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This weekend has had some new
trials. George’s mom has had some health
issues. On Friday she went by ambulance
to the hospital because she was complaining of hip pain. After much testing they sent her home around
10PM. An hour after dropping her back at
her facility, Rosemary got a phone call that she needed to bring her back to
the hospital right away. They had
further tests that came in after she left that revealed she may have a
pulmonary embolism. They arrived back in
the ER after midnight and after much testing determined she is having heart
failure and some weakening in some of her valves. She is now bedridden per the doctor. So now things will be moving in an entirely
different direction.
At first George did not want
to go visit her. After three weeks in a hospital, he did not want
to go “back there”. I told him I would
go see her without him – but after sleeping on it he decided to go. Just before
we left we received a call from Rosemary and she forewarned us of what we might
see. She said that Mom was very pale,
not making much sense if you could get her to talk, sleepy, etc. and said she
is not in a good state right now. We
arrived to find Mom sitting up in bed, all cheery and perky and had the same
conversation we always have with her. It
was as though nothing had happened. Go
figure!!
In the afternoon we were
sitting watching TV and the phone rang.
It was Dr. B phoning to see how his patient was doing. After chatting with George he asked how the
drain is doing. He then said, “I’m in
the office today if you want to come over.
I’ll take out the drain.” He didn’t
have to say that twice! We hightailed it
over there and he removed the pigtail drain.
ONE LESS THING to worry about. (And
the pigtail and bag were the hardest to “disguise” when we would leave the
house - - so now there are no visible tubes protruding!)
We talked about nutrition and
other things. We will do half the amount
of feeding tube overnight and see if that affects George’s appetite (hopefully
increases it) or not. I need to bring
the scale down and have him weigh himself so we can determine if he is eating
enough to maintain his weight.
He said he would override Dr.
M and remove the PICC line if we wanted. We
decided to wait until after the CT scan and results. For starters, this offers them a line to use
for the CT scan because they always have a hard time finding a vein to
use. The results will also show Dr. M if
the pockets of fluid are gone or have reduced in size and that is what he wants
to look for in order to determine if the antibiotic regime is working.
As we play with the amount of
nutrition in the feed tube and monitor how George is handling more food, we
will then be able to figure out when the tube gets removed. We have to at least go to the end of this
week because of the rest of the antibiotic he needs to take via the tube.
So, our Sunday visit means we
do not need to go to his office on Tuesday afternoon! Glad for that as it frees me up to do
something else that afternoon. Grateful
to have a surgeon who calls us whenever he feels like it to check in on
George. And one we can contact whenever
the need arises as well.
After we got back from our
appointment we still had time for a nice visit with friends Cathy and John as
well as a facetime call to Bella Boo and a chat with Stephanie. Quite a productive Sunday!
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