About Me

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I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. I am still living in the area, although I spent 3 years in Germany (Stuttgart). Fighting the age long battle against the bulge. Some days I am winning, some days the bulge is winning. I hang out with my dogs (three toy fox terrierists) and husband.

Friday, February 03, 2006

The saga just keeps continuing.

My mother-in-law, Sheila, has been in the hospital since very early on Thursday morning, Alan and I weren't going to cry "Wolf" until we knew what was going on - which we still don't know exactly. What we do know is:

Sam (father-in-law) called 911 late Wednesday night because Sheila fell in the bathroom and he couldn't get her up.

Her blood pressure was so low that the EMS drivers took her to the nearest hospital (Huron Valley), who transferred her to Henry Ford Downtown because of her medical records there and insurance.

Sam called me to find Alan because he wanted to go with her. Al had just left work, and he didn't hear his cell phone, so I called Paul to go over and check out what Sam needed. Sam, obviously, just got in the ambulance and went with her, but didn't tell us this.

She was admitted very early Thursday to a medicine floor, fortunately with physician that I know.

Sheila had a chest x-ray, Cat Scan and an MRI yesterday. They are looking for fractures of bones, and a mass that might indicate that she has had a stroke or series of strokes - THEY DON'T KNOW IF SHE HAS! They are just looking. This is on top of the kidney stones that we found out about that were blocking her kidneys last week. The stents have been placed, and hopefully she'll respond to the lithrotripsy (sound waves to break up the stones).

Yesterday, when I went to see her in her room, she was crying about how she couldn't get ahold of her husband - she was so worked up that she didn't know who I was for about 10 minutes. She was just crying and crying because she didn't know where her husband was. I later found out the reason she couldn't find Sam was because she was calling my house! I got her calmed down, she spoke with Sam. 15 minutes later, she forgot she just spoke with him, and she wanted to talk to him..

Last night, she called the house in hysterics because the hospital lost her clothes (she didn't have any, she was in her nightgown with no shoes when she went to the hospital) and she was going to go home. She said that she was in a hallway, she was in a chair, she was walking around, when the whole time, she was in the bed. It took Alan about 20 minutes on the telephone to get her calmed down. We talked to the nurse who explained that they moved her bed from one room to another because they had a man coming in, and two women (Sheila and another) needed to be put in the same room.

The resident in charge has my home number, my cell number, Al's cell number as do the nurses, and even the medical student.

Bottom line: We are working with the social worker on the floor who gave us a list of nursing home that will take the current insurance and will work with us getting her permanent placement in a home. Sam can't (or won't or doesn't know how to) take care of her.

So, how is your week going?
Edit Feburary 6- No cancer, no metastatisis, only minor changes due to aging on MRI, no changes in xray, no sign of stroke. No underlying changes. That's all good. Orthostatic changes due to dehydration. Will perform steroid test to check the adrenal gland, check for autonomic dysfunction.

1 comment:

debb said...

My heart goes out to you and Alan... this has been (& still is) a long haul for you both...
know that your friends are here for you...