Saturday, November 13, 2010

You just won't believe my life - DON'T LOOK IF YOUR EATING!

So I went down to mum's yesterday, I knew the doctor had told her she had shingles, its been about 3 weeks since they told her, it is contagious but I was with her before she even found out about them so if I was going to catch it, it would have happened by now. So she has been complaining about the pain, she also has cellulitis on one of her legs so finding everything very uncomfortable.

When I got there and saw under the bandage I couldn't believe the difference from the water blisters to this! Coupled along with her breathing, I was not taking any chances and funny enough, she was quite compliant and came to the hospital with me. We thought that she was going to be coming home but the bloods told us otherwise. Her kidney function from 2 weeks ago was 33, last night was 23, her potassium was too high also and she was in Atrial fibrillation (AF), causing her heart to be 'disorganized'. So again I had to leave her there, again.

What makes me mad is that she was at the hospital 2 days before to get the dressing redone and the nurse said "I don't like those black spots" but did nothing! It all started, she has been told this is a coincidence, the day after she placed 'Deep Heat' on her hip to sooth some joint pain, she has used it a million times and not had an issue, the day after it raised up like burns. Hence why she didn't think it would be anything contagious. Even last night whilst they were looking at the shingles, keeping her isolated, no one bothered to look at her leg, for all I know that is infected and maybe where all the infection is coming from. I never got to see the leg as it was already fully wrapped up. I left the hospital after 9pm last night and am calling the hospital whilst typing this post.

Ok, the hospital advise that they want to do a cat scan and ultrasound of her abdomen due to the blood clots on her stomach wound. They are still yet to look at her leg, just wanting for the medical team to come around. They want to further investigate her chest after the chest x-ray that was preformed last night. They still have her in Emergency as she isn't stable enough to move her to a medical ward, oh and she is still in AF.

Phew, and I just thought it was a little infection from the shingles.

We live in such a lucky country when it comes to illness. Mum's been admitted to hospital 4 times this year alone, we do not need to pay for anything at all. We do not need to worry if we have insurance or if they would cover the tests. We have Medicare in Australia that looks after all that.

As for me, well the sinusitis is hanging on as long as it can, water intake has been pretty good, although I wasn't great with tracking it, I know I would have drunk my allotted amount if not more. Food on the other hand was not great but would have been well under my allotted 1650 calories. Well better be off to drink more water and maybe even eat something.

2 comments:

Lanie said...

that poor woman!

this is enough to scare me away from socialized medicine, actually. Maybe if there was some capitalism involved, they would've worked harder to fix it right the first time but who knows, people get weird infections in the US as well.

Keep us posted. I hope they keep her comfortable because that looks quite quite QUITE painful!

Polar's Mom said...

Holy crap. Your Mom is quite the trooper-and you as well! Good wishes to you both right now!

Polar's Mom
www.polarspage.blogspot.com