Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Found the Source of Mom’s pain…

Wow, it’s been a month since I’ve put up a post. A crazy month indeed. I’m writing this while I wait for the home health nurse to arrive to check on mom. Mom went in the hospital over the Labor Day weekend and was in almost a week. I had taken her for her last PT visit on a Thursday. The next day she had a stomach ache and it kept getting worse. She agonized through Friday night but early Saturday morning she called my brother and said she needed to go to the ER. At the Troy Hospital, they determined that her gall bladder was enlarged and infected so she was transported to Robert Packer Hospital in Sayre. There they put a drain in her side, near her gall bladder in an attempt to drain the infection and shrink the size of the gallbladder. Her gallbladder was too large to operate on laproscopically and due to her age and heart issues, they didn’t want to do general surgery. She spent the first half of her time in the hospital sleeping 24/7 and then she started to feel better and all of the pain, she’s been having in her back and side for the last few months, has gone away. She was discharged on a Friday, going home with the drain still in her side. Linda and I were scheduled to leave on that Sunday to work two campgrounds in New York state for two weeks. I stayed behind, to take care of mom and Linda B went to NY, with the rig, to work the jobs. Mom’s drain has to be flushed twice daily, bag emptied and dressing changed. Funny how our roles have been switched. B is really the nurse (an LPN by trade) and I’m the person who does the selling for our business. Now I’m playing nurse and she’s selling for our job. That’s versatility, for sure !

Mom returns to see the surgeon on Monday and we’ll see if the drain has to stay in longer or if it can come out. They also need to determine if she has any gallstones that might be irritating her gallbladder. I’m hoping that her gallbladder will settle down and behave so she won’t need surgery. Not sure her heart is strong enough for that. Right now she is finishing up a 24 hour monitoring of her heart functions. I took her yesterday and they put a heart monitor on her and by the time I finish typing this paragraph it can come off. I then return the whole thing to the cardiologist and they will analyze the results. Hoping for good news.

Besides all of that going on, the excavation to set up an RV site is going really slow. We want to be able to park the RV here when Linda returns this weekend so that we will be close to help mom and keep an eye on her. The water line got put in yesterday but now we need the sewer and electric hooked up. The excavator worked a couple hours yesterday but hasn’t come back today. It’s hard to get anything finished when someone only works a couple hours at a time, one day a week. I just have to keep telling myself….all is well….all in due time.