Since this will be REALLY long, I'm going to break it up into several parts…
It was Monday morning, January 15, 2007. I woke up feeling really nauseous. For those of you who regularly read my blog, you'll remember that my mom has a compression fracture in her lower back which has caused her a lot of pain in the past. Recently, her pain pills have stopped working and her doctor prescribed her a Duragesic pain patch containing Fentynl. She started wearing it on the afternoon of Saturday, January 13th. She seemed just fine. On Sunday night, she started to feel somewhat nauseous, and the area around the patch was starting to itch. The nausea is a typical side effect of the patch so we weren't too worried, but the itching it something to look out for.
Monday morning she was feeling even worse. Her caregiver came over and gave her some breakfast but she wasn't very hungry so she didn't eat very much. Soon after eating, she had diarrhea (sorry, I know that's yucky). About two hours later, around 10pm, her caregiver called and told me that my mom was very lethargic, just feeling awful and went between going to the bathroom and sleeping. She said that she called my mom's doctor and they were waiting to hear back. I wasn't sure what to do. Stay home and wait to hear back or go over. I wanted to be there, but at the same time I wanted to be here and wait for news. I told her caregiver I wanted to be there and she said, "It's okay, I'll take good care of her." So I stupidly stayed here in my PJ's for too long and then finally decided to go over.
By the time I got there, the caregiver was gone and her neighbor had come over. Her neighbor also wears those patches but has never had that kind of reaction. My mom was now VOMITING and having diarrhea. With my emet I was very nervous about the vomiting and felt very nauseous. She was still very lethargic and getting very weak and dehydrated. I had to run out of the room every time she threw up. She couldn't even get up and had to use a waste basket lined with a plastic bag. She was vomiting about every 15 to 20 minutes for almost 2 hours. Even though I was out of the room, I could still hear hear vomiting.
We STILL had not heard from the doctor and it was now 1:30pm, about 2 hours later. So I called again. Nothing. Called again 2 hours later. TWO HOURS LATER. My mom was in and out of sleep. She woke up long enough to throw up and then went back to sleep. Finally got the call back. "Oh, we tried to call but it was busy." WTF? THEN TRY AGAIN UNTIL YOU GET AN ANSWER!!! THE CALL WAS MARKED URGENT IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! So I get the receptionist and she can't get in touch with the nurse to save her life. I was on the phone with her for at least 20 minutes and she finally told me her "protocol" due to my mom's symptoms was to have her go to the ER. With all of my mom's vomiting and diarrhea, there was no way I could drive her in my car, so I called an ambulance.
When the ambulance came, the nurse called back at the same time. She told me the doctor didn't think it was the patch, but some GI problem that she saw on a recent abdominal scan. She said it was a good idea to call the ER because my mom kept getting so sick, but she kind of hinted that it wasn't totally necessary. I asked why she would get this reaction after just starting the patch and she said the symptoms didn't sound like they were from the patch. I kinda grilled her on that, but it was hard as I was trying to talk to the paramedics and her at the same time. This was ridiculous. I was not buying the "It was not the patch" crap. I finally got off the phone with the nurse and told the paramedic what she said. A female paramedic said, "That could be true, there's a nasty Norovirus going around. I think that took about 5 more years off of my life, add that to the 5 that was taken off from my mom's vomiting.
I was told that all ERs were full so we might not get the ER in which she normally goes to. And boy we didn't. We got one 30 mins. away. in another town with which I wasn't familiar. I got Jeff to leave work early and drive down with me. By the time we got there, my mom was already there. She was getting IV saline, but nothing for her vomiting or nausea. She had blood and urine tests and waited and waited as per usual in an ER. Eventually the doctor came in and asked the same questions I'd answered about 100 times and gave her something for the nausea.
Most interesting ER I've been in. Next to us was drunk guy, .14 blood alcohol level, who was riding a bike and got hit by a truck. He split his skull and his condition was actually life-threatening, but he was sitting there talking, wanting to go. The doctor said if he went, he would be arrested for public drunkenness, and might even die because blood could start bleeding into his brain. They wanted to transfer him to another hospital where he could be watched by a neurologist. He just kept wanting to leave and he kept getting the same, leave and get arrested and die, or go to the other hospital for help. There were also four policemen there who did less than the doctor. The doctor was the one who did the job of those cops! They just hung out and chatted it up with the staff.
