A day in the ER

My day began yesterday at 5 am, getting Kassie up for Seminary. At 6:15 am the phone rang. It was my father. His first words were, "Mother isn't good." He had been up all night with her, and now he had to go to work. Mom was in more pain that usual, had to drink every 10 minutes, up moving from one chair to another, from one room to the next, lay down, stand up, sit down, etc. She was trying to find some relief from the excruciating pain in her lower back and hip. She was also delusional through the night, talking about loaves of bread. Dad didn't want to leave her home alone while he did his morning run with his job driving a school van for special needs children.

Dale offered to stay home to get the kids off to school before going to work. I changed out of my exercise clothes, grabbed Kaden and headed to Gettysburg. When I arrived Mom was in bed reaching for Dad to get her up. She had only been there a few minutes. Dad said, "This has been all night, up and down, up and down." I jokingly said to Mom, "Your nurse is here!" I don't recall her reply, only that her speech was slurred and I knew she wasn't good. Tears came as I told Dad, "I think she's had another stroke. We need to get her to the hospital!" Dad just had her there last evening because she was bleeding from her right ear. They cleaned her ear and sent her home!! Well, she needed to go back! They said she ruptured her ear drum. She recently had bronchitis and a sinus infection. Her condition was now worse. The pain was intense, she could barely walk, slurred speech. She has worse things going on than a busted ear drum!

Dad went to work. He would be back by 9:30 am, at which time we would take her to the ER. It took me the nearly two hours that he was gone to get her something to eat, have her take her meds, blood tested, insulin shot (she has diabetes), cleaned up, dressed and hair done. As I hooked my mother's bra, buttoned her dress and pulled up her knee high nylons I thought how the tables have turned. Forty couple years ago, she was the one dressing me. Now I was the one pulling up her panties, helping her into a slip and doing her hair.

There were times yesterday morning when I stood her up to walk and her legs just wouldn't go. We stood there for minutes waiting for her feet to receive the message from the brain that she wanted them to move! Basically, she couldn't walk. I called in the big muscle, my nephew Ridge, to come help move her around. If Dad was going to be still insistent on taking her to the ER himself, we would need Ridge to help get her there! When Dad got home, she was worse. There was no way we were getting her to the hospital ourselves. Brenda (my SIL) was at the house now too, and she and I convinced Dad to call 911.

We followed the ambulance to the hospital. For more than SEVEN HOURS Kaden and I stood by Mom's side in her little ER cubical. Dad was there a short time in the beginning, but had to finish his school van run. Brenda was with me the whole time with the exception of about an hour. She should graduate this May with a degree in nursing and was missing a day of clinicals to be with Mom. She had to go home to make phone calls in regards to that. Mom and I joked -- we spent all that time getting her dressed and hair done only to have them take it all off and remove the pins from her hair!

We spent the day adjusting Mom's pillows, shifting her back up in the bed -- using the sheets to pull her body back up after she would slide down, moving the bed to bring her head up and down, helping her to drink, etc. We were trying anything to bring comfort, to ease the pain. Mom has a seemingly endless list of medical problems, one of them being she is allergic to most pain medications. It took nearly seven hours for the hospital to be able to give her something for the pain, something that would at least take her pain level down from an 11 to a 10, (on a scale from 1 to 10!!) She had been given something soon after arrival, but it never phased her. Throughout the day she winced and clinched her fists due to the pain.

Also, after nearly seven hours and numerous tests we had a diagnosis -- Sepsis. Mom has a severe infection throughout her body, and her diabetes only makes matters worse. They will need to transfer her to Hershey Medical or York, problem is, neither has a bed for her! At 5:30 pm they moved her to critical care. She's there until a bed opens, probably at York Hospital. She was now in a decent bed, still in pain, but much more comfortable, able to rest. By 6 pm, many of us were there with her -- Dad, Mike, Dave, Brenda, Brooke, Tim, Dale, myself and Kaden.

Dale, Kaden and I left just after 7 pm. I hadn't eaten in more than 30 hours. (Never had supper the night before due to time restraints and anxiety over a Wednesday night church program that I was in charge of.) On the way home I became aware of my headache and hunger. After being gone all day, you can imagine the mess I arrived home to! The older six kids had been on their own since arriving home from school. Now there was homework to finish, laundry to do and a house to clean. I did the bare minimum. It's now after 3 am. I was in bed by 10 pm, up at 1:15 am -- I can't sleep, but I hope Mom is. Kassie needs woken up at 5 am, and a new day will begin. Not sure what I'll do today. I'm sure I can't have Kaden with me in critical care like I did in the ER. Maybe I'll try to catch a few Z's. Please pray for my mother -- Barbara Wagner.