An Answer, At Last!

So, this week I have been to the ER twice and had the EMTs out to the house three times over Mom's bleeding. She keeps breaking open and bleeding badly from her arm shunt. Of course, the good doctors could not tell us why or what to do to stop it. I was told to just keep a bandage on her arm, get up at all hours of the night to check it, and hope for the best.

WT.......?

That's our medical system for you. I bet if she had the name of one of the uppity families around here she would not of been sent home with a "oh, well".

So I went home, took all her meds and vitamins and went online. After an exhausted search I finally found the culprit.

Aleve.

That's right. Plain old aleve, or napoxen. The side effects are prolong bleeding, bruising, abdominal pain, diffeculty breathing, plus some more, but these were what Mom was dealing with. So I took her off the aleve (myself, too). Then I looked up Tylenol. It was not much better. So no painkillers for either of us. I just hope this takes care of this problem. If not I will have to cancel my vacation plans and I really don't want to.

I guess she and I will have to learn to like pain. Maybe we can get jobs at Madame M's House of Pain.hehe

Idiot Doctors

The past two weeks have been kinda rough around here. My mother has been in the hospital twice during that time. She kept telling everyone something was wrong, but none of the health professionals could find anything. Her doctor( a complete moron in my opinion. He needs to retire.) would just look at her and walk away. He told the hospital staff to just send her home as the was nothing wrong with her. My mom would sit and cry because she felt so bad. My mom does not cry. So I knew something was wrong. The second time I took her to the ER I told them not to call her regular doctor. Then we gave a detailed account of all her systems to the attending ER doctor. We must of lucked up this time, because instead of ordering the regular blood test, he ordered a blood oxygen count test. Turned out mom had less than half what was normal. 52% to the normal 98%-100%. So she is home now hooked up to an oxygen making machine, with tanks to take with her when she goes to dialysis or out. She says she feels alot better now. She's sleeping all night too instead of sitting on the side of the bed trying to breathe.

Caregiving Pains

It never ceases to amaze me how uncaring people can be to caregivers. I mean, we are constantly under stress taking care of a sick loved one, trying to make their lives bearable, while trying to make do for ourselves. Some of us must have full time jobs on top of the caregiving, living pay check to pay check, with never enough to go around to everyone wanting it and are not willing to work with us to keep us out of a hardship. Then if our loved one or, God forbide, ourselves, gets sick-Wham! suddenly everyone wants their money right then, or something breaks down, and we're up s*** creek. Then there is family members who think hey! we have no husband or kids, so we must be available whenever they want us to do something for them, then get pissed if we say we can't. Or if we ask them to help out with the bills so that a parent is not left sitting in a cold dark house. Then there's the people who want to know why we never married or date. Please! Like there's time for that. Or the employers that get huffy if we don't volunteer to work over every day.

I wish people would stay off my case and leave me alone. I am doing the best I can. I don't have hardly any time for myself anymore and my artwork, my writing, my poetry, and my sanity is paying for it.