Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
More sickos
There are at least four of us on my floor of the clinic, all with the same symptoms — painful hacking cough, fever. I can’t really claim I have it worse than anyone else, but I might. I asked our pulmonologist to take a look at me today. I was wheezing and my temp was 102.5. Well, that explains the chills I was having all day. He was concerned by my report of drenching sweats, and sent me off for a Valley Fever blood test. Also, he started me on a couple of inhalers and an antibiotic.
Meanwhile, my mother has problems. I’ve always subscribed to the “too mean to die, she’ll outlive us all” theory, and that may yet be true. In recent weeks, her mental status has taken a steep plunge, and my father has been assuming it’s dementia.
I kept telling him to take her to the doctor to rule out treatable illnesses, and I explained organic brain syndrome to him, but he hasn’t listened to his youngest son. Tonight, apparently, her behavior became sufficiently whacked that he called 911 and got her admitted to the hospital. Or at least I really hope they admit her to the hospital for a workup. Nowadays, hospitals are loath to admit people for things that can be done in an outpatient setting. Medicare loves denying payment for unnecessary hospitalization. In any case, I hope the doc who sees her tonight treats this with seriousness and thoughtfulness and realizes she’s someone’s mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. And that the doc hasn’t had a rough day and just wants to get the hell home. And that he isn’t trying to work through his shift with a fever of 102.5.
Bad timing all around. I’m too ill to make the drive to Vegas (where my parents live) and I’m on call for the next nine days. Soonest I can get out there, short of taking more time off (which I have NOT accrued), would be two weeks from today.
Something evolving this fast, it’ll either be some treatable metabolic problem or something horrible. Either way I hope I get to see her. Even if she is too mean to die.
D.
In spite of your feeling like crap, you managed a poignant blog entry. Be sure to see my e-mail.And just to let everyone else know, they did keep her over night.
Sounds like swine flu to me, Doug. Self isolation is the rule over here – do you not have to get youself to bed and stay away from call? Or are they more relaxed about it over there?
Hope that things go as well as they can with your poor mother. Hope that you feel better soon. Sounds like you are in the midst of when it rains, it pours.
Me too, on a much smaller scale. The husband just left today for his new job in another country and I’ve been spending most of my four-day weekend (Thursday was the Jeune Genevoise – it’s a Calvinist thing; we wouldn’t understand – and they threw in the Friday) on the phone with my boss drafting e-mails that get mostly ignored in New York.
Hope you get well soon and sorry about your Mom. That’s tough. My husband has been hospitalized since Tuesday with heart problems.
Thanks for the good wishes, everyone. I hope your husband rallies quickly, Lucie.
Hope you’re feeling better soon and all the best for your Mom. We went through something similar a couple years ago and it turned out to be folic acid deficiency. Took them almost a year to figure it out though, and my FIL still has the odd moment of bending reality and paranoid delusions.
See? That’s exactly what I mean. Sometimes there’s a simple solution to the whole problem. (Although the doc in me is thinking that if my mom’s problem were folate deficiency, that should have shown up in her CBC, which they almost certainly have done.)
Not sure what’s happening lately. She had an MRI this morning, I know that much.