STEAM ROOM FOR ANGER
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Beesie....What a bloody rotten day for both you and your mom. I really hope they are at least giving her pain meds for her shoulder. But jeez, that is a long miserable amount of time to spend in the ER. I hope she is treated and released very soon.
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Bessie, SO sorry to hear that. ER waiting might be worse.
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Beesie, are you named as your mom’s healthcare agent, and are you making her medical decisions? Ifyes, it would be no different than if they had insisted a 4-year-old wait without a parent. You can’t be responsible for decisions regarding her care if you aren’t allowed to be with her. I would be raising holy hell.
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Bessie I imagine her nurses are aware as well of the situation and may be able to help as well. I know a lot of hospitals have "rules" especially about people being there but there are exceptions as we all know. We were actually called by a nurse once for my husband to go sit with his did at his bedside since it would help calm him when he was on a vent after surgery and kept trying to yank it out and hurting himself and became combative with them because of the meds. It was a VA hospital and VERY strict with visitation. He sat there for 2 days straight until they get wean him off the vent. They were happy to have him there. Nurses know what patients need and sometimes t is family right there. I'm sure as a cancer patient you already learned to not be intimidated by doctors anymore either. I sure did. I also learned how to research stuff as well on my own
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Well, I'm back home. After the x-ray and CT scan, it was confirmed no brain bleed and nothing fractured. Her shoulder will be very sore for a while and my mother has lots of bruises including one very big gash on her arm. The doctor thought she might need stitches but determined that the cut isn't deep enough, although a large strip of skin got scraped off. Really gross - I'm not usually bad with these things but after a couple of glances, I had to look away. The doc gave her a tetanus shot.
selizabeth, yes, I have medical power of attorney for my mother. I also have 'essential caregiver' status; this is a designation that the Ontario government created as a way to allow a limited number of family members and caregivers into LTC facilities during COVID. So it is absurd and completely unacceptable that I could not get in and my mother was alone in the ER for 2 hours. She can't advocate for herself; $#i+, she didn't even understand that she was at a hospital. And of course it wasn't just me; over the 2 hours I was waiting, there were several other people put in the same position - having to wait outside of the hospital while an elderly family member was in the ER, waiting to be assigned a room. The way it was explained to me, it is crowded with lots of coming & going traffic in the stretcher holding area and it's a safety hazard to allow anyone in. But once the patient is in their little private ER room, then one family member can join them. bcincolorado, what nurse? Until the patient gets into an ER room, there are nurses around monitoring blood pressure and stuff but no one is really taking care of them.
I will escalate this and write a complaint but in the moment there was nothing I could do, although I sure didn't make any friends. I tried to speak to someone in charge, as did other people, and we got nowhere on that. I'm sure that they have many irate family members every day and they are set up to handle that. At the ER entrance they had two security guards and one nurse who would probably be very effective dealing with high risk convicts at a prison. Lacking in empathy is an understatement. It was impossible to even cross the threshold of the building - they would not budge, but simply repeated their asinine rule over and over any time anyone complained.
All that said, once my mother was in an ER room and I was allowed in, the nurse, doctor and the tech who took her for imaging were all great. My mother is very sensitive to pain - I've heard it's an Alzheimer's thing - and at various points when they were working on her (changing her bandages, for example) she would screech at a level and pitch that could pierce eardrums. Everyone there took it in stride.
A long day. In the end, my mother is fine, relatively speaking. And while I will do what I can to try to get them to change this stupid policy, at least I know that if my mother is ever taken to this hospital again, I certainly don't need to drop everything I'm doing and rush over there.
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Glad to hear it. I am sure you will keep a good eye on her too. Get some rest since you both need it.
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Beesie, I'm glad you're back home. I was just imagining your poor mom being in a strange place, hurting and not having your comforting presence with her. My mom had Alzheimer's and it was heartbreaking to see her suffer. She died 4 years ago on her 85th birthday. I miss her so much, but I'm thankful she is not here to see the state of the world and that she doesn't know about my stupid Stage IV cancer.
Your mom is blessed to have you advocating for her care. I'm glad you still have her with you.
