So we pick up where the last blog post left off. We arrive at the Bay Medical Center ER at about 9:20, it was quite the experience for me too!! Neither of us has ever ridden in an ambulance before. Actually my mom at age 80 has never been in the hospital before, with the exception of the birth of her four children (Tommy in Montana and the three of us girls at Bay Medical Center). So she is in the ER on the 56th anniversary of her third child's birth. We are rolled into an exam room and the process begins. She has blood drawn and urine checked and numerous questions asked. Thank goodness she has always been healthy. The ER staff is amazed that she is 80 years old and only takes one blood pressure med and a vitamin, I guess they expected the mega-list about a foot long. The doctor comes in and examines her and orders tests, after normal x-rays and blood work and after 4 hours he comes in and says he thinks she can go home and it was just a fall. The LPN stated to the doctor that he didn't think she should go that she was unable to stand or it up by herself. The doctor then decided that she should go to observation overnight and we would go from there. He said that she would be moved to observation soon. About 3 1/2 hours later she was moved to CDU/observation. At this point she has had no food or water since 8pm the previous night. We have been asking and they keep saying no in case she might need anesthesia, even though the her tests were normal. Some time in the middle of this process, while we are thinking we are waiting for a room for overnight, the ER staff changes shifts. Little did we know that our experience was going to get even worse. The "new" ER doc for the evening reviews her chart and orders a CT scan of her brain and a lumbar spine x-ray, all the while she is in alot of pain and can't hardly move. She has the tests done and we are told by the nurse that they are normal. They have instructions to get her up and out of bed, well that was a feat for two nurses and myself helping. She was unable to bear weight at all and could not sit up straight in the chair by herself. They finally bring her some food, of which she barely eats or drinks.
Just shy of rolling into our 12th hour in the ER, the nurse comes in and says that the doctor says that the tests were normal and that we need to take her home. The nurse tells that the ER doc thinks that since the tests are okay that she is just sore and stiff from falling this morning and that we should take her home and ambulate her once every hours. REALLY????? The doctor never comes in to see her for himself, he never comes and talks to us at all and he sends her home. We even asked if we could speak to him and the nurse states that his recommendation will still be the same. Actually he sends her home with Lortab and steroids and says that we need her to move around so she doesn't get stiff. At this point we are rapidly realizing that she is not going to be cared for at Bay Medical Center. She was discharged and sent home. What else was there to do??? Maybe restrospectively we should have taken her straight to GCH, maybe not, she was so exhausted that we took her home. Maybe he was right, maybe he was WRONG!
Look for the next post: things get worse instead of better!!
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