I have been to the ER at least if not more than 10 times in the past year with my mom being sick so often. This next occurrence was the most horrible I've ever "witnessed." The staff had to clear a room because they had a code coming in. I heard them bring her in…45-year-old woman, but I wasn't sure why she was coding. One staff member came by and closed everyone's curtains. I heard them working on her, giving her epinephrine, calling out her blood pressure, using the electric paddles, more epi, everything they use to get your heart started. I never once heard her heart monitor beep, just flatlined. Then I didn't hear it at all. I didn't hear anything at all. Then I could have sworn I heard one of the doctors say something about stopping and calling out the time of death. They were a few curtains down so I had to really strain to listen.
About ten minutes later, I heard the doctor tell a staff member to notify the family. Fifteen to twenty minutes later, he said they were in the triage area and they were a really nice family. He told whoever was going out to talk to them to be really sensitive with them, to tell them that the doctors did they best they could, etc. It was surreal. But it was REAL. It was one of the most heartbreaking moments in my life. I had tears streaming down my face. I WAS IN THE ER.
A while later, I went out to talk to Jeff for a few minutes about my mom, and a woman came running into the lobby, telling the doctor who luckily was in the reception area that her husband had collapsed in the parking lot. She said her husband didn't get a chance to say "goodbye" (he didn't want to see whoever the person who died was to him) and he just collapsed. The doctor went out to the parking lot. I later heard when I was back with my mom that he was okay.
I went back in to be with my mom. She was still having dry heaves but was mostly asleep. The doctor came in with her test results and said that he couldn't find anything wrong with her. He told me that he thought she just had a REALLY bad case of a stomach virus. I asked him about the patch (which I told them about when I got there). I said that it couldn't just be a coincidence that just when she started the patch for the first time, she gets all the same side effects listed but gets them worse than she should. He said yeah, it could just be a coincidence. I kept pushing him on that but no, it's not the patch, it's not the patch, and she's okay to go home. She said she felt ready to go home and if she says she does, there's nothing I can do about it.
Then she started having diarrhea. I was not happy they were letting her go. I mean don't get me wrong, sitting there for 6 hours was not fun, but she was NOT ready. I went out to tell Jeff. He was like, and she just WHAT??? I told him she had the say since she was coherent and there was nothing I could do. So I went back in and she had thrown up all over herself. There was stuff on her gown. I'm sure you can figure I went into panic mode inside. I asked my mom if she still felt ready to go and she said no. So out I go running to Jeff. By this time I think I was pissing off the woman who had to keep letting me in and out of the patient area.
I went back in I told one of the staff that she said she wasn't ready, but they discharged her anyway because they were already in process. When the nurse came in with her instructions, I started crying. I wasn't ready to take her home. She needed someone there to care for her and I wasn't going to be able to. It was really late at night. What was I going to do? I started crying, and they called Jeff in. So we brought her home. She was miserable. On a side note, during one of the times I was out talking to Jeff, another family of three were all in a big hug huddle crying…I THINK they were the family of DUI bicycle man, and at one point I suddenly noticed he was gone. How odd. Out of the blue I just realized he was gone. I'm PRETTY sure he must have gotten transferred, because my mom said she didn't remember any commotion next door. He was replaced by someone who "just wanted to go to sleep." So I guess she OD'd on something but said she didn't want to kill herself.
So off we went. I didn't know what we were going to do. The nurse said my mom needed someone there with her to take care of her, because she was too weak to take care of herself. She needed someone to make sure she was drinking water, someone to help take her to the bathroom, etc. And my dad was not up for that. After whining and crying, I agreed to stay overnight, on my parents' couch. This was SO HARD for me. First time away from "home" in eight years, and being there to wait for my mom to vomit. I did not sleep well. I was afraid not just of that, but what if something bad happened to her. And of course selfishly, my biggest fear, "WAS I GOING TO CATCH THE STOMACH VIRUS AND THROW UP???"
Every time I heard something, I'd run to her room, "Mom, are you okay?" The first time she was awake and said, "No, I just moved." Several times when I heard her, I went in there and she was just moaning in her sleep. One time though…oh no. She had to go the bathroom and had bad diarrhea. I won't go into details. Luckily, my dad was there to help because he heard her too and woke up. I didn't sleep very well through the rest of the night and was exhausted when I woke up in the morning. I felt like a mother staying taking care of a sick child. So is that what it's like taking care of a sick child? My poor mom. That's all I could think of all night…poor mommy.
Stay tuned…
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