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I'm sitting in the emergency room right now, waiting to hear from a doctor about my grandmother's condition. As you can probably tell from this, my day hasn't exactly been going well.
The power went off this morning at about six am. It had snowed last night, and someone hit a telephone pole near us. So, since we had no lights, we were letting my grandmother sleep in.
About 8:07 the lights came back on. About fifteen minutes after that, the Registered Nurse called letting us know that she would be over around 9 or 9:30. My father and I started to get my grandmother up out of bed and ready for her visit. This was when we first realized that something was wrong.
She was totally limp when we tried getting her up... didn't respond to us at all, didn't move on her own, just stayed absolutely limp... I've never seen anyone still alive who was that limp, but she was still breathing...
When the nurse arrived, she told us to call 911. My grandmother's blood pressure was very low, her pulse was thready, she was unresponsive and one pupil was not dilating properly when the nurse shone a flashlight into it. And she was still totally limp.
By the time that the ambulance arrived she was reacting a bit more, but she still came here to the hospital to be checked on. So far she's had both an x-ray and a CAT scan. I'm awaiting further information on her condition.
... on an unrelated note, I just had a very interesting conversation with another patient here. I might be posting more about that later... very interesting individual with a lot of intriguing ideas. Someone I intend to keep in touch with, if he is able. He gave me his email address, so we'll see if the lines of communication remain open... his family and doctors are trying to get him medicated into passivity so that he is "manageable" and will accept the idea that he is "no longer able" to work and needs to collect disability and food stamps from the government. Just judging from the conversation that I had with him, this is not a person who needs to be on disability... it was highly technical, lucid, and covered a breadth of knowledge that most people in our society are not capable of discussing intelligently. It was a very pleasant experience for me, even if it got a little hard to keep up with at points when we were discussing concepts which were not as familiar to me as the others we touched upon. He has interesting ideas about violence originally being against the mind, where people try to force you to think their way against your will. Also about memories, after electroshock or Alzheimer's or similar conditions, not being lost so much as the links between them being lost... like a computer with a working hard drive but a damaged capacity to access that hard drive. This makes a great deal of sense to me, especially after observing my grandmother for so long. I hope he manages to keep his family from forcing him either onto medication or into a facility like Anchora. From what he was telling me, he's been severely fucked over both by his family and this medical system before... for the past thirteen years to be exact. Long story, and not really mine to tell. I feel for him, though. He doesn't need to be medicated or in a facility like that, he needs someone available to help him finish small tasks that he gets distracted during (damage to short term memory access) and preferably someone that he could have intelligent conversations with. He wants to teach others, and he wants to continue writing. Calls himself Stone Fat (Phat? Don't know the spelling.) I gave him both my human name, and my otherkin first name, though I did not indicate the reason for the second name... it just seemed natural to give when he offered the fact that most of his friends call him Stone, rather than his actual first name.
My grandmother's results just came back... she is very dehydrated and seems to have a case of pneumonia as well. Not entirely surprised by either of those, and at this point I'm mostly just glad that it wasn't a stroke or anything along those lines. Still waiting to hear what that means in terms of the care she will need... if they are admitting her for it, or if they are sending her home with us, or what... I'll be honest, I really hope that they admit her, I'm not sure that we could get the proper amount of fluids into her at home just yet. And I have no idea how to treat a 93 year old woman with both Alzheimer's and Pneumonia. We'll wait and see, though, I suppose.
3:50pm now and still waiting to hear more... the latest news we have is that something looks wrong with her urine and that may be part of what's wrong with her. Her IV keeps getting occluded, and she's still not really getting the fluids she needs. And nobody, ourselves included, is quite sure how zealous her care should be in order to adhere to the terms of her living will and not keep her alive past when she would want to be kept alive. Even written in as specific terms as it is, it doesn't cover all the shades of gray which may come up. Ultimately, my father and I are the ones who need to decide about this, using our own best judgment. And it's in no way clear what decision we should make.
Well.. it's 8:05 now, and I just got home... talked with Dusk on the phone for a few minutes, and am just about to pass out, but I wanted to post this first. No real change in info about my grandmother since 3:50... she's been admitted to the hospital, and we'll just have to wait and see where things go at this point.
