Saving Grandma

It snowed here last weekend. It was really beautiful. The most snow we've had in years. Everything looked like a winter wonderland. I wish I had taken some better pictures, but the afternoon that it snowed I was completely exhausted. The day before, I had gone to the town where my parents live to help my Mom get settled in her new room. I wanted her to be comfortable and to have a positive start. She had been in a hospital for 3 weeks and would now have rehab. It was a rehab wing in a nursing home. We were not happy about it being in a nursing home, but it was the only place that had worked out with the different medical issues she has. It wasn't a positive experience for my Mom at all.

Right before my children and I got ready to leave for the night, one of the nurses said something really mean to my Mom because she couldn't stand up without help. My Mom cried. I went back to my Mom's house and tossed and turned all night. I was so upset about the incident. So was my Dad and my 2 sisters. We started hatching a plan to get her out of the nursing home.

My Mom's health seemed to deteriorate after she was admitted into the nursing home. Her swelling in her legs was worse. She grew more weaker, and then she caught a bad stomach bug from someone in the nursing home. She had a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea. The doctor seemed to order all the wrong things for her. I'm an RN and know my Mom's medical history and medications as well as anyone. I'm not a doctor, but you don't give a patient with heart failure and Atrial Fibrillation an Albuterol treatment, which is for wheezing, COPD, and Asthma.

By Sunday morning my sisters had talked me into getting my Mom out of the nursing home. I wanted to go to church with my family. I wanted to spend Valentine's day with my family, but sometimes you have to do hard things because it's the right thing to do. My children need their Grandma to be alive and as healthy as possible. One of my children might not be here if it wasn't for my Mom taking care of me and my daughter when I was on bedrest while pregnant.

I got in the car and drove the 2 plus hours to the town my parents live in. My Mom was in her bed feeling lousy physically and somewhat hopeless. I called my sister for some moral support. Was Mom really sick enough to be admitted into a hospital? I knew if she was going to be admitted into a hospital in the near future, I needed to be there to be her advocate. Sick people need someone to look out for them. I told the nurse that I didn't feel good about my Mom's present condition and wanted her to call the ambulance to come and transport her to the hospital. The nurses all gave me dirty looks as I took my Mom's stuff to my car. (We've heard rumors that the patients' stuff gets stolen on a regular basis.) When the EMT's came to pick my Mom up, I heard the nurse griping about it. I felt like an idiot.

She finally got transferred to the local ER. I felt like one hurdle had been passed.

The nurses and doctors in the ER couldn't have been nicer. They did a bunch of tests on my Mom. My sister and I sat with her and prayed that she would be admitted. Many hours later, the doctor came in to examine my Mom and get her history. I told her about my Mom's Congestive Heart Failure, kidney disease, gout, breast cancer, recent Staph. infection in her thumb, and what she was currently going through. A precious friend of mine who is a nursing supervisor there, came down and talked to us. We told her our tale of whoa. She told the doctor how desperate we were to have my Mom under better medical and nursing care.

The doctor finally admitted her that night at around 8:00 pm. We were so relieved and thankful. We knew that her regular doctor could now treat her and she would be in much better hands.

Now she is still in the hospital, and recovering from the dehydration, fever, vomiting and diarrhea. They are working on getting her admitted into the rehab center in the hospital. I know she will be much better off there, and it's not nearly as depressing as the nursing home rehab wing. God heard our desperate pleas for our Mom.

It is our hope that she will get much stronger in the rehab center and will be able to go home to my Dad and take care of herself. She wants to enjoy life and her grandchildren whom she loves more than anything in the world!