Sunday, December 12, 2004

i.d. please.............

Today was a very long day. I spent a lot of time at the hospital keeping mom company. I discovered that she wouldn't rest if someone was there, so I left for a few hours at a time so she would sleep.

Sometime during the evening, they transferred her to a private room. We were so thankful for that because she had the roommate from hell. This lady had a roomful of visitors which included a screaming three year old. The nurse finally came in and told them they would have to leave, "because the lady in the next bed was very sick and it wasn't good for her to have all of this commotion." (It was kind of a shock to hear mom described like that) Of course when the nurse left, the visitors from hell made all kinds of loud comments like, "No one better make noise on that side of the room because we'll complain," and more ignorant things along that line. Thing is we hadn't complained to anyone. It's just unbelievable to me that someone would not have the common sense to remove a poor screaming child from a hospital room.


Mom's new nurse came in and said, "How old are you??" My mom confirmed that the chart was correct, and yes, she is 70. The nurse said she really wanted to see a birth certificate, and called for another nurse to look at mom and guess how old she is. Soon there were several nurses peeking in. They weren't just being nice. Mom looks so young. I hope I inherit that from her.
While the nurses were going on about how young mom looked I pointed at my sister and said, "Hey look at her! She's 55!!" (My sister is only 38.)
My mom laughed. She laughed- Thank you God.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home

(written September of 2005) I have learned much in the last nine months. I have read that ovarian cancer whispers. I say it screams. It just needs someone to listen. The American Cancer Society statistics for ovarian cancer estimate that there will be 22,220 new cases and 16,210 deaths in 2005. This is a death rate FOUR TIMES that of breast cancer.Almost 70 percent of women with the common epithelial ovarian cancer are not diagnosed until the disease is advanced in stage. The 5-year survival rate for these women is only 15 to 20 percent. This is unacceptable. Women need to be made more aware of the symptoms, and doctors need to listen to their patients. Especially when the patient tells them that they fear they have ovca, as my mother did for almost a year before she was finally diagnosed. It’s so sad and senseless when a woman knows the symptoms but can’t get anyone to listen to what she is saying.

©JsDaughter