Monday, monday- can't trust that day......

What a week! Let's see, where to begin....

First- Monday. More specifically Monday around 2:15 pm. My mother has been having trouble breathing all day- she finally relents to go to the ER. Trouble is it's time to pick up the Pipsqueak from school.

My father and I decide that I'll go with her and he can pick up the kid. I lost that round.

The ER
Let's discuss the ER shall we? First and foremost- why must one wait so long to be seen. Don't get me wrong- I'm in a small town and we were actually back in the ER part rather than the waiting room within 30 minutes. Thirty minutes where my mother sat in a wheelchair wheezing because she couldn't catch her breath.... but I digress.

It seemed to take forever for the doctor to see her and apparently 170-190 beats a minute is a tad fast for the heart... so, hooked up to heart monitors too.

The doc finally comes in (nice guy btw) and looks at her chart- asks what's been going on- finds out more drugs she can't take (side effects/allergies) and then goes to decide his course of treatment now that 95% of available drugs are off the table.

The nurse comes in to put in an I.V... my mother has very deep veins. Very hard to find... see where this is going?

Picture it- hospital ER, one ER nurse, IV equipment, and a wheezing woman on a hospital gurney who can't get comfortable. Then picture 3 jabs later and no I.V. attached yet.

Try 2- new nurse- other arm.... same results- blood everywhere- patient in major pain, no I.V.

Try 3- another nurse. She looks like she can't see well- coke bottle glasses, squinting, and hunched over. Great Quasimodo's cousin is going to try this. More pokes, yells, blood and no I.V.

Try 4- bring in the cute EMT guy- we'll call him "K". He tried, he tried so hard.. in the end- he too was defeated by my mother's veins...

Try 5- 30 minutes into the I.V. debacle- bring in the mad scientist otherwise known as the anesthesiologist. I kid you not he reminded me of the guy on the pictures of those science kits- Einstein hair, etc....

Success at last- only took 35 minutes, 3 nurses, one EMT, and the anesthesiologist.

Lovely. I can tell what's going to happen from here on out.

There were Xrays- they bring the machine to you now buy the way- kinda cool...

Diagnosis- pneumonia and rapid heart rate. Joy and rapture. (read sarcasm there)

We've waited about 90 minutes by this point- doc finally comes in and says he's waiting for all the blood work to come back.

Two minutes later we are visited by the blood fairy. Only instead of giving you something- she takes something. She took one look at mom's arms and hands (I.V. was in low wrist) and turns white. I ask for "L". A wonderful lady who can draw blood from my mother and me on the first try- with little pain.

20 minutes later L comes down and does her thing- takes about 5 vials of blood and then we wait 60 more minutes for all blood results to come in.

Doc finally tells us mom is being admitted into ICU for the night. Goes to right order. We wait again.

Another 20 minutes or so and she's finally moved upstairs to ICU and I head home to fill everyone in.

Home

The Pipsqueak was upset, but okay in the long run. I was exhausted. My father went to the hospital with some of my mother's stuff that she wanted and the dog was confused.

Thank the gods for pizza delivery.