I didn’t get to sleep last night until after three or so. I had to get up at 7:15. So I didn’t get a lot of sleep. Lack of sleep is annoying on its own. It may also help to explain a lack of eloquence on my part in this blog. Sorry, but my brain is only maybe .5% functional or so, at the moment.
So, we arrived at the hospital an hour early. This is typical in my family. We’re all chronic get there early types. So we arrived early, and waited. Finally, we were registered and sent up to pre-surgery. Mom was hauled away for pre-surgery testing. We waited.
Mom came back two hours later, quite furious. They’d cancelled her surgery because she was “fatigued.” Or that was the excuse they gave us anyway. We think probably the anesthesiologist was covering up for the doctor, who didn’t bother to schedule all of the necessary tests for someone as high risk as my mom. So there was anger, followed by a trip upstairs, followed by more waiting.
After another three hours, mom was scheduled for a stress test. Keep in mind, that there’s been mass confusion during this time period, and every damn nurse told us something different, and would repeat back the things we said to them all wrong. Quite irritating. So, cut to the chase, mom goes to get her stress test.
We go to the stress test place. They send us down to nuclear radiation, no kidding. Nuclear radiation sends us back up to stress test, because they had nothing to do with any of it. So back up to stress test. Mom gets her stress test; dad and I sit in the hall. Starts off quite nice. Then mom starts coughing. Much coughing, lots and lots of coughing; choking sort of sound. Doctors start rushing in, nurses rushing out. People running in and out saying: “Do we have any antidote? Have we got any antidote? Is it in the closet? Which closet?” Mass confusion.
Silence. All of a sudden, ten people come flying out of the room. I weakly hold up her inhaler. A nurse takes it in. Silence; that is, except for rushing feet, and the everpresent, unescapable beeping of machinery.
A few minutes later, the nurse returns with the inhaler. Mom’s fine, she says. Just had a bit of a bad reaction to the whatever it is stuff they use for stress tests. No trouble at all, she says with a laugh.
Then another nurse comes along, “She scared the life out of us there!”
Yeah, uh, us too.
So mom comes out in a wheelchair. Guess the doctor heard something in her something artery. Has to get it checked out, because if something’s wrong with the something artery, that can give you a stroke. Lord knows all we need is a stroke. So, we head down to nuclear radiation. Waiting. More waiting. An hour passes.
Mom goes in, lays in some funny contraption. Dad and I wait for an hour while the test’s being done. Back up to stress test. More of mom getting tests, and dad and I waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting.
And finally, we come home.
So, on the whole, no surgery done. It’s rescheduled for Monday, and I can’t go on account of I moved all my tests from Thursday to Monday, and I can’t push them back again. This pisses me off massively because I have absolutely no trust in my mom’s doctor, and I’d feel better if I could be there to watch over the thing. I know I’m pretty helpless on the whole, but still. I can keep them from trying (for the third time) to stick dye into my mother’s system, which can’t handle it, which anybody who’s ever worked with kidney patients (as they claim to do "all the time!" there) would know.
Irritated. Hate doctors. Hate hospitals.
Oh yeah, to top it off, I didn’t want to eat in front of my mom this morning, because she had to fast, so I didn’t eat breakfast. I figured I’d get to eat by twelve, so it would be no big deal. But because of the utter incompetence of the hospital, even though I waited for hours and hours, I was never allowed to know what was going on, so I could never leave to get any food. So though I woke up hungry, I didn’t get to eat until 7:30 at night.
I’m so massively annoyed, and worried, and sick of stuff in general. I’m also exhausted. And I have a test in the morning I’ve yet to have studied for. Have to wake up early AGAIN tomorrow, which, may drive me insane yet.
Whining, I know. I apologize. But if you think I’m bad, you should see my dad right now.
posted by Sarie @
9:14 PM
>Comments: 0
