Sudden Trip to the ER
Today was supposed to be Ingrid's big family dinner at Guadalajara Mexican food restaurant. Grandma called me at about 4:15 to tell me that she wasn't going to go because she felt dizzy. She had tripped, fallen and hit the back of her head. OMFG!! I went into emergency mode instantly and headed over there.
I made her call the advice nurse at Kaiser first. Naturally Grandma fell more than an hour ago so she waited to tell me. _~_ Better yet she didn't trip she passed out. She has been feeling dizzy for a couple days now and it got the better of her in one moment. She hit the back of her head on the arm of her rocking chair and couldn't find her glasses to see anything.
I got there and her glasses were by the front door. She must have really fallen. She called the advice nurse and they said that because she is on blood thinners she needs to go to the hospital right away because a head injury like that could be bleeding internally and the thinners would make it worse.
So we gathered up her things (she wanted to take the clothes off the line first!! O_o… I told her no). We grabbed her overnight bag and headed out after I locked up the house. I could have called the ambulance, but I wanted to save grandma money and she was fine riding with me. In retrospect the savings of not calling them didn't out weigh the time spent in the waiting room because of it. -_- We got there and I had her get out by the entrance and sit down in a wheel chair while I parked the car. Thankfully there was a spot open in front and I didn't have to leave her for long.
We got in and it looked relatively empty. It still took forever! They checked her in right away but didn't call her back for more than 30 minutes. Even then it was only to Triage and they took nearly the same information (with a few extra questions) and then put us back in the lobby! I got to listen to more than an hour of Cash Cab (which I don't care about). -_- Grandma seemed to be doing ok but was getting woozy at times. I was getting hungry and got a snack of cheese and a pepperoni stick from the vending machine. (Suddenly now it seems like I should have gotten grandma something but she didn't ask and I didn't think she was hungry at the time. I work on being calm in these situations but some how I still miss important things. -_-)
While waiting I called Ingrid to tell her we weren't going to make it to dinner. I called Karen to tell her what was going on and Bo to tell him that dinner was cancelled and to have him bring me my laptop. Ingrid was fine with canceling dinner and the others were glad I called.
They finally got us in at 5:30 and put us in a room. By this time the ER had filled to capacity and beyond. They were backed up in Cat Scanns and X-Ray so we had to wait. I am glad I had the laptop because I knew it would be a LONG night at that point. I tried to find her channel 8 to watch while she was waiting (her favorite channel). The hospital has like 100 channels to choose from but you can't just type in the number. You have to, slowly, dial down from 67 to 8. -_- By the time I got there she only had a few minutes to watch before they came to get her for the Cat Scan. Too bad that it was all a tribute to Michael Jackson. _~_ I tried channel 6 too with a little better luck but still nothing to watch. When she left for her scan I found the guide channel and slowly made my way back to the History channel on 50. But she was gone so I just turned it back off and never turned it on again.
I spent the next few hours watching her heart rate Brady (slow) and Tach (rise) on a roller coaster ride. She would be fine for a few minutes then drop to 50, jump to 115 and drop back down to 60 where she would level out for a while. I was a little worried when she dipped to 35 at one point but she came back up quickly. Because of the constant up and down they couldn't give her any meds…, which is probably for the best. I did get a little disturbed when they hooked her up to an AED. Thankfully it wasn't an automatic one. I think I would have gone nuts if it shocked her while I was sitting right there. That was a little too much to handle.
I spent most of the time online doing what I could. Thankfully Kari was online and talked with me via Gaia chat for a few hours. Sorry I didn't call you back Kari but it was so late when I got out and they said I didn't need to head down there with her. Thank you again for the offer of a couch to crash on.
So for those on Facebook that noticed a jump in You Tube postings that's what was going on. The stupid hospital blocks Facebook and My Space for potential bad content but You Tube is fine. _~_ The hours ticked by and I moved from You Tube to going through Icanhazcheezeburger.com. I was going to go through Dell Tech support to work on my laptop again but didn't want to fight with a support tech while in the hospital. -_-
So a number of people were in and out of the room while grandma was there. Most were nurses checking her rhythm, one was the ER doctor. The doctor came in to talk with me some time around 9pm that they were going to have to move her to another facility, probably in Sunnyside Oregon. The problems with her heard were possible symptoms of a condition that might require a pacemaker. Better yet they don't have the money due to budget cuts to employ a cardiologist on the weekends so they had to send her to a place that has one. This is where I was getting a little worried. I didn't know if they wanted me to drive to Sunnyside that night or if they would bring her back or what was going on.
