Long Update

We have been getting a little frustrated with the number of doctors coming in and out of mom's room and saying different things. Last night one of the doctor's said how much mom needed the fluids and then the next one said that we needed to control the swelling. I am doing this post mostly to inform my sisters and to keep it all straight in my own head.

Anyway, Dr Houseman was just here and he tried to explain the coordination of care. I think Dr. Richard's did not read the progress reports last night and that was part of our problems. It doesn't help that I thought he was Dr. Houseman and I assumed a certain knowledge from him. Note to doctors: never enter a room without your name tag showing who you are.

Mom had an abscess from her foot drained today (yeah, that was fun) and Dr. Little will be looking at the cultures (probably in a few days) and then she will make a decision about keeping or changing her antibiotics. Hopefully she will tell about this decision. The abscess in her shoulder was a staph infection, just like her back, so the antibiotics stayed the same. Dr. Houseman explained that now that it has been drained the antibiotics can get to any infection left in her foot.

Dr. Ghassan has decreased her fluid intake to a trickle (the trickle keeps the line open) and hopefully her swelling will come down. He is very worried about what she is eating (next to nothing) and her loopiness. She is very rarely coherent and we have been getting more and more hail marys. So he has decreased her pain medication by taking off the smaller fentynyl patch. It is a fine line that they need to walk between tolerable pain and coherence. I hate that line. But she is not so loopy that she won't lie. When we or the doctors ask her something directly we can usually get an answer. Dr. Ghassan was asking her why she was not eating and she said she didn't know. When he turned away she asked for some milk and when I said "you want some milk?" She said "I just want them to think I am eating more."

Dr. Houseman said that Dr. Soo will be here sometime today but it may be late, to evaluate her abscesses that have been drained. He said that he will review everything and when the time comes he will let us know what type of facility she should be released to. I asked if that was a split second decision; if they decide tomorrow do we have to be out the next day, and he said no. He said that more than likely what would happen is if one of the Long Term Acute Care places accept her and Dr. Soo can see nothing that would keep her in the hospital (blood pressure, heart rate, etc. stabilized) then they would discuss it with us and release her to that facility.

The PT person happened to be in the hallway when we were talking and I asked about PT. I asked if they would be working with mom everyday and the PT person said "no" only three times a week and they count the "sleeping" time as her being seen. She tried to explain that it is based on need, but I said that that would suggest that mom be seen everyday since her need was great. But that is not the case, they see the people that will be released in a few days every day, but those that will be here longer and will be released into long-term therapy are seen less. I argued the logic of this with her for a while but she was not budging. Hospital policy. [Just reading this over I think we forgot to tell you that mom was seen by PT and it did not go well, she could not even sit up on her own she just flopped back on the bed.]

I just tried to give mom some pills and she coughed a lot through the first few and then she chewed the second set (yuck). When I asked her if I should raise her head up so she could swallow better she said something about Karl telling her that "up" was better, then she said "smart boy, that Karl." I have a few more pills to give her but she is sleeping now and may do better when she wakes up.