Worrying

I'm home again, and so is Donny. He got out of the hospital last Wednesday, but we've been staying with my mother-in-law so I haven't really had computer access. Donny's lungs are doing much better now, although they still aren't perfect. This last bout with his breathing finally convinced him that he needs to come up with a plan to quit smoking. I'm working on getting him some nicotene patches, we have high hopes.

It wasn't until I camped out in Donny's room on Tuesday, July 1, that I finally got to meet a doctor. A resident came in to see Donny that he hadn't seen before. One of the first things I did was point out that they were giving him too low a dose of lactulose. The doctor hadn't checked what dose he was on at home, so they gave him the standard dose of 2 tablespoons three times a day. The problem being that he needs 3-4 tablespoons three times a day. I had asked his nurse the day before to point this out to his doctor, but it hadn't been resolved. So the new doctor now feels the need to defend what the other doctor was doing, after a few minnutes we got it cleared up and the dosage was corrected.

The new doctor also was trying to discuss what was going on with us while tiptoeing around the fact that Donny was hallucinating in tghe ER. She said sometrhing about him being sleepy when he came in and I just looked at her and said, "No, he was hallucinating when we came in." She said something to the effect that she was trying to put it nicely. That's when I told her that we've dealt with the encaphalopathy enough times now that there's no more need to put things nicely and she could just be blunt with us. It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized it was her first day of residency. Poor lady. She really was just trying to be nice, I hope I didn't burst her bubble.

Today was Donny's follow up with his PCP. The doc said that all the tests that the hospital ran looked good. I asked him about what to do if the hospital won't keep Donny, but I didn't get an answer. The only thing that I got out of him was that if the ER doc wants to admit Donny and the resident won't then to ask for his attending. But what about if the ER doc says that Donny doesn't need to be hospitalized? And why am I borrowing trouble from gthe future? I suppose that if I ever feel backed into a corner I could try saying that I can't keep him safe at home. I don't know if it'll help, but I feel better if I tell myself that those are the magic words that mean that they have to help. It's not that I want to dump my husband on a poor, unsuspecting hospital, but I worry about not being able to care for him. I worry about a lot of things.