For the past couple of months my mom has not been doing well. In mid to late November, she started feeling really weak and tired. All she did was sleep. She also lost her appetite. By Thanksgiving she has lost an incredible amount of weight in a short time. She is 5'1" and weighed 150lbs...a little overweight. But after Thanksgiving, she weighed 118lbs and lost it WAY too fast. She looked very sick and frail. So, she went to the doctor and he said she had a potassium deficiency and he put her on potassium supplements. This didn't seem to help at all.
She had trouble going out to grocery stores and the like. She could only walk for an aisle or two and then had to sit down. I once went grocery shopping with her and she could hardly handle being there...her legs were so weak and she just wanted to go home. However, a few days before Christmas, she needed to go Christmas shopping for my young 2nd cousins and she said she felt okay enough to go. Once we were there, I could tell she was not doing well. She said she had to sit down and decided to sit on one of those ledges that some stores have at the bottom of the aisles. After a while she tried to get up by herself and she kind of slipped and came down on her upper hip. She ended up getting a BIG bump and bruise on her leg. It hurt so bad that she couldn't even come over on Christmas Eve or Day and really didn't want to see anyone. Her presents are still here and our tree is still up.
She wasn't getting better, so I took her to her primary doctor and they did some X-rays, this was around early late Dec. Her doctor didn't think much of it since they didn't find anything (at least not a break of any kind), and sent her on her merry way, saying he'd let us know what they found out. We never heard anything from him.
Meanwhile, the pain in her leg was getting worse. It now hurt all the way down to her foot. So now her whole leg hurt and she could barely put pressure on it. I called her doctor and he prescribed her some Vicodin, which did no good. Since she was getting worse I called her doctor again and told him about my concerns, and he had her come in again. I really dont remember that appointment. All I remember is that we now had to borrow wheelchairs at the doctor to get her to the office, and it was raining that day and we got soaked.
I took my mom from appointment to appointment; test to test. I started to get a little better with maneuvering a wheelchair. It got to the point that one of the security guards started recognizing me. The doctor had me schedule about 2 weeks worth of tests...CT scans, labs, MRIs, etc. Each time it got harder for her, because she had to walk to my car, with someone holding her up on each side, get into the wheel chair, and then get out of the wheel chair and then get in the car. Every step for her was so painful, and every time she went out was more painful that the last time. I felt so bad for her. My mom never tells anyone when she is in pain, but this time we couldn't help but know. Every time someone even touched that leg she cried out in pain. By this time she couldn't even get out of bed (or at least barely could) and it hurt SO MUCH when I took her to her tests almost every day. I felt like I was torturing her. And each day the pain got worse. I had never seen her like this before. She's always been the healthiest person I've ever known.
The most recent doctor I took her to at that time was an Endocrinologist. This man is one of the most thorough and caring doctors I have ever met. When we were trying to get her up and out to the car, she said that she didn't want to go. I hated forcing her to go but I was told (when I made the appt.) that if she didnt take this appt., she would have to wait until May. She forgot about the appointment and we were late, but they still took us in because I explained what was going on.
She wasnt going to the Endocrinologist for her leg, she was there for the other symptoms she was feeling. The Endocrinologist told us that she had a high calcium level and low potassium level, and her kidneys were not functioning well. When the doctors assistant tried to take her blood pressure, she said it was very weak and that shed have the doctor take it. When he came in, he took it and said it was way too low. She used to have high blood pressure. She was then sent down to the lab to get blood taken for what seemed like the 10th time and had to do yet another urine sample. I think this appointment saved her life.
Around 9pm that night, the Endocrinologist called my mom's house and told her she needed to come to the hospital because her calcium levels were very high and that could be dangerous to her heart. I think she either didn't understand or didnt want to go. He asked for my phone number and she couldn't remember it and couldnt get up to find it.
The following morning, the doctors office finally found my number and contacted me. The doctor spoke to me himself and told me that he was trying to get in touch with my mom and she really didn't understand. He said he wanted her to come to his office so that he could see if he could find a bed for her in the hospital right away. He told me he was so concerned that he worried about her all night.
So we went and waited in his office so he could find her a bed. We waited for about an hour. He came in and finally told us to go the ER because he couldnt find a bed. So we went there and waited about 45 mins. Then when they called her up to do the triage, they could not get her temperature or a blood oxygen reading because she was so cold. One of the ER employees said that she could not go up to a room without getting those vitals. But they got her a bed and just said forget it, lets get her up to that bed.
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