Now, though, I need sleep. Goodnight, everyone.
The power went off this morning at about six am. It had snowed last night, and someone hit a telephone pole near us. So, since we had no lights, we were letting my grandmother sleep in.
About 8:07 the lights came back on. About fifteen minutes after that, the Registered Nurse called letting us know that she would be over around 9 or 9:30. My father and I started to get my grandmother up out of bed and ready for her visit. This was when we first realized that something was wrong.
She was totally limp when we tried getting her up... didn't respond to us at all, didn't move on her own, just stayed absolutely limp... I've never seen anyone still alive who was that limp, but she was still breathing...
When the nurse arrived, she told us to call 911. My grandmother's blood pressure was very low, her pulse was thready, she was unresponsive and one pupil was not dilating properly when the nurse shone a flashlight into it. And she was still totally limp.
By the time that the ambulance arrived she was reacting a bit more, but she still came here to the hospital to be checked on. So far she's had both an x-ray and a CAT scan. I'm awaiting further information on her condition.
... on an unrelated note, I just had a very interesting conversation with another patient here. I might be posting more about that later... very interesting individual with a lot of intriguing ideas. Someone I intend to keep in touch with, if he is able. He gave me his email address, so we'll see if the lines of communication remain open... his family and doctors are trying to get him medicated into passivity so that he is "manageable" and will accept the idea that he is "no longer able" to work and needs to collect disability and food stamps from the government. Just judging from the conversation that I had with him, this is not a person who needs to be on disability... it was highly technical, lucid, and covered a breadth of knowledge that most people in our society are not capable of discussing intelligently. It was a very pleasant experience for me, even if it got a little hard to keep up with at points when we were discussing concepts which were not as familiar to me as the others we touched upon. He has interesting ideas about violence originally being against the mind, where people try to force you to think their way against your will. Also about memories, after electroshock or Alzheimer's or similar conditions, not being lost so much as the links between them being lost... like a computer with a working hard drive but a damaged capacity to access that hard drive. This makes a great deal of sense to me, especially after observing my grandmother for so long. I hope he manages to keep his family from forcing him either onto medication or into a facility like Anchora. From what he was telling me, he's been severely fucked over both by his family and this medical system before... for the past thirteen years to be exact. Long story, and not really mine to tell. I feel for him, though. He doesn't need to be medicated or in a facility like that, he needs someone available to help him finish small tasks that he gets distracted during (damage to short term memory access) and preferably someone that he could have intelligent conversations with. He wants to teach others, and he wants to continue writing. Calls himself Stone Fat (Phat? Don't know the spelling.) I gave him both my human name, and my otherkin first name, though I did not indicate the reason for the second name... it just seemed natural to give when he offered the fact that most of his friends call him Stone, rather than his actual first name.
My grandmother's results just came back... she is very dehydrated and seems to have a case of pneumonia as well. Not entirely surprised by either of those, and at this point I'm mostly just glad that it wasn't a stroke or anything along those lines. Still waiting to hear what that means in terms of the care she will need... if they are admitting her for it, or if they are sending her home with us, or what... I'll be honest, I really hope that they admit her, I'm not sure that we could get the proper amount of fluids into her at home just yet. And I have no idea how to treat a 93 year old woman with both Alzheimer's and Pneumonia. We'll wait and see, though, I suppose.
3:50pm now and still waiting to hear more... the latest news we have is that something looks wrong with her urine and that may be part of what's wrong with her. Her IV keeps getting occluded, and she's still not really getting the fluids she needs. And nobody, ourselves included, is quite sure how zealous her care should be in order to adhere to the terms of her living will and not keep her alive past when she would want to be kept alive. Even written in as specific terms as it is, it doesn't cover all the shades of gray which may come up. Ultimately, my father and I are the ones who need to decide about this, using our own best judgment. And it's in no way clear what decision we should make.
Well.. it's 8:05 now, and I just got home... talked with Dusk on the phone for a few minutes, and am just about to pass out, but I wanted to post this first. No real change in info about my grandmother since 3:50... she's been admitted to the hospital, and we'll just have to wait and see where things go at this point.
Now, though, I need sleep. Goodnight, everyone.
*HUGS*
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::hugs:::
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