Eventually they got the ok to send her off to Sunnyside. The doctor was busy with a full ER and hadn't fully explained that she was definitely going, how I was supposed to get there (directions), what and when they might feed her (she still hadn't eaten). Around 10 pm the ambulance showed up to take her to Sunnyside. I got her overnight bag and made sure she was all ready to go. Grandma told me there was some paperwork up front for me and the directions were on my purse.
I saw her off and made sure she had everything. I promised to feed her cats and look after the place (as I always do). I got the name of the place she was going to and gave them my contact number for when she needed to be picked up.
I then headed up front to see what the paper work was they needed me to sign or look at. The lady at the front desk didn't have anything and was confused as to why I would be sent up front. I don't know the nurses and had already been there for 5.5 hours and wasn't in the mood for running back and forth. She kept telling me to go back to the room and I kept telling her that my grandma was already gone so no doctors were going to be there. _~_
Finally the lady directed me to the Nurses station in the area to find the doctor. I wanted to see about this paper work and catch up on the CT scan and X-ray which I didn't remember hearing the results of. I was told to ask for a nurse named Heather. So I find the desk (which is in a number of sections) and found a nurse and asked for Heather. The nurse tried to direct me to D-2 the room where my grandma was. I explained that I was looking for Heather and that D-2 was already cleared. It took a bit but she finally caught on to what I was looking for and directed me to Heather who was two seats away. _~_
Heather…was not a nice person and I could have done without talking to her. I asked her to find the doctor and she just kept telling be that the doctor wasn't going to tell me any of the information I wanted because of patient confidentiality. O_O He had been talking to me all night but WHATEVER! So I am dead tired and hungry and lazily looking around while waiting for the doctor and half fighting with this nurse. My eyes wandered up to the GIGANTIC (about a 52 " widescreen TV) screen directly to my left with (apparently) patient information on it. I only wondered if the room still said Linderholm on it and it only took me two seconds to located see that it was labeled dirty. The nurse saw me looking at the (again GIAGANTIC) screen and yelled at me for it saying it was patient confidentiality. O_o OMFG!! Anyway… I just told her I wasn't looking I was tired and my eyes were wandering around. I did think it was a pretty cool system for keeping all the rooms organized (in a spreadsheet like manor). I was too tired to care who else might be on there.
Thankfully the doctor came shortly after that and explained that all the tests done at the hospital came back fine. I thanked him for taking the time to come back and talk with me and then left without giving Heather another glance. From there I was just relieved to be leaving but worried about Grandma. I dragged myself out of the hospital and nearly hit a little girl who was playing near one of the big swinging doors (because I couldn't see her on the other side!).
I got in my car and headed for home. I got about half way there and realized that I still needed to feed the cats. So I turned around and went back to grandma's. I tried to feed them and got the momma kitty in but Muffy decided he didn't want to come inside. I spent about 15 minutes trying to coax him in and ended up accidentally letting the momma kitty out too. By then I was worried about them but too tired to stay so I gave up. They will be fine overnight outside. The raccoons will keep them safe. _~_ Muffy's a fighter anyway.
I got home around 10:30 and wanted to go to Burger King because it was close and cheap. Tyler, however, was too busy talking with his girlfriend and wouldn't relinquish the computer. -_- He didn't get off until 10:50 and it was too late by then. So we headed to Sharri's instead. I don't like Sharri's food but it was all that was open 24 hrs besides McDs which I don't like. We had dinner and Bo drove us home where I promptly went to bed.
I will know more tomorrow about grandma and update people accordingly.
I made her call the advice nurse at Kaiser first. Naturally Grandma fell more than an hour ago so she waited to tell me. _~_ Better yet she didn't trip she passed out. She has been feeling dizzy for a couple days now and it got the better of her in one moment. She hit the back of her head on the arm of her rocking chair and couldn't find her glasses to see anything.
