Today is Tuesday, which means Post It Note Tuesday with Supah. Yay! LOVE PINT! :)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Post it Note Tuesday...football season and other stuff
I think I stayed away from the blog way too long. There were crickets chirping up in here on my post yesterday. I finally did get 2 comments and one was my sis. The other was Laura at Purseblogger, one of the sweetest bloggers I know. Thanks, ladies!
Today is Tuesday, which means Post It Note Tuesday with Supah. Yay! LOVE PINT! :)
Today is Tuesday, which means Post It Note Tuesday with Supah. Yay! LOVE PINT! :)
Monday, August 16, 2010
The gift of health and he can swim now?!
School starts back in nine days. No more sleeping in way too late and staying up at night watching Hoarders and Intervention.
I don't know why I find it impossible to pass by those shows when I'm channel surfing. Behavioral disorders have always been extremely interesting to me. Maybe they just make me feel extra confident with myself and my own level of sanity.
Speaking of my sanity, the Dracenator tested it to the best of his ability yesterday afternoon at a pool party for one of his friends from school. First of all, I thought the kid didn't really know how to swim. I had planned to take him for swim lessons this summer but never got around to it after my mom got sick.
So, I'm all like..."is that the deep end or the shallow end?" that the kids were jumping into while playing a game when we got there. It was the deep end. I warn that he can't really swim so they show him to the shallow end. Well, he can't stand that because all the other kids are jumping in the deep end and catching a ball that an adult is throwing to them.
The next thing I know, I look up and he is about to take his turn for the ball right in the deep end. Charlie is preparing himself to go in after him, fully clothed. Well, the little fish pops up like a bobber and swims right to the side. I guess he knows how to swim now! He's diving, jumping through inner tubes and cuttin' flips off the side.
I must have appeared to be the most overprotective nagging mother on the planet because I kept jumping up and reprimanding him. Charlie had to go over once and threaten to remove him from the pool if he didn't stop cutting flips off the side and nearly missing the water and hitting the concrete with his corner jump. He had two very close calls. I needed a valium and a shot of Jose Cuervo by the time we left.
I got a Wendy's frosty instead. My mom, the therapists and the other 3 patients on the rehabilitation floor made homemade ice cream at the hospital last week that she said tasted just like one so I had been craving one ever since.
She went home Saturday, after a 17 night stay in the hospital. I told y'all that she has a rare type of vasculitis called Wegener's Granulomatosis but as it turns out, they still haven't fully committed to that diagnosis. I told her they may have to name a new vasculitis after her because she has not been a textbook case of any of them.
She is currently on twelve different medications. The pharmacist's mind was completely blown when we tried to have them filled Saturday. It resulted in 3 trips back and forth to the Wal-mart pharmacy, several phone calls and the tracking down of the doctor who wrote them at the hospital so that she could "explain" them to him.
Fun times.
My mom still has a long road ahead but she has improved greatly since the day she went into the hospital. We don't know for sure how much eyesight and feeling in her hands and feet that she will regain but she sounds like her "old" chipper self again when I talk to her on the phone and that is beautiful music to my ears.
I've learned, through all of this, not to take my health and the health of those I love for granted because it truly is a fragile gift each and every day that we continue to be blessed with it.
I don't know why I find it impossible to pass by those shows when I'm channel surfing. Behavioral disorders have always been extremely interesting to me. Maybe they just make me feel extra confident with myself and my own level of sanity.
Speaking of my sanity, the Dracenator tested it to the best of his ability yesterday afternoon at a pool party for one of his friends from school. First of all, I thought the kid didn't really know how to swim. I had planned to take him for swim lessons this summer but never got around to it after my mom got sick.
So, I'm all like..."is that the deep end or the shallow end?" that the kids were jumping into while playing a game when we got there. It was the deep end. I warn that he can't really swim so they show him to the shallow end. Well, he can't stand that because all the other kids are jumping in the deep end and catching a ball that an adult is throwing to them.
The next thing I know, I look up and he is about to take his turn for the ball right in the deep end. Charlie is preparing himself to go in after him, fully clothed. Well, the little fish pops up like a bobber and swims right to the side. I guess he knows how to swim now! He's diving, jumping through inner tubes and cuttin' flips off the side.
I must have appeared to be the most overprotective nagging mother on the planet because I kept jumping up and reprimanding him. Charlie had to go over once and threaten to remove him from the pool if he didn't stop cutting flips off the side and nearly missing the water and hitting the concrete with his corner jump. He had two very close calls. I needed a valium and a shot of Jose Cuervo by the time we left.
I got a Wendy's frosty instead. My mom, the therapists and the other 3 patients on the rehabilitation floor made homemade ice cream at the hospital last week that she said tasted just like one so I had been craving one ever since.
She went home Saturday, after a 17 night stay in the hospital. I told y'all that she has a rare type of vasculitis called Wegener's Granulomatosis but as it turns out, they still haven't fully committed to that diagnosis. I told her they may have to name a new vasculitis after her because she has not been a textbook case of any of them.
She is currently on twelve different medications. The pharmacist's mind was completely blown when we tried to have them filled Saturday. It resulted in 3 trips back and forth to the Wal-mart pharmacy, several phone calls and the tracking down of the doctor who wrote them at the hospital so that she could "explain" them to him.
Fun times.
