Hospitals I have known

This past week my mother was taken by ambulance to yet another hospital. She wasn't feeling well, was nauseated and vomiting, and was very sleepy. She did not want me to dial 911, but with the encouragement of my brother and her own doctor, I did just that and watched as she was once again whisked off to another hospital, this one at her request.

For the past four years, she has been in and out of various hospitals. I have been with her in an ER at Vanderbilt University, an ER in Indiana and in ERs here in Florida. I have been with her for various stages of pneumonia and two different back surgeries. Each hospital visit has been quite an adventure not only for her but for me as well.

No matter where she ends up she has excitement. Once she was in a room with another woman who was crazy enough that she had to have a sitter with her at all times. Apparently, she had stabbed her boyfriend or husband with a fork or a knife or something. She was a character and my mother just egged her on when she found herself getting bored. She was giving this woman relationship advice and a little bit of therapy to boot.

Another roommate was a little lady that thought my mother led the most interesting soap opera of a life. She was so into my mother's life that she knew all the characters by names and would listen silently behind her curtain to all the gossip from visitors or phone conversations. I thought she would follow my mother home just to keep abreast in her life.

This hospital visit was for pneumonia, despite no evidence of coughing, and low oxygen which put stress on her heart and caused her to have what they think was a mild heart attack (Connie thinks differently). She spent almost a week in the hospital following orders to inhale and exhale into various medical contraptions and complaining about the food. She had lots of antibiotics, a bag of iron, and a blood transfusion.

I took a few photos each day which set some of the nurses into a tizzy thinking I was documenting lack of care, but for the most part, I was just gathering photos for my explanation no blogging.

She came home with us for almost a week on continuous oxygen and returned home this week to fend for herself with the help of home care nurses and physical therapists. Her immune system is quite compromised with all of her steroid use (for medicinal purposes not baseball-related) and so she must treat herself with care. She preferred this hospital over the other one in our area and felt she got great care. She also enjoyed the "united nations feel" of the staff inquiring daily about each member's nationality. (These inappropriate comments have trickled into her language since her hospitalizations and they horrify me more than you can know)

We are both hopeful that she will continue to improve and can avoid any more hospital visits this year. Fingers crossed...

Summer Vacation - The Storm

Days 15 - 27

Our itinerary for the rest of the trip was four days in Nashville, TN exploring the sites, three days in Evansville, IN visiting friends, and then on to my brother's house in the South Bend, IN area. Unfortunately, there was a change in plans.

My mother noticed before she left Florida that her foot had dropped. This is a condition where the motor nerve (anterior tibial nerve) that innervates the muscles that pull the foot toward the knee is injured or diseased, and the result is complete weakness of those muscles The defect causes the foot to mostly be limp, and the weak foot involuntarily flops away from the body to produce what is referred to as a "foot drop."

Connie got a brace to wear on her foot, had an MRI of her back done, and off she went on vacation. In Mt. Carmel, IN, she had some work done via a massage therapist and a chiropractor. Two days later, she was in such pain that she had to go to the ER for a shot of painkiller for some relief. She insisted on going to Nashville the following day with my SIL and her children.

We made it to Nashville, and I got to see the city of Nashville while following the back of the ambulance as it took Connie to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

No sooner had we arrived at our Wyndham, then Connie was on the ground crying. The ambulance was summoned, and at Vanderbilt, she was given more pain medication, another MRI, and sent home with a steroid pack. By the next morning, we were frantically packing our belongings and heading back into the car for Evansville because we knew the hospitals and the area.

Connie rode in the backseat of Juanita's car. Susan and the kids and I followed in Connie's car, frantically using Onstar to find help. Kelly called her doctor father, who called us and gave us the name of a neurosurgeon he recommended. He sent us to St. Mary's Hospital and said to spout his name, although he wasn't sure what good would come of it.

My friend Robin met us at the ER. Susan took the kids to her parents and Juanita drove home while Robin and I dealt with the ER. Connie had another MRI, which showed a cyst tangled in the nerves between the L4 and the L5 of her spine.

Connie chose to have the operation to remove the cyst as the pain was so bad she was unable to walk to the bathroom. Because she was on a blood thinner, she had to go off of that medication and wait five days before they could operate. She was in the hospital up until the operation. The girls and I stayed at Robin's house.

The operation went well. The cyst was utterly void of liquid and hard and gunky and completely tangled in and around the nerves. The doctor scraped out the cyst and straightened one of the nerves that had gone flat. The operation was three hours long, with a two-hour recovery. By the third hour, she was back in her room and on her feet walking the corridor of the hospital. She was released the next evening.

