Emergency Room Visit 3 - Daddy

I had been planning to go to Lancaster early in the week anyway, but I enlarged and accelerated my plans when Mother called about 8:30 Sunday evening to tell me Daddy was sick. I put my clothes back on, put such laundry away as Lee couldn't deal with and packed for a few days. I was just walking out the door when I got another call asking how soon I would be there. Mother was going to call 911 and have Daddy taken to Antelope Valley Hospital.

Mother had taken another fall the night before, though not so bad as her previous one, and Daddy had just patched up a new skinned place on her elbow just above the old one. She had gotten a good night's sleep afterward, but Daddy didn't sleep well. He felt good enough to go to the store that afternoon to get a few necessaries, but by evening had started to have difficulties.

By the time I got to the hospital emergency room (flying low, I admit it), he had been there half an hour, and he didn't look anywhere near as bad as I expected. As usual, his gurney was parked in the hall, but he wasn't complaining, since the guy parked on the opposite wall remained strapped to a transit stretcher that was a couple of sizes too small for him. One of the ambulance attendants with him lowered the stretcher, explaining that, if he fell, he wouldn't have so far to go.

At some point during the night, Daddy was moved to 1 Main, which is a kind of holding area for emergency room patients who have been admitted and are waiting for a regular hospital room. Except that it was co-ed, and there were a dozen or so beds to two toilets, it was in many ways nicer than a regular hospital room. Mother, Cheyenne and I visited him a couple of times on Monday, and it was easier than I expected. I stuffed Mother into the wheelchair and then wrapped Cheyenne's leash around one of the handles. Except for occasionally running into Cheyenne, not to mention a decidedly lopsided dogsled effect, it worked quite well.

A little after eight Monday night, Daddy called to ask for some clothes, since he was supposed to be discharged that evening. He did say there was no particular hurry, but I didn't waste a lot of time anyway. When I got there (without my posse this time), I discovered that the cardiologist had ordered a 12 lead EKG which had to be run and interpreted before Daddy could be released into the wild. By the time that was done, and everything was in order, it was after 11:00. Daddy had been talking about calling the whole thing off and going back to bed for nearly an hour, but he was happy enough to leave.

On Sunday night, I had slept in bed with my mother, and on Monday night, I felt I shouldn't be too far away should my parents need me, so I slept on the couch. I don't know if Charlotte remembers this, or if I even told her, but on one occasion when she planned to visit our folks and sleep on the couch, I stated emphatically that I would not do that. But I did, and quite soundly, too.

Daddy's doctors had found absoulutely nothing wrong with him. His defibrillator checked out fine, it hadn't fired, and it was pacing appropriately. His labs were within normal parameters. He had no fever. His enlarged prostate started behaving itself within a few hours of admission to the hospital. I believe he exhausted himself taking care of, and worrying about, his wife.

Emergency Room Visit 2 - Me

On September 12, I ended up in the West Hills Hospital Emergency Room myself, though my emergency wasn't so dramatic as my mother's. I went to the doctor that afternoon with abdominal pain (I often have abdominal discomfort of one kind or another, but this was different, and sharp), and he sent me to the emergency room so I could get tested quickly. I had blood tests, urinalysis and an upper abdominal ultrasound. Except for borderline anemia, everything came back fine. The emergency room doctor was going to give me something for my stomach, since he figured that must be the problem, until he saw that I was already taking Cimetidine (Tagamet) and Nexium. Then he advised me to follow up with my regular physician, which I did, and got a prescription for something that should work better for me than Nexium. I hope. Stress gives me stomach aches, and for some reason, I've been having stomach aches more often lately.

Long time No Blog.

I keep checking to see if somebody has snuck in to update my blog for me (or something, since I know that would not be a good thing), but I haven't felt like blogging in awhile. And it's not as if I have nothing to write about.

Over Labor Day weekend, we had a house full of guests: Mother and Daddy and their dog Cheyenne in the guest room, my niece Liz and her husband Jerm on the convertible sofa in the living room, and my sister Charlotte and her daughter Cat on an airbed on the floor in Evan's room. I had Evan swap beds with me, so I slept in his, and he shared with Lee, so we had a girls' room and a guys' room.

Jerm, Cat and I planned to go with my Dad up to Lancaster on Sunday to install a grab bar in the shower for my mother, leaving Charlotte to stay with Mother, and Liz to work on her Law School notes. I had done all the advance planning and had the bar, Wingits mounts, special tile drill bits and a carbide hole saw, etc. On Saturday, we reviewed the instructions, charged up my Makita cordless drill and generally got ready for the job.

At 2:30 Sunday morning, I got a call from my mother. She had fallen and had hurt herself, and my dad wanted me to look at her. When I got downstairs, I found her lying on the floor. I offered to call 911 to get the paramedics, but my folks preferred to take her in the car if possible, so I checked her condition. She had a badly skinned elbow, which I washed with just warm water and covered with a gauze pad to protect it. Other than that, she didn't seem to be in excruciating pain, so I figured it would be safe to move her. Liz and Jerm offered to help, and it's a good thing they did, because I don't think we'd have gotten her to the car without them.

At the emergency room, the doctor ordered blood tests, urinalysis, x-rays of the left arm and pelvis, and a CT scan of the head. Everything came back okay, so the nurse carefully flattened out the skin on Mother's elbow, which had pleated up like a window blind, and mended it with steristrips. Then she covered it with a dressing, wrapped it in gauze and pulled a stretchy sheath over the whole. By this time, Daddy and I had been about to drop in our tracks, so we went home and sent Charlotte back. She arrived just in time to bring Mother home, too.

I don't know how much sleep anyone else got, but I took a nap from about 8:00 to 10:30 or so, then got up and started getting things ready to go. After lunch, Jeremiah, Catherine, Daddy, Cheyenne and I went to Lancaster to install the grab bars as planned. Having the right tools really does make things easier. As Jeremiah went outside to practice on a scrap tile, he commented that he'd never yet drilled tile without cracking it - but the carbide hole saw and spade-shaped glass and tile bits I had found at Lowe's did the trick. He and Catherine went on to drill a couple of perfect holes in the shower, and then install the Wingits grab bar. Catherine tried a chin-up, and the bar came out of the wall. Jeremiah figured he hadn't hit the mounting pieces hard enough to properly break them open, so he did that. Then, with the addition of some new mounting tape and some caulk, he and Catherine mounted the bar again. This time, it held Catherine's weight very nicely.

We also made a trip to Lowe's to buy three more grab bars along with mounting hardware, and we installed the 18" one next to the toilet in the back bathroom and the 36" ones on the bathroom walls in both bathrooms in place of the towel racks. I say we - I located studs with a studfinder and drew horizontal lines. Jeremiah and Catherine did the actual work, finding the studs for real with a wire brad, drilling holes, installing mounting hardware, etc. I may have driven a couple of screws. Oh, and I did take the old towel racks down. Daddy mostly napped in his chair and offered advice when asked. We cleaned up, had dinner at Marie Callender's and came back to my house. It was a very full day.