taken to her room.

The nurse told me that when mom has to pee, the nurse tries to get her on the bed pan and mom refuses to lift her hips. don’t know if it’s because of the morphine and hurting or what but she is being cantankerous. she was cantankerous with me last nite and gave the ortho guy pure hell today. (she gave the nurses hell last nite too.) she refused to sign his form or whatever it was with her left hand. i had to sign it.

Sometimes she does talk like she doesn’t realize she’s in the hospital – nurse noticed this too, and said it could be because of the morphine, the pain and the fact that she’s not home and in a new situation, folks at her age don’t do well.

Nurse put a nicotine patch on mom, lol. smart woman. she was also trying to get her morphine upped.

Nurse said she thinks the ortho guy is leaning towards surgery. he did schedule her for tomorrow just in case. he will be going out of town in a couple of days for a week.

I asked the nurse – because of moms condition – everything on the right side about her going home and could she give an idea when. (this is the er nurse, mind you.) while she said she really couldn’t speak to that, generally when they get an old person like mom in, they’re thoroughly tested heart/brain/any other way you can think of. a social worker will come in and assess her. there is no way mom can go home – she can’t wipe herself, she won’t be able to move around well with the walker until she heals and the pain goes away some. physically i can’t move her around – i’m still having issues with my shoulder. last time she fell (when I found her on the floor smoking) I picked her up and damn near dropped her. wash clothes, dishes, clean, cook, pay bills no problem. i am not comfortable with moving her. anyway, she said the social worker will probably recommend her for rehab – they’ll do some in the hospital, so hopefully we have a few days anyway.

She had a bad day what with the ortho doc resetting her wrist, her shoulder hurts and she’s uncomfortable. i went ahead and came on home and i’m hoping she gets some sleep and her mind clears some. currently waiting on the doc to call.

Mom fell last nite. she did a number on herself too. she has a broken wrist that will probably need surgery, at least this is what the er doc says, she needs to see an orthopedic guy – she has a broken shoulder, which isn’t bad, he said it wasn’t displaced, the upper right hand side of her face – around, above and below her right eye is black and blue, along with a shiner that any scrapper would be proud of. she’s a hot mess. this is all on her right side, and she’s right handed.

And speaking of diagnosing; and abdominal issues; not wanting to be outdone by certain people on my friends list….

I awoke Monday morning to not being real hungry. This is unusual for me and should have set off warning bells. Throughout the day I am lightly nauseated. 7pm rolls around and I start to feel – the only way to put it is gassy. This is
not unusual for me…. It was getting bad enough that I had to send SO to the store to get some gasx- for that really gassy bloaty hurty feeling I had. By 9 pm; I was ready to scream. Not quite worried yet; I’ve had gas attacks like this before and it usually takes a couple of hours for them to subside. Everyone goes to bed; I am still awake; able to lie in only *1* [that’s one] position without screaming. No fever; a touch of diahareea.

Aha; I think; ok so I’ve got a bit of a stomach flu. Drinking hot fluid seems to break up the gas; but nothing to really alleviate the pain. And; I find I can’t – to put it delicately- pass gass. I could burp; but what I desperately wanted to do was fart; and couldn’t.

5:30 am rolls around; SO gets up; I’m still awake in my one comfortable position. I tell him to take the baby to the sitter (it’s my day off) as I’m going to go to lay down in bed and see if I can’t sleep. If not; I go to the hospital. I lay down in bed- in a variation of my one comfortable position; and I do sleep for a couple of hours. Still have the pain upon waking. Drink coffee- as coffee cures everything- but this. Ok. Talk to mom. Who panics. You better get to the hospital. It sounds like your appendix; and you remember what happened to Grandpa. [grandpas appendix busted; the poison went thru his system; and he was damn near crazy for 20 years until one morning he woke up “snapped out of it”. But he was still physically sick the rest of his life.] Alright; all it takes is a little mom validation to get the ball rolling.

Decide to go to the Urgent care walkin. Mainly because it’s two blocks away and I felt I could drive that distance. Everyone saying it’s an ovary problem- based on a problem I had 22 years ago. And my smoking. Obviously is making me sick. Uh
no. This really doesn’t feel like an ovary problem, considering my whole right side and an area by my bellybutton hurts. Does this hurt to touch? Does this? How bout this? Yes yes and yes I scream. Does it hurt when I press in or when it
the skin comes back out? It fucking hurts; ok? Alright; lets take some blood.

