Sometimes you just want to grab that Doctor and belt him/her. I say this in response to a little bit of Hell I and my folks went through over this last weekend.
Mom had been in pain, unable to sit, since about Wednesday, July 9. She thought is was due to her ongoing bout with Polymyalgia Rhuematica, combined with Goddess-knew-what. We went with the usual treatments and hoped for a swift resolve. By Saturday morning she had developed a fever of 102 F and the pain was becoming unbearable. By Sunday afternoon, Mom was in a total panic about this, Dad was at a loss to help (pauvre Daddy), and so I took the initiative to call an ambulance and get her to the hospital.
Good thing I did.
Kind reader, make a fist. It’s about the size of a dinner roll or an orange, right? Well, this was the size of what we discovered was the root of all of Mom’s recent problems.
A very poorly placed groin abscess.
To have an idea of how uncomfortable this can be, stick a baseball in your crotch and try sitting. Add to that the comparable pain of child-birth and you can see what she was going through.
At the hospital we hit a few nurses and doctors whom I swear need a refresher course in medicine and bed-side manners. “You should have come earlier” (yeah, Doc, like we knew this was an infection 4 days ago) or “It doesn’t matter how panicked she is, you can’t stay with her” (I wanted to personally drop-kick that nurse).
Luckily after those idiots, we got a set of great staffers. A Junior Resident (who passed out during the surgery – I know, I was there), a Senior Resident with the patience of Job and the bed-side manners of someone who loves his job, and a couple of nurses ready and willing to make Mom relax pre- and post-op.
Lol – I was even offered a job there for my iron will and constitution for avidly watching Mom’s drainage, this after the Junior Resident passed out. Please, like a little blood and pus bother me! The smell was something else, I’ll never forget that part, but being grossed out? Not!! But I’d never leave my current job. The pay is too good.
As of July 15, Mom came home from all of that feeling much better (obviously), and just happy to be in her own bed again. Dad and I set her up real nice too. We brought a TV hooked to cable in the Master bedroom, really big fluffy pillows surround her, we set up a pair of walkie-talkies in case Mom needs something and Dad is on another floor, Dad and I made up a chart of when she needs to take her pills (we even went on-line to find out what each of these things were – I mean, the scientific name is nice and all, but what is it?), and I have charge of the house when I come home from work (meals, dishes, etc).
We have a nurse who will come in for the next 3 weeks, twice a day, to change her dressings (wound packing is something I CANNOT and WILL NOT do) so everything will be perfect.
I feel good for Mom.
But I do want to impress upon any and all doctors and nurses out there who may end up reading this post: THINK before you say something to a patient in agony and their family.
Telling them they should have come in sooner is NOT the right thing to say, since most of us out there believe in home remedies because they have worked in the past. And the vast majority of people do not have any kind of medical background, so if we have swelling somewhere, our first thought is not “Go to the hospital”. It’ll be “What the Hell…?” and then “What can I get at the pharmacy to help this?”
Also, telling family members to leave their panicked and emotional relative alone until an overworked doctor can come see her is NOT something to do, especially since, if she had taken the time to look at every other bed, she would have noticed that EVERYONE had 2 or more family members with them, still waiting for that doctor.
And share the damned medical file with all the notes on it, for the Goddess’s sake!!
Patients do not want to repeat their problem a dozen or so times to a dozen or so different people. Take the notes, put them in the file, let the next person access that file to ask DIFFERENT questions for MORE information, and move on. And do ask if it’s okay for students to come observe. Where Mom’s abscess was, an audience was NOT welcome.
Does is sound like I’m being protective? DAMN RIGHT!!
I am fiercely protective of my parents, whether they know this or not. In life you only really get one real set of parents. I plan on making sure nothing ever happens to mine.
That includes fielding nosy neighbours who can’t seem to realize that if we don’t want to talk about it, it is NOT okay to pry (Unit 16 – piss off!! Unit 3 – she’s fine, nothing to tell.)
She had to go back to the hospital on July 18th. Nothing serious, just the home nurse wanting to be sure that the redness she was seeing wasn’t more infection. We spent the entire day there, but luckily that same nice Junior Resident we had before was there again.
By the way, Travois Ambulatory Services suck!!! They came at 23:30 to pick her up, only to tell her they would have to wait until 03:00 for another crew. Bite me, WE (Dad and I) took her home ourselves.
She home again, we washed her hair, and she feels good now.
Haaa, a good rant and a big weight off my chest.
Thank you for listening.
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List of projects currently on the go:
1. Working on sequel to book (500 pages and growing - will have to split it in 2)
2. Creating covers to DVDs (I'm procrastinating)
3. Scan my vast collection of manga to have an electronic record (this too is subject to procrastination)
4. Listing all manga on eBay (directly related to #3)
5. Writing a TR fanfic (coming along nicely - maybe 2 or 3 or so more chapters)
6. Writing a TMNT fanfic (stagnant)
7. Writing an Escaflowne fanfic (or, at least, trying to finish it)
8. Writing an Inuyasha fanfic (stagnant)
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), but did I miss the memo that said 2008 was supposed to whip by at warp 9?
), as is the sequel. My website has been rebuilt with ease. Work-wise, I have a slightly better co-worker, but even there I sometimes think a trained monkey could do better (It's not that hard, just logged the document to track it 
Cool!
