Sunday, December 30, 2007

My Day

This morning I was headed into my room to grab some clothes and Donny woke up. He looked at me and said hello. I asked him to take some lactulose and he agreed. After that he just kept saying hello over and over again. After about 5 minutes he went back to sleep. I decided that he'd be okay for a bit and I went to church.

Church had ended and we were all standing around talking when my cell phone rang. My battery chose that moment to die so I didn't get the call. Then my friend's phone rang, and I knew. My mom was calling to let me know that Donny was sitting in the living room with his pants down and he didn't seem to know anybody. So I went home.

After much hard work I got Donny in the car. This was after he tried to simply walk through my frail, elderly aunt. My mom helped me get all Donny's stuff out to the car and made sure that I had some form of money on me. Then we were off to the hospital.

What does it say when ER staff members recognize you? Especially when one of them is the head security guard. I know he recognized me since he talked with me about what happened last time and the fact that security might get called again. The nice thing was that he helped me keep an eye on Donny, who felt the need to sit in as many chairs as he could find available. And he almost tried to sit in a couple of chairs that weren't available.

The tech in triage recognized us. He was helping the little blonde nurse that lives on the other coast the last time that we were in. I liked him that time, but I'm not so sure about this time. He seemed a little to quick to move to force with Donny, but maybe he was having one of those days.

Both doctors that we saw recognized us. The ER doc is one that I really like. Come to think of it, I like most of the ER docs there. He was as nice as always. Then came the resident. This is the same resident that had me in tears last time. He asked me if I thought that I could get Donny to take his lactulose at home. I could see where this was going, so I told him no. He was really going to try to send him home again this time.

When the lady from the lab came to draw Donny's blood I had to help pin him so that she could do it. When the nurse needed to start an IV I had to help pin him so that it could be done. When the lady wanted to do an ultrasound I had to pin Donny so that she could. When the other lady from the lab came for the second round of blood work I had to help pin Donny so that she could draw his blood. Then she called his nurse in and the lady from the lab and I had to pin Donny so that the nurse could draw his labs. And the doctor thinks that I can take care of him by myself. They're going to do a feeding tube to get his medicine down him, but he thinks that I should be doing this at home. How stupid can you get.

The hospital has assigned a sitter to be with Donny because of his confusion. It's the first time that this has been done. It's a nice alternative to restraints. I wonder if he'll be able to stay out of the restraints throughout the night.

Admitting never came and saw Donny while I was there. They never got his insurance information. It makes me wonder if they're just going by his files from previous trips. All the information is the same. Still, I thought that he'd have to sign something. Oh well, that's their problem. I don't need to worry about it until tomorrow.

2 comments:

mielikki said...

sigh. I'm sorry Jamie. I hope the sitter thing worked out, but sitter's aren't always availiable. Maybe, after having a tube shoved in his nose to deliver the lactulose, he will think twice about not taking it orally, next time. I hope he balances out quickly for you, and I hope that resident has New Year's off. He sounds like a first class idiot.

CamiKaos said...

I hope the sitter helped... I hope you had a restful night.

I never feel like I know what to say when I visit so I often stay quiet as a mouse... but I'm here.