My mom still has a long road ahead but she has improved greatly since the day she went into the hospital. We don't know for sure how much eyesight and feeling in her hands and feet that she will regain but she sounds like her "old" chipper self again when I talk to her on the phone and that is beautiful music to my ears.
I've learned, through all of this, not to take my health and the health of those I love for granted because it truly is a fragile gift each and every day that we continue to be blessed with it.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Hospital Do's and Don'ts
Did y'all miss me?
I have been spending all my days and many of my nights in a hospital which is, in fact, where I am at the current moment.
No, I am not the patient. It is my mother. We got ready to take her to her doctor's appt. last Wednesday and when we got her to her feet (which was no small feat in itself) her vision went blurry. She was transported from the doctor's office to the hospital via ambulance. She has been a bit of a medical mystery.
Where is that arrogant, know it all Dr. House when you need him?
After countless testing and a couple of "come to Jesus" meetings with some doctors and staff members, we seem to be getting somewhere though we have more of a clinical diagnosis at this point of a pretty uncommon disease called Wegener's Granulomatosis which is a type of vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels). Treatment is corticosteroids so we are hoping to get her well soon.
What I have observed while logging in all these hours at the hospital is that there are a lot of kind health professionals (and a few not so much) who are all doing their individual jobs but often times fail to communicate both with each other and with the patient as well.
Here is a little list of do's and dont's I'd like to see enforced in this hospital...
Do read over the entire chart before you enter the patient's room and ask them all the same questions they have already answered five thousand and ninety two times since they were admitted.
Don't ask the patient if they have any results back yet on their biopsy. Hello?? Aren't you the doctor who ordered the test?!
Do try your very hardest to crack a smile when you introduce yourself to the patient and the patient's family. A smile goes a long way people, a long way.
Don't come in with yesterday's news. Lack of knowledge makes you appear incompetent. I don't work here. I should not be the one to have to update the doctors and nurses on the latest results and happenings. I say it again...READ the updated chart before you come in blind.
Don't omit information for any reason but especially not because you believe we are incapable of understanding it. Google is my very best friend, I'm a researcher at heart and I can pronounce the big words. Lay 'em on me, Einstein. "Einstein" coincidentally, was the name of the ER doc who admitted her. He was one of the good ones.
Don't express your hostilities while in the patient's room. I really don't give a shit that your 20 year old self worked a 12 hour shift yesterday, that you are on the 14th hour (clearly!) of a 16 hour shift today, are going to nursing school and have to work at your mom's real estate business tomorrow. All I want is for you to answer me nicely when I ask you a very legitimate question and to not slam and jerk things around while you are in the room. Is that really too much to ask?
I don't know how much longer we will be here but I am quite sure I will come up with a few more before it is over. Meanwhile, I will breathe sighs of relief when I see the pleasant doctors and nurses with excellent communicative skills and bedside manners enter the room and take deep breaths and try to contain my inner madwoman when the other ones arrive.
Y'all say a prayer.
I have been spending all my days and many of my nights in a hospital which is, in fact, where I am at the current moment.
No, I am not the patient. It is my mother. We got ready to take her to her doctor's appt. last Wednesday and when we got her to her feet (which was no small feat in itself) her vision went blurry. She was transported from the doctor's office to the hospital via ambulance. She has been a bit of a medical mystery.
Where is that arrogant, know it all Dr. House when you need him?
After countless testing and a couple of "come to Jesus" meetings with some doctors and staff members, we seem to be getting somewhere though we have more of a clinical diagnosis at this point of a pretty uncommon disease called Wegener's Granulomatosis which is a type of vasculitis (inflammation of the blood vessels). Treatment is corticosteroids so we are hoping to get her well soon.
What I have observed while logging in all these hours at the hospital is that there are a lot of kind health professionals (and a few not so much) who are all doing their individual jobs but often times fail to communicate both with each other and with the patient as well.
Here is a little list of do's and dont's I'd like to see enforced in this hospital...
Do read over the entire chart before you enter the patient's room and ask them all the same questions they have already answered five thousand and ninety two times since they were admitted.
Don't ask the patient if they have any results back yet on their biopsy. Hello?? Aren't you the doctor who ordered the test?!
Do try your very hardest to crack a smile when you introduce yourself to the patient and the patient's family. A smile goes a long way people, a long way.
Don't come in with yesterday's news. Lack of knowledge makes you appear incompetent. I don't work here. I should not be the one to have to update the doctors and nurses on the latest results and happenings. I say it again...READ the updated chart before you come in blind.
Don't omit information for any reason but especially not because you believe we are incapable of understanding it. Google is my very best friend, I'm a researcher at heart and I can pronounce the big words. Lay 'em on me, Einstein. "Einstein" coincidentally, was the name of the ER doc who admitted her. He was one of the good ones.
Don't express your hostilities while in the patient's room. I really don't give a shit that your 20 year old self worked a 12 hour shift yesterday, that you are on the 14th hour (clearly!) of a 16 hour shift today, are going to nursing school and have to work at your mom's real estate business tomorrow. All I want is for you to answer me nicely when I ask you a very legitimate question and to not slam and jerk things around while you are in the room. Is that really too much to ask?
I don't know how much longer we will be here but I am quite sure I will come up with a few more before it is over. Meanwhile, I will breathe sighs of relief when I see the pleasant doctors and nurses with excellent communicative skills and bedside manners enter the room and take deep breaths and try to contain my inner madwoman when the other ones arrive.
Y'all say a prayer.
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