Tag: Emergency room

Scream

That sound you’ve been hearing off in the distance since about 2:00am is just me screaming in fear and frustration and uselessness and incompetence and all sorts of things like that.

You know how things get at 2:00am.

Busy Monday

It’s been a busy morning. I’m wrapping up lunch right now and I feel like I haven’t had a minute to get my head straight today. I also had like five typos in the previous two sentences. What’s up, Robert?

I’m tired today. I didn’t fall asleep until almost 1:30am. I was then awake at around 7:00am, which is much later than I had hoped. Oh well. I’ll make it through the day and hopefully get to bed early tonight. Maybe. Who knows.

This weekend was busy as well. I spent most of Friday out of work on sick time so that I could stay in the ER with my father. He had massive back pain come up out of nowhere on Thursday. My brother took him to the ER where they waited for nine hours before seeing a doctor. The hospital was 100% full so they couldn’t admit him for the night. He ended up staying in an ER room. I relieved my brother at around 7:00am after his heroic night without sleep. Dad’s pain seemed to fix itself somehow and he was discharged in the mid-afternoon. I got home around 5:00pm or so. Maybe a smidge earlier than that.

From there the weekend of home improvement kicked off. Jen and I made about 650 trips to various Home Depot and Lowes locations. We installed a new cabinet in the kitchen, thanks to huge help from Jen’s step father, Sherman. I installed a wire pull out shelf system which almost killed me. Sherman helped me fix a small issue I was having, and then he installed a counter top onto the new cabinet. It looked great. Jen and I did the finishing work and then started rearranging things in the kitchen. We got some new cookware and saved off the old stuff for when a certain college student graduates and potentially needs a kitchen of her own at some point over the summer.

We were actually thinking about adding three cabinets and a great big pantry and a set of four shelves, but we scrapped all of that as possible overkill. Outside of home improvement, I was only able to get to my mother once. She had a brief moment of awareness when I got there. She asked me to get her a drink. That doesn’t sound like much, but compared to how she normally acts when I am there, that little interaction was huge. A nurse brought her some ice cream too and she devoured it. Normally getting her to eat is a struggle. Not then. She dug in and went after it. It was literally heart warming.

Other than that, there was just a lot of together time with me and my love, Jen. There was a lot of television watched, too much. The Walking Dead and House of the Dragon and Rings of Power are all up to date. Tonight I will go grocery shopping. Tomorrow I have a doctors appointment in the morning. Wednesday we have tons of television to watch. Good stuff.

For now though, lunch is over. Back to work, Robert.

Happy Monday

Happy Monday, everyone (he said sarcastically).

Last night got strange. There was a small health issue that we all knew was nothing, but on the day after the vaccine it might have been something so we went to the ER and had them tell us it was nothing. The zaniest thing about the ER trip is that we got there at 10:00 and left at 12:00. Two hours? That’s it? Amazing!

So I was late getting to bed last night. I was probably going to be late anyway, thanks to television. I was sitting in bed watching The Walking Dead on my iPad when we decided to go. Live TV, babie! I was planning on watching the episode and then trying to sneak in House of the Dragon before I fell asleep. I am pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen. I was still seriously beat on post-vaccine day. I was going to try it though. Instead, I went to sleep a little before 1:00am and woke up a little before 7:00. My SleepWatch numbers were good. I feel so much better today. The only post-vaccine symptom left is a very sore left arm. That’ll clear soon enough.

So I watched last night’s The Walking Dead while doing my walkies (38 minutes, 3.22 miles [simulated], 609 calories). The episode was pretty good. The stuff with Daryl and Judith was excellent. Look at me getting all emotional about the parenting stuff. Who woulda thunk it? The wrestling stuff though… what the fuck, Angela. It was bad when Fear the Walking Dead had a wrestling episode, but the main show? It was just friggin’ embarrassing. It was probably about one minute long but it felt like two hours. Just stop.

House of the Dragon (aka Hot D) will have to wait until tonight. I thought I had a doctors appointment this week, on October 12, but it’s actually next week on the 18th. October 12th is Bruins opening day. Another thing that will wait until later tonight is the finalization of the Bruins opening day roster. They waived three veterans yesterday. Will they be picked up today? Will they be sent down to Providence? Will they be cut completely? Will they remain with the team? Who the hell knows.

In past years, today would have been a day off work for me. Columbus Day, aka whatever people are calling the day instead of Columbus Day because Columbus was a pretty atrocious person who really shouldn’t be celebrated, especially since his great discovery was the result of him being a bit of an idiot. At the start of 2022 our holiday structure was altered to change non-national holidays, like today, into floating holidays. So I don’t have today off, but I can take a day off later in its place. Jen is off today though. I should have put in for today so that we could spend the day together. Three day weekends kinda rule. I think I need to use two days this month again to stop my personal time off accrual from maxing out, again. We’ll see.