Connie was unable to ride in a car for a long period of time so the trip to my brother's house was cancelled. Susan and her two kids stayed with us in a hotel for the week. We tried to keep busy with various activities and outings such as bowling and the zoo.

My brother popped in for an overnight visit, and at the end of the week, Susan returned home, Connie went to Juanita's, and the girls and I went back to Robin's house.

Five days later, Connie returned to the doctor, had her stitches removed, and got the okay to head home to Florida. We left that day.

Not the vacation we were expecting, but we were together, and in the end, all turned out well.

Summer Vacation - Days 10-12

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

Days 10, 11, and 12 - Leaving SC for Illinois

Our plan was to leave McClellanville by noon. That didn't happen. It is too nice here and we hated to leave. I have decided that I shall have a breakdown in a few months and have to recuperate right here in the guest house in the woods. It is without a doubt the nicest place.

I spent the evening and morning cleaning the guest house. That is what happens when you stay the longest. You are left cleaning up everyone else's mess! Madison and Darcy were very helpful vacuuming and folding laundry. Mandy helped me load up the car. We don't need the luggage carrier as Tom is home in Florida and so we put the third seat to make storage room.

We had lunch together at the dining table overlooking the bayou. We looked for the alligator that had been spotted the night before, but he was not to be seen, off sleeping under the cool water. James brought out his guitar and we sang and sang and sang. Mandy started each song, yelling, "Give me a G!" and we were off and singing. When we would finish a song, Macie would say, "More! More!" and off we would go. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful, wonderful, visit.

The only downside was that Connie had awakened with an orange hand. Her right hand was completely a yellowish orange on the palm and between her fingers. She was sure it was medically related as she is sucking down 14 different medications for her ailments, which are plenty. Her feet have bothered her off and on; she has good days and bad. James got on the computer and did some research, concluding that she had too much iron in her body.

Connie called her doctor (Stephanie, this you can relate to....remember last year?) and they said no, no, couldn't be the new iron medication she was on. They didn't seem to be too concerned.

We cried and waved goodbye to Joyce, James, Mandy, Evie, and Macie as they waved back from their porch. We had directions from James and we thought it would be funny to turn the wrong way out of their driveway, but we were too sad so we just honked and honked waving to the neighbor as well. We were off to Connie's friend Juanita's house in Mt. Carmel, Illinois, about 30 minutes from Evansville, IN.

Later that night in our hotel outside of Knoxville, TN Connie took off her shoes and both her feet were orange. I lay in bed while she showered wondering what I should do the next day; take her to a clinic, a hospital, call her doctor again, etc. When she came out of the shower and began putting on her lotion we discovered that the Vaseline lotion also included SELF TANNING in its ingredients.

Connie had been pouring the lotion into her right hand and rubbing her aching feet with it 24/7. Thus the mystery of the orange limbs was solved.

We spent the night where we picked up a huge black beetle that Connie found outside the Holiday Inn Express. We took it for my niece Gabby who is a bug lover. We thought it was dead, but it was still alive so we put it into a coffee cup with a lid and gave him some grass to munch. He rode up front in the cup holder until we stopped off in Evansville for 4 dozen Donut Bank donuts and some coffee and then the bug rode in the cup holder in Darcy's seat.

We arrived at Juanita's in time for some swimming and a dinner of Illinois sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes and cucumbers, and chicken. The weather was hot and everything a lush green. Mt. Carmel is a small town that reminds me of the past. If you blink you miss the town. Everyone walks everywhere and no one locks his/her doors.

The next morning I had my nails done in a hole in the wall beauty shop where I got all the Mt. Carmel gossip and quite a lot of scoop on Juanita. We went back to Juanita's friend's house where we swam all day in a beautiful pool surrounded by flowers. Juanita's great-granddaughter, Maya, joined us for the day and night. She is almost 5 and smart as a whip. She and the girls got along fine and played all day together. We toured Mt. Carmel by car and ate more corn and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. We ended each evening with several hours of cards. So far I think that I am ahead in the money.

Later in the evening, Connie went out to her car to bring in the bug. Only there was no bug. He had climbed up the cup, pinched and pinched through the sippy hole until he made it bigger and slipped out. He was loose somewhere in the car. Madison and Darcy searched (Maya refused to help as she hates bugs) and found him crawling under the driver's seat. We captured him again, put him into a Ziploc container, fed him lettuce and researched his species on the computer.

Our discovery led us to the following facts: He is a scarab beetle. He eats dead animals and dung. He is probably thinking, "What the hell is this lettuce crap? Why have these people brought me from Tennessee to Illinois?"

We will have to pick him up some road kill tomorrow, I guess.

We've named him Arab the Scarab.