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Oh Beesie what an awful experience for both you and your mother. I went through similar types of experiences with my MIL who had some form of dementia. The "gatekeepers" were very efficient at enforcing the rules but once you were in a bed, the actual assigned staff were very caring and capable. The only blessing is that this day is behind you, your dear mother received the care she needed (eventually), and she will not remember any of the trauma of it. God bless her and you.
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Hi Beesie, glad your mother is OK and recovers as quickly as possible. I know how hard it was for both you and your mother given the Alzheimer's. It is the absolute worst! I went through it with my mother. She didn't know where or why she was in the ER or a hospital bed, and she would ask the nurses if her family knew she was there. I spent many many hours by her side to keep her calm with a familiar face and answer the same question she asked me 10 thousand times. The nurses were always so glad to see me. Blessings to you for being her advocate.
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Hope Mom is doing OK Beesie.
I have a friend (husband of good 'ol school friend-also was one of my bridesmaids) who was put on a ventilator the other day. I'm both angry and sad. I was due to see them for another friends 60th surprise birthday dinner this weekend. I don't think I will be attending. Mainly since they won't be there, I don't know who else in the room isn't vaccinated, and I can reach out to my birthday friend and treat her at a later time. My daughter is coming home and I'd rather spend the weekend with her. If that sounds selfish I really don't care. I am so incredibly sad that I may have to endure another death. Maybe he'll be one of the lucky ones?
Went for the liver function blood panel this morning. I don't want to know, but have no choice now, and whatever comes is going to come. Now that it's over I'm headed to the wine store at lunch. My dreams and sleep were totally off this week. Have a booster, GI doc, dexa and lung scan all coming up in December. We have to schedule lab appts. now with Penn, but the process is fairly easy. Always something. Thanks for listening.
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ctm, I'm so sorry about your friend. Enough is enough, right? There is nothing selfish about choosing to spend time with your daughter. There is only so much of you to go around, so choose where you want to be and with whom.
(((hugs))) and (Hershey's Candy Cane) kisses
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Thank you Sunshine!
My liver panel just came back and the only number out of range is the alk phos. It's my bones carrying this serum in my blood, I feel. At least now I know that even though I shouldn't drink at all, what I have and do continue to drink isn't necessarily killing my liver at this time. Will see if the GI doc will want to repeat it again, or why she thinks my liver is enlarged. I'm not too worried about it now, but will stay on top of it. Happy hour here I come!
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ctmbiska enjoy your time with your daughter. That time is special and you deserve to spend the time with her.
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ctmbiskia: How high were your Alk. Phos?. A few points higher than the "normal range" is not necessarily a problem. Just something to monitor.
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it’s only slightly elevated at 138 today. By some charts under 140 is in range. In Sept it was 158 and the isoenzymes were broken down where liver was in range but bone was over. Oddly enough I went back. Before my bc diagnosis my vit D was low. I took the D2 for awhile til they told me to stop. Alp was slightly over at the time. After I had 1 Prolia shot I had a normal reading. Since I haven’t been able to get another shot since it has been slightly over. It could be the Ai and my osteoporosis. That’s my feeling, and thank you. I’m not overly worried. Monitoring is good.
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It's almost 4am and I would like to sleep but my neighbor has his TV on. His livingroom and my bedroom share a very thin wall and the noise has become an issue ever since he retired. He's not necessarily blasting it. The wall is just thin and he's a little hard at hearing and he doesn't have any incentive to turn it down as his family owns the building.
The people above him moved out recently and I suspect the late night noise had something to do with it. I've got ear plugs. In fact I went out of my way to get the ones the hospital uses for MRIs as they're the ones that have worked best for me but they still don't always work well enough.
I had what they call "delayed sleep phase syndrome" but chemotherapy had gotten me back on a normal sleep schedule and it was great being a morning person. That has been ruined now by the noise issue and people who decide bedtime is a good time to drag me in to their completely uneccesary, often self generated crisis.
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Vented. Now just need to let it go.
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Oh, WC3, that's so frustrating. Even if the guy is nice, it's still hard to be kept awake by someone else's noise. Do you have any options for sort of insulating that wall between your bedroom and his living room? Would your landlords be able to do anything to that wall? I know you've probably thought of all of these things - especially at 4:00 AM when sleep is nowhere to be found.