There you go, folks. That’s my Monday morning. Happy Monday.

I’m Still Alive, Mostly

Wow. Yesterday sucked. I’m not going to recap any of the details pertaining to my mother’s day in the hospital, but I will give a quick recap of my own day.

My SleepWatch app tells me that I woke up at 5:55am on Tuesday morning. Pretty normal. I did a full day’s work, I had dinner with the love of my life, we made some good progress in our How I Met Your Mother binge-fest, we turned in for the night but I didn’t go to sleep. Instead I watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 as part of my fun, very time consuming marvel rewatch. The movie finished a little before midnight, which was dumb. I should have gone to sleep earlier and finished the movie the next day. I didn’t though.

I sat up in bed for a little while longer and I think I may have nodded off a little around 12:30. I woke up quick though because my phone rang. My sister let me know that my mother was going to the ER and she asked if I could meet her there. I got dressed, filled up my water bottle, grabbed a charger and some ear buds and off I went.

20 minutes later I was in my mother’s room in the ER, and there I stayed. She slept through the night but I stayed up because I didn’t want her to wake up alone. I watched episode two of MoonKnight on my phone and started watching Avengers Age of Ultron, but my brain was getting fuzzy at that point and I stopped. I acknowledge the clock passing 5:55am, meaning I had been awake for 24 hours (minus the maybe two minutes before the phone rang) and then I leaned my head against the wall and tried to doze. I think I was successful, but only for a few minutes. 10 minutes tops.

My mother woke up around 9:00am and I was very busy for a few hours. Very busy. She fell asleep again by noon and I had a couple of hours to rest. I tried to nap again but if I was able to fall asleep it was only for a few minutes. When my mother woke up I was once again very busy for a few hours. They discharged her at around 4:30pm. I was very worried that I would have to drive her home without having slept for over 32 hours. Fortunately the hospital offered us a wheelchair van to take her home. I was very happy to accept. I didn’t mind driving myself, but I was really nervous about driving her.

I went to my parents’ building to help get the wheelchair downstairs to their room. I then filled everyone in on what my brain was still able to process and then I went home. I walked in the door just before 6:00pm. Jen and I had dinner together and went down cellar to check out the new paint job. We went to bed a little after 8:00pm. I don’t think Jen was ready for bed at all, but she was nice enough to sit up with me. She’s amazing, you know. I tried to watch episode three of MoonKnight but I only got a few minutes into it before I gave up and went to sleep. SleepWatch tells me I was asleep at 8:25pm. The sleep-free streak was 38.5 hours, minus the few minutes I grabbed here and there. My watch didn’t register any of the time I thought I might have been asleep, so maybe I dozed and maybe I didn’t. I tried, but maybe I was just sitting there with my eyes closed for longer than I realized. Who knows.

38.5 hours without sleep. Yeah… that was rough, but I made it through and lived to tell the tale via a blog post that will live forever in the wilds of the internet. Or something like that.

Still in the ER.

It’s been almost 31 hours since I was last asleep in my bed. I’ve managed a couple of quick cat naps along the way. You know what? Let’s call them Power Naps.

It’s looking like my mother will be going home today with a sling on her arm. For a while there they were talking about admitting her but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Here’s hoping this wraps up soon with her safe at home and me safe at home taking another Power Nap.

What a day, right?

Send Some Happy Thoughts

It’s 2:15am, why am I still awake, you ask?

My mother had a fall tonight and she’s in the ER. I’m here with her. She seems to be okay. In fact she’s been sound asleep for a little over an hour.

They want to take some images to make sure she’s okay, but things are moving very slowly around here.

If you have some happy thoughts to spare this morning, feel free to send some my mom’s way. I would be very appreciative.

Another Request for Happy Thoughts

I think this is the third time in two weeks that I have had to ask for this, but if you’re finding you have some cosmic positivity lying around that you can spare, could you send some my mother’s way today? She’s in the hospital right now. This one isn’t directly related to the last two trips, but maybe it is. I don’t know.

I’m a little late to the happy thoughts request this time. She got to the hospital while I was on the road to work and it sounds like they are already prepping her for discharge. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong this time, which is great, but it’s still really scary. Every little bit helps, right?

Thanks, internet people. It’s appreciated.

Need More Help

Remember a few days ago when I said my mother could use a little positive energy and I asked you to send any get well vibes you could spare in her direction?

I need to ask again.

I don’t have any details yet. My gut, which has no medical training beyond knowing how to apply a band-aid, tells me that it might be something with medications interacting in a weird way. Here’s hoping.

Do what you can, oh internet/universe. I appreciate the help.

Back in the ER

I just got word. My father is back in the ER. The never ending hospital stay ramps up for round three.

I feel like the whole family is just beaten down. It’s not even my ass in the hospital bed. I can’t imagine how my father feels right now.

It’s just overwhelming and heart breaking and I want my family back.