I got there and her glasses were by the front door. She must have really fallen. She called the advice nurse and they said that because she is on blood thinners she needs to go to the hospital right away because a head injury like that could be bleeding internally and the thinners would make it worse.
So we gathered up her things (she wanted to take the clothes off the line first!! O_o… I told her no). We grabbed her overnight bag and headed out after I locked up the house. I could have called the ambulance, but I wanted to save grandma money and she was fine riding with me. In retrospect the savings of not calling them didn't out weigh the time spent in the waiting room because of it. -_- We got there and I had her get out by the entrance and sit down in a wheel chair while I parked the car. Thankfully there was a spot open in front and I didn't have to leave her for long.
We got in and it looked relatively empty. It still took forever! They checked her in right away but didn't call her back for more than 30 minutes. Even then it was only to Triage and they took nearly the same information (with a few extra questions) and then put us back in the lobby! I got to listen to more than an hour of Cash Cab (which I don't care about). -_- Grandma seemed to be doing ok but was getting woozy at times. I was getting hungry and got a snack of cheese and a pepperoni stick from the vending machine. (Suddenly now it seems like I should have gotten grandma something but she didn't ask and I didn't think she was hungry at the time. I work on being calm in these situations but some how I still miss important things. -_-)
While waiting I called Ingrid to tell her we weren't going to make it to dinner. I called Karen to tell her what was going on and Bo to tell him that dinner was cancelled and to have him bring me my laptop. Ingrid was fine with canceling dinner and the others were glad I called.
They finally got us in at 5:30 and put us in a room. By this time the ER had filled to capacity and beyond. They were backed up in Cat Scanns and X-Ray so we had to wait. I am glad I had the laptop because I knew it would be a LONG night at that point. I tried to find her channel 8 to watch while she was waiting (her favorite channel). The hospital has like 100 channels to choose from but you can't just type in the number. You have to, slowly, dial down from 67 to 8. -_- By the time I got there she only had a few minutes to watch before they came to get her for the Cat Scan. Too bad that it was all a tribute to Michael Jackson. _~_ I tried channel 6 too with a little better luck but still nothing to watch. When she left for her scan I found the guide channel and slowly made my way back to the History channel on 50. But she was gone so I just turned it back off and never turned it on again.
I spent the next few hours watching her heart rate Brady (slow) and Tach (rise) on a roller coaster ride. She would be fine for a few minutes then drop to 50, jump to 115 and drop back down to 60 where she would level out for a while. I was a little worried when she dipped to 35 at one point but she came back up quickly. Because of the constant up and down they couldn't give her any meds…, which is probably for the best. I did get a little disturbed when they hooked her up to an AED. Thankfully it wasn't an automatic one. I think I would have gone nuts if it shocked her while I was sitting right there. That was a little too much to handle.
I spent most of the time online doing what I could. Thankfully Kari was online and talked with me via Gaia chat for a few hours. Sorry I didn't call you back Kari but it was so late when I got out and they said I didn't need to head down there with her. Thank you again for the offer of a couch to crash on.
So for those on Facebook that noticed a jump in You Tube postings that's what was going on. The stupid hospital blocks Facebook and My Space for potential bad content but You Tube is fine. _~_ The hours ticked by and I moved from You Tube to going through Icanhazcheezeburger.com. I was going to go through Dell Tech support to work on my laptop again but didn't want to fight with a support tech while in the hospital. -_-
So a number of people were in and out of the room while grandma was there. Most were nurses checking her rhythm, one was the ER doctor. The doctor came in to talk with me some time around 9pm that they were going to have to move her to another facility, probably in Sunnyside Oregon. The problems with her heard were possible symptoms of a condition that might require a pacemaker. Better yet they don't have the money due to budget cuts to employ a cardiologist on the weekends so they had to send her to a place that has one. This is where I was getting a little worried. I didn't know if they wanted me to drive to Sunnyside that night or if they would bring her back or what was going on.
Eventually they got the ok to send her off to Sunnyside. The doctor was busy with a full ER and hadn't fully explained that she was definitely going, how I was supposed to get there (directions), what and when they might feed her (she still hadn't eaten). Around 10 pm the ambulance showed up to take her to Sunnyside. I got her overnight bag and made sure she was all ready to go. Grandma told me there was some paperwork up front for me and the directions were