I'm tired today.
Yesterday was a tense day, after a call in the morning that my mother had been taken to the hospital with a suspected heart attack. Good news later, no heart attack, "just" atrial fibrillation(that her meds didn't take care of) and she was staying in overnight, much to her disgust.
Within an hour of the first call, my shoulder and neck tightened up to the point where I couldn't turn my head. Those muscles are always tight anyway, due to my fibromyalgia, and I guess I exceeded my tension limit. A Flexiril helped some and I made it off to work, after talking to Grandma once she was settled in a room.
My father just turned 75, and my mother will be 75 at the end of April. They do fine on their own, now that we have convinced them they shouldn't go up on the shed roof to fix it anymore. I kid you not. They were up there a few years ago.
My mother has osteoporosis, COPD and fibro, and my dad has had several strokes, leaving him with no peripheral vision. He can see out the bottom of one eye, and the top of the other, and Ma says that she probably should start doing the driving! Gee, ya think?
Ma hates to make a fuss. So, when she woke up with the heart fluttering, and a pain, she took her pills as directed, and waited. The fluttering stopped but the pain was still there. So, they call my sister, who lives next door(and is a CNA) to see if she thinks they should go to the hospital. Of course, she says yes, and asks if they want her to drive them? Because you don't call 911, if you're not sure you might be dying! I think the only time 911 was called was when Ma tripped over the dog, and broke her hip. And that was only because she couldn't get up herself.
No, Grandpa Bob will drive, he of the segmented vision, and he waits while Ma takes a quick shower. They make the half hour trip and find the ER empty so got looked at right away. I wonder if it had been crowded, would they have sat quietly until it was their turn, instead of saying hey,possible heart attack here!
My three sisters live in R.I. and they are great at letting us know when something like this happens. #5 called me in the morning, #4 (the CNA) called in the afternoon to let me know Ma was in her room,etc, and #3(who is an RN) wrote an update that night for the family email list. {Just for completeness, my brother is # 2, in Texas and I am the oldest}.
My father naturally has other things on his mind, but also feels that he will update us when he gets home, after an incident is all over. However, he also writes a daily email and if that's missing we know something's up. We usually give him until noon, assuming an appointment of some sort delayed him, but if we don't get anything then, one of my sisters gets a call. If it's computer trouble, then a sister will send an email to everyone letting us know he's offline.
The dogs are reminding me it's time for their walk, so I better get going.
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