So I guess I should probably write something. Some people say you have to blog every day to have a “successful blog”. To those people I say “kiss my ass”. Success is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll blog once a year if I want to and you can hit your back button if you want to and there you have it. Complete harmony.
So why am I in such a snit anyway? Lots of reasons but mainly the MIL and step-son.
This past Wednesday the Old Lady told me during my daily call that she was in excruciating pain. I got in my car and drove straight over there. She was lying across the bed in almost a fetal position. She had wet the bed because she was in so much pain (she has a history of compression fractures of the spine) she could not make it to the bathroom. Somehow she did manage to change her gown and her depends briefs so at least she was clean and dry when I got there.
She said she had been throwing up. She said she had not had any breakfast, said she did go to the kitchen to eat but was in so much pain she had to go back to bed. I saw the uneaten bowl of shredded wheat on the table. She said she took two pain pills at 8:30 instead of one. She said she had taken a Tylenol at 10:30. It was 12:30 when I got there. I got her some fresh orange juice and brought her another pain pill. I was very worried. I wanted her to go to the hospital. She refused.
She has been under the care of a home health agency since she got out of the nursing home in July. The physical therapist stopped by. The PT had planned to discharge the Old Lady that day because she had been doing so well. We got my mother-in-law into a sitting position and wheeled her into the kitchen using her 4-wheel walker which has a seat. I made her some fresh shredded wheat with sugar, milk and banana and helped her take her other medications.
The PT took her blood pressure and said “oh shit”. Her blood pressure was very high. The PT wanted to call 911 to take the MIL to the hospital but she refused. The PT called the MIL’s doctor and the doctor wanted her to go to the hospital. Her doctor is nice but he does not do hospital admissions. He said to take her to the ER. *sigh* I think she needs a different doctor but that’s a blog post for another day. At any rate, the Old Lady refused to go to the hospital.
The thing is, this past July almost the same thing happened, only she waited all week until Saturday night to go to the ER. We arrived at the ER that night at about 7pm and she didn’t get into her room until after 3am. That’s just how long it takes to get admitted. Actually, the same thing happened several months ago also. She waited until night time to go. This is the part that pisses me off. She said she would not wait so long “next time”. But she did. Again. For the third time.
I guess I really should not get mad at her about this because she is 85 years old and while she isn’t senile she is not as sharp as she used to be. But sitting all bleary eyed and sleepy in the ER for 7 or 8 hours (or longer!) when it could have been easily avoided by going in earlier did make me angry. We got to the ER this time at 8pm and by 2am she still was waiting to be admitted. We did something we have never done before but my husband had to go to work the next day and we just couldn’t stay up all night. All her tests had come back and the ER doctor did decide to admit her and all they were waiting for was a bed. And the Old Lady kept telling us to go home (like she always does and we never do until she is settled into a room) so we went home.
She told me she didn’t get into her room until 4am. There was no way we could have held up until that time - it would have been 6am before we got home.
So the Old Lady has a compression fracture of the T12 vertebrae. I know it is very painful and I’m not mad at her now about what she put us through unnecessarily. I guess it took me 4 days to get over it, heh. I wasn’t the only one mad, my husband was mad too. Several people tried to get her to go to the ER for several hours and she flat out refused. Okay, enough ranting about that. It is over and done with.
The sad thing about this fracture is that she had been SO careful lately and she didn’t fall or anything like that. It is just that her bones are so brittle and fragile that she broke her back just by twisting a little when she tried to get out of her chair. She is scheduled for a procedure called vertebroplasty on Tuesday. I really hope this helps her.
I’m worried about the future but there is no point in worrying about anything that really isn’t in my control. I’m trying to take it one day at a time.
I’m also mad at my step-son (the one that recently returned home from Iraq) but I’ll post about that another day. Or maybe next year. Or something.
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