Transfusion

Greetings,

Thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and prayers. As always they are so very appreciated.

Yesterday morning before visiting hours began I called the hospital to check on my mom. I was a little startled because she sounded either tired or down, which compared to the day before seemed a little unsettling. I asked if she was ok and she informed me the doctor had just come by and informed her they were going to give her a blood tranfusion. She wasn't certain why and she was very concerned about it.

Of course one of us (dad, brother or myself) try to always be in the hospital with her in the hopes we actually get to see the doctor when they make their once a day patient rounds so we can understand what's going on and ask any questions. However, this seems to prove a very difficult task as even when we are in the room waiting all day long and they leave for two seconds to go to the restroom then magically the doctor appears, gives their report to the patient whose not too with it and then vanishes in thin air. We joked last night that they must have video cams in each patients room and strategically monitor when we are there and when we leave. Knowing time is crucial when we leave, the medical staff drops down through the ceiling, reports their findings to my mom who won't understand or maybe even remember their there due to the medications and then zip back up through the ceiling ducts as soon as a code goes off in the room to indicate the enemy/family is returning. Very frustrating for dad to say the least.

However, thank god for us we have cousin Pat with us which they don't know about who is translating all this madness to us. Due to mom coding at least 4 times in one day, possibly more, she's lost a lot of cells, which will result in tiredness. Once the hospital was able to remove all the fluids from her body including lungs they were able to treat the low blood count with a transfusion which takes normally anywhere from three to four hours.

Suffice it to say it went well and mom was released to come home last night. Now if we could possibly get dad to attend some kind of "stress management" course I think they family could get back on track. Again, cousin Pat was able to talk to him last night and encourage him to take care of himself and to let go of the things he has absolute no control over because if he didn't there was a good chance we'd find ourselves back in the hospital and it would be him we were visiting not mom.