Carol
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Oh WC3 I know how hard sleep can be sometimes too. Some melatonin too which might help you get to deep sleep and stay there with the ear plugs. I bet your neighbor is hard of hearing and does not realize how loud the tv is either. We started watching ours with captioning on all the time now since DH is hard of hearing. Now if I can't sleep I can just mute the TV easily and still have it on and it wont bother him at all that way.
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WC3, my great-aunt Annie got evicted from her apartment when she was close to 100 for playing her stereo too loud. 😃 It wouldn't be funny except she promptly bought a house and got to do what she wanted. And that's usually what happens to college kids! But I've lived in many apartments and I know how horrible that can be. With our late-night noisy upstairs neighbor, an oven mitt on a broomstick did the trick (when I did it the first time without the mitt, it dinged the ceiling paint 😳). Would some bland white noise work to mask it out? I think there's some online ones to try. But if you have to buy something, your landlord should pay for it.
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Sunshine99, BCincolorado, AliceBastable:
I fantasize about hiring a place to spray insulation in the wall.
My landlord might do it if I ask. He's been my landlord for over a decade and has been great but I'm not sure it would help much due to the layout of the place unless he were to insulate two walls, replace the front door and bedroom window.
A white noise machine might work. I'll look in to it. I've also been looking at Bose sound canceling ear buds.
I might have to move at some point in the near future regardless of the noise though.
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WC3, I bought the Plantronics Bluetooth earbuds. I think I found them at Best Buy. What I like about them is that I can wear them around my neck on the connected cord. The earbuds attach themselves to each other with a magnet when they're not in my ears, so they don't use any battery when they're not connected to Bluetooth. I'd be afraid of losing the other earbuds. The noise cancelling feature works pretty well.
The Bose ear buds look pretty nice. I got the noise cancelling headphones for my husband at Costco (Quiet Comfort) after an old pair I had wore out. They're definitely more expensive, but might be worth it. He puts them on to listen to his computer and he can't hear me (or pretends not to - haha) when he is wearing them.
Good luck with whatever you decide to get.
Carol
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I just use a box fan for my "white noise" since it is cheap we we had one already. It drowns out a lot of the "house" noises anyway......heat coming on or or dogs moving around even though they sleep in another room. Also keeps aiir moving and helps keep room at a temp where it is easier for me to sleep with as well. DH can pile on blankets.
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Oops, I think I hit "Preview" but not "Send".
BC, that's a good suggestion. Although I like my earbuds, I'm not sure I'd want to try to sleep with them.
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RE: Headphones. There are some that are built into a soft cloth full headband. They advertise them specifically for sleeping. I think they aren’t supposed to hurt your ears while you sleep
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My 14yo grandson uses the headband. He really likes it. Got it on Amazon for him. I use the loudest fan I can find to sleep. A window a/c unit in summer is great too.
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I put my box fan in an area in my bedroom when it is cold out and have it sitting on the floor away from the way. Our big dog gets hot with the heat on anyway and we have a "standing" fan and put it on in her room and she lies in front it to cool herself. We have ceiling fans but then it makes it too cool for other people in the room too. With the box fan I have it set by myside of the bed. I first started using with SE from cancer treatment and the hot flashes from cancer.
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Got word this morning that my good friend's husband is not going to make it. They called her and their daughter into the hospital last night so I assume they will be taking him off the ventilator today. So sad. My friend is going to be inconsolable. While I will be here for her, I will admit I'm a little worried about it being too much for me. I've come a long way, I don't need a regression, right when I'm gearing up for the holidays. Had a wonderful weekend with my daughter. It's going to be really really hard for my friend. I did already tell her that she is stronger than she thinks, because you are. As many times as I cried in hysterics that I can't do it, turns out I could, and doing my best to keep going.
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Oh, ctm, I'm so sorry about your friend and sorry for the feelings that it must be bringing up in you, too. So very sad, to say the least. I'm thankful you had a wonderful weekend with your daughter.
Carol
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ctmbsikia, That's so sad. But don't over-give; she has other people in her life to console her, too
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