It Looks Like 2010 May Be Worse Than 2009...I'm Just Guessing Here

I'm still hacking and coughing and in general miserable, but hope it will end soon. The cold department is making up for last year when I didn't have a cold.

My poor mil had to be sent to the hospital today. Her feet have been swelling and the assisted living place where she is told us about it, but they keep her busy all the time in the day room working on crafts and stuff. I'm sure she loves that crap. She never was interested in doing anything like that. So, with being in the day room doing something she no doubt hates she can't go to her room to lie down and put her feet up. The room is smallish so her recliner wouldn't fit even if we could get it away from my fil who has taken quite a shine to it. And yet the home tells us we need to do something about it.

Back to the hospital, they were concerned her foot might be broken. They were going to xray it. She is anemic and they don't know why. They admitted her to the hospital and this evening a doctor called to ask my husband a lot of questions. One being that they needed permission to give her a transfusion of packed red cells...for the anemia. The doctor went over her meds with my husband and concluded the anti anxiety meds she is now taking was the root of the problem. I'm not a doctor or nurse or any sort of professional, but I'll bet it isn't the Zanax to help her not go insane in that place that is at the heart of all this anemia, etc.

I don't understand why the hospital couldn't have gotten the medication information faxed over to the hospital from the assisted living place that charges a freakin' fortune for 3 hots and a cot, that we provide. Not the meals, but her bed..yes we had to provide it and all bedding and towels, etc.. I'm not very happy with this whole assisted living situation. Truly I don't understand what they do. There should have been someone assisting my mil to bathe and get dressed in the morning. Someone should have noticed the bruises on her arm and the swelling in her feet and the sort of black color her toes were turning. It makes me furious that they care so little. Maybe enough to let the state know about what is going on there. I'd be more credible if I'd spent more time with her, but I've had a cold for nearly two weeks out of the 4 weeks they have been there. We can't go by there if we have a cold. I'd really hate to X out one of the elderly with my cold. The service we have been using to check her coumadin levels had come by to to check on her and that was way out of whack, too, and I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking it wasn't caused by Zanax, either. We have been involved with Integracare since my mil had a blood clot in her leg about 18 months ago or so and has been taking coumadin. They have been very careful and attentive to both my father in law and mother in law, in opposition to the place where they are now. We had to move my husband's parents from their home to somewhere else because it was very hazardous for them to be living on their own at the ages of 91 and 92. I guess it is pretty hazardous to be in this assisted living place, too.

I cared for my dad 13 years while he was in a nursing home after he had a stroke until he died. So I'm not a novice at these places. I guess the difference between the places was that he had to have skilled nursing and this place is far from being like that. He had some hard times, but was flexible enough to manage to stay on the good side of everyone, and then we would move him if it seemed things weren't just right. All the nurses loved him. I never saw a bruise on him that I didn't know about. The place is required by law to notify a family member when something happens. Being the one to notify passed between me and my half sister when one or the other of us couldn't take it any longer. He could be a handful at times.

My husband is nearly well from "the cold" and I think it would be wise if he spent a good bit of time visiting down there to see how they treat them and making unannounced visits, too. Bless her heart she can't remember anything for 2 minutes to be able to tell one of us if anyone was being unkind to her. The same goes for my fil. There will be a reckoning when I'm feeling better and am no longer contagious. I want to know why the person charged with caring for her did not notify anyone of how bad her foot was getting or how she got the bruises on her arm and why her coumadin levels weren't being checked for starters.

I called my daughter this afternoon when all this was going on and she had just been notified one of her employees had died last night. She was my daughter's age and my daughter was very upset by this woman's death.

It hasn't been a good day today...and it is now Sunday in Texas.