Friday night, after a very crazy-long day, the phone rang, just as I was finally turning in for the night. My mom had been rushed by ambulance to the hospital and was in intensive care. Her doctor had given her 2pints of blood earlier that day to remedy her anemia (her hemoglobin was at 7). Because her blood pressure was already so low they did not give her the diaretic with this transfussion. Several hours later, while out to eat, she went into pulmonary adema....(I am learning way too many medical terms, that is not a good when dealing with one's parent's codition). I spoke with my mom from intensive care at midnight, when she asked me to come to the hospital. We got there at 2:15am. I dozed off here and there from 2-6 am, but never really sleeping, and constantly being woken by mom arguing with her medical team. Even though her blood sugar was 385 without eating in 6 hours, she refused insulin and demanded food. At 80 years old my mom is soooooooooooo stubborn! A doctor who works with her regular doctor was oncall came in to see her during the am rounds. He let her eat breakfast and told her she could probably go home by afternoon. I waited till my baby sis got there and then drove the 2 hours home and went to sleep. At 4pm I called her to see how she was doing and if she was home. She was so upset, she is being kept in the hospital another day at least. She does not accept that if she would just take her insulin shot she could probably go home. The underlying problem of all her medical issues is stenosis of her main artery leading into her heart, which she will not have surgery to fix. These issuses will continue the rest of her shortend life.
It seems this is all I do is deal with oppositinal people! from my mom, to the ld population I work with in jr high special ed, to the vulnerable adults I work with at VOA. I would think I would be more oppositional myself! I admit I can be....but really I am not, at least not to the degree of the amount I work with.
I guess I need to just focus on positive and get on with it though, because Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I have so very much to be Thankful for.
