Sunday, January 02, 2005

I can breath again..............

I arrived at the hospital where they transferred mom about twenty minutes after she did. In that amount of time she was already settled in a room, (private room), and speaking with a very nice nurse.

She said the ride over was not too bad. The EMT's that rode in the ambulance with her talked to her all the way there, and it sounds like they had a good ol' time.

Mom looked at me and said, "I feel safe now. Thank you."

A resident came in and took mom's history and looked over the few test results the other hospital had sent with her. She came back in and told us she has pneumonia. Simple diagnosis. It explains the shortness of breath and extreme weakness. She also said that the first blood draw they did at the other hospital showed an extremely high white count. (Even though we were told repeatedly that there was no infection.....) My dad was livid when he heard this. He said if he had known that he would have had her transferred day one, even if it meant taking her himself.

The resident got orders from Dr. L for IV antibiotics etc. They got rid of the IV line that was causing her so much pain and started a new one. They promised to give her pain medicine. AND THEY DID. Amazing concept.... I feel like we're in a whole new world here.

They gave Sis and I a meal ticket to take to the hospital cafeteria to get mom a tray because their patient food service had already closed for the evening. On the way down Sis said, "I feel like we just left the worst ghetto and are now in the Ritz Carlton......"

Sis and I had planned to spend the night here. We were going to camp out in one of the waiting rooms if we had to. But we felt so reassured that mom was being well cared for now, that we decided to go home for the night. (Dad of course won't leave her side for any reason and stayed with her)

I feel like I can breath again for the first time in days.

1 Comments:

Blogger letti said...

sorry to hear about your mom. i'm glad she's all better and being cared for the right way now.

letti

10:09 AM, January 03, 2005  

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(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