Can I smoke a cigarette? No; they state. What meanies.

Blood test comes back. White count is elevated: there is something definitely going on there; but not sure what. I don’t think it’s your ovaries; tho. Gotta send you to the big hospital. Ok fine. My plan is; I can go home; wait a half hour; SO comes home and he can take me to the hospital. In between this I can smoke like a chimney. Oh no. You’re going in an ambulance. Now; I knew where this was going. Why couldn’t I have gone home and packed a couple of things? Now I’m going to owe $300 for another ambulance ride!

Get to the other hospital. Talk to a nurse. “Oh; this sounds like your ovaries; but we have to do a check to make sure it’s not your appendix or gallbladder.” Big german doctor comes in; sounds like Schwartznegger: Pokes me. Hard. This hurt? Keeping myself from punching the fucker from here to egypt I say yes. Ok he says. Nurse comes back; feeds me iodine. States again she doesn’t think it’s my appendix. Feeds me iodine. I go for cat scan. (got a shot of ativan due to claustrophobia- whheeee!)

Doctor comes in (new doc this time) and says oh it’s definitely your appendix; we have to admit you. [Now we know why the nurse is a nurse] We have a call in to the doctor on call (who is busy doing surgery in another hospital)and he’ll come over here and operate on you. This is what- 10:30 at nite. Ok. Sent SO home with the baby. Tell him I’ll keep him posted. Make other calls. Get upstairs; into a bed; the nurses don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. I find myself extremely tired and am quite willing to sleep. No; the nurses are lonely and keep coming in every few minutes to wake me. I am good natured about this. I figure- well, when I really need them; they’ll be there. Life in the hospital goes on. I get woken again at 6:30 for bloodwork and am informed I go for surgery at 9am. Make several frenzied phone calls. They get me downstairs; give me good drugs; I don’t know where I am. Come out in the recovery room; as usual have nasty reaction to anesthetic. Puke guts out(or at least try to) for a few hours; get morphine whenever I request it. Problem is; they give the morphine in my iv. It seems to last 15 minutes or so. Get no sleep. Complain to the nurse about the longevity of the morphine- Doncha think it would last longer? She says its because it’s iv. She gives me a shot, along with the morphine that will cure the nausea. Yea it does; knocks me out too. She said; that’s what you need anyway. Sleep.

Get some coffee; which tastes wonderful and I can keep down. They tell me they will give me a pill form if I eat. I’m not hungry people; I have no desire for food. I’ll keep it down- if I was going to puke I would throw up the coffee I drank. They did bring me some lunch- london broil; most of which my kid ate. No appetite.

I was operated on Tuesday am. The last time I saw a nurse was at 7:30 that night; when she *says* she gave me a double shot of morphine. I was ready to scream. Later I had to pee. My feet were attached to a machine; thus making me need a nurse come in to detach me from the machine so I could walk. 9:30 call for a nurse; state I need to pee. Wait. Wait.Wait. No one ever comes. Call again at 10:15. No one evercomes. This time I decided to have a temper tamtrum. I got the machine off my feet; and kicked it to the floor (didn’t really mean to kick the machine to the floor, but oh well) managed to get myself up and to the john and back. Machine is laying in plain view of anyone who walks in.

Go back and lay down. Really need some more pain medicine; felt like it was too early to ask. Ok; I’ll give it an hour or so; nurse should be back; she said she’d be back; never came back. Called on the nurse caller thingy again. No one ever showed. I came damn close to calling the nurses station on my cell phone but didn’t.

I laid there all night long; hurting like hell. Now; if someone had bothered to explain the types of pain I was going to experience; I could’ve dealt with this and not stayed up all night feeling sorry for myself. Part of the pain problem was gas; tho I couldn’t tell this in my morphine induced mind. All I could tell was it was a hell of alot easier having a c-section (and you got more attention too, whine) The pain I had felt like a bunch of guys were playing paintpall in my belly.

So there I was; waiting for a nurse to show up. I pitched a couple of fits; got my iv stand and wires caught on a couple of things. You would have thought this would have brought in housekeeping at worst. Not a soul showed up.

Finally; 6 am rolls around. Nurse comes sauntering in. *First* thing she does is pick up the machine I kicked off and puts it back on the end of the bed. I give her a look that I hope says “who have you been screwing all night” but I say; quite nicely; where’ve you been. She says what do you mean? I said I’ve been in pain all nite. Why didn’t you call the desk? she says. I said; honey I have. Starting at 9:30 last nite when I first had to pee. She counters with; any time I walked in here you were sleeping.

First lie. I said; I’ve been lying awake here all nite. I haven’t been able to sleep because of the pain.

Oh no; she says. You’ve been asleep everytime I came in.

I said: Maam; if you – or anyone; for that matter- had been in this room at all; the first thing you would have done is picked up the machine that’s on the flooor,just like you did just now. That hit the floor last night about 10:30 when I called because I had to pee and no one came. It was either that or pee myself; and I chose not to pee myself. It was me or the machine babe.

2nd lie. I didn’t turn on the lights when I came in.

I say: and you’re still lying to me. Your MO is to turn on the overhead when you walk in. You do it automatically. Besides; had you or anyone else been in this room; and not turned on the lights; you would have tripped over the fucking machine that’s lying on the floor. It’s big enough to stretch across the floor; and too small just to leave there. This would have woken me up too, by the way; *had I been to sleep.*

By this time I’m pissed; and don’t want to argue. I see where she’s coming from; and I have the nursing managers email address in my hot little hand; I will email the lady when I get home. I say: look; I know you’re lying to me; you haven’t been in this room. I’m not gonna argue with you about it. Please just get me something for the pain; a pill is fine; but I’m ready to scream here. She leaves the room; never to come back.

I was never rude to this girl. I knew she was lying and I stated that. All she had to say was gee; I’m sorry; but you know; we’re really short handed. End of story. I never would have thought about lodging a complaint against *her* but now I will complain about her.

8 am rolls around. New nurse. Checks my ivs; notices my hand and arm are swollen; removes them. I say hey; is it possible for me to get something for pain? She says sure. I’ll be right back. Do you want one or two? Hmm. I hesitate. Druggie in me definitely wants 2 but… I say; I’m not sure. I don’t feel like I should be hurting this bad. She says; describe the pain to me; and I do. She says; alot of what you’re feeling is gas. The pain med really won’t help that; you just have to live with it.

Aha. If someone had told me this last nite…..

So; I choose 1. If I had chosen 2 I would have puked all over the place.

And now I’m home. They sure don’t keep you in the hospital very long these days do they? Surgery on Tuesday; home on thursday.

God forbid if the insurance actually has to pay a buck or two…

Cancer Stuff

This really has nothing to do with my mom’s cancer, but it does have to do with lung cancer.

My mom’s next door neighbor was recently diagnosed with lung cancer. She’s alot younger than my mom, has other health issues – what I don’t know – and her oncologists has her doing chemo.

Being that we’ve not done chemo, I know nothing about it.

Anyway this lady was taken to the hospital this morning, because she was “talking out of her head.”

I wonder if this is a result of the chemotherapy she’s currently getting? I do know it’s aggressive treatment, and she’s lost her hair.

A little reading on “chemo brain:”

Common drugs used to treat cancer may be more harmful to healthy brain cells than the cancer cells that they are intended to destroy. That is the conclusion of a study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center and published today in the Journal of Biology. The results, which also indicate that chemotherapy may cause long-term brain damage, represent the closest that scientists have come to pinpointing the underlying physiological cause of “chemo brain,” a common side effect of cancer treatment that scientists are only now beginning to comprehend.

http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/pr/news/story.cfm?id=1312

On another cancer topic:

Now, these links you gotta have tissue for. It’s about the last year of Derek Madsen’s life.

I saw at the pictures first:

http://www.sacbee.com/static/newsroom/swf/april07/mother/

Then I had to read the story, but after the first part you have to log in. So if you want to read it, and I recommend you do so – it’s a compelling story.

Derek Madsen Story

I ended up reading the whole story, and looking at all the pics. Didn’t watch the videos though, I might one of these days. I’m not a big video freak.

I cried all nite. Really sad story, but it’s uplifting in some ways too. You go thru a huge range of emotions when you read this story.