So...after the fun and laughs we had trying to get a room on Friday, mom was admitted to the hospital, I left the hospital at midnight, got home about 1/2 hour later and really wanted to just drink out of the bottle of Jamison...who needs a steenkin' glass?!? OK, I didn't but I really thought about it!
I didn't go to bed until about 2 a.m. and slept until 11 a.m.
I was woken by a terrific storm so I decided that I'd wait this out before trekking back to Joliet. It finally calmed down about 1p.m. And I set off to the hospital.
When I get there, the buzz is still about the storm, it seems that there was a power surge/outage that hit St. Joe's and has caused some issues, but no one is sure to what extent.
We had an uneventful afternoon and a great nurse. Mom's coloring is a bit better, but she's still not able to eat anything. The nurse tells me that the dietician saw mom in the morning and said that mom should get a tube feeding by the evening. Again, the wait begins...
About 6, I ask again and Super Julie(the good nurse) starts calling. It seems that the storm knocked out part of the pager system and even tho the hospital knew this, they didn't notify the departments(like doing a network broadcast--”Attention: pager system is trashed, go back to call center system”), staff didn't find out until they started calling around to different departments! Julie hadn't called earlier because the nutritionist had told her that mom probably wouldn't receive a feeding until 5 or 6. So, she calls dietary(which closes at 7) and they have no orders. The 2 nutritionists that had been on duty had left for the day and so she called the duty superintendent. The superintendent gets her the home phone number of the nutritionist and finds out that she had given the orders to the pharmacy at NOON! Sooo...what happened to it after that? Dietary already said they didn't have it and they were leaving in 10 minutes, pharmacy was already closed. The dietician said she would come in and get it herself if need be. She called the superintendent. My mother did get her g-tube feeding at 8 p.m,
Another cluster&*(! Avoided. But wait, there's more!
By Sunday, my mother has developed a lot of phlegm in her throat which is very hard for her to cough up because of all of the pain in her mouth, she is trying to cough it up, but its very painful...but even more painful is suctioning so she keeps at it. I notice a change in her breathing and tell the nurse so she can inform the doctor. The nurse does check and says her lungs seem to be clear. Then my sister shows up and fires me(not serious), since mom ended up back in the hospital under my watch. Hey, sounds good to me!
Monday I don't go in, but Tuesday I notice that mom is beginning to go down. When they suction, the mucous/phlegm is tinged with blood. Part of the reason is because of the sores, but it just keeps getting worse. One time she starts coughing and coughs up enough phlegm to almost fill the spit pan!
On Wednesday, I get a call from my sister. Mom has pneumonia and they are moving her to ICU. This is actually the first time that she had a “bad” nurse who wasn't watching her breathing. Sis called the charge nurse and everything moved very quickly...she was panting and we were told later than 15-30 minutes later, she wouldn't have been alive!
They took her to ICU, sedated her and intubated her...and our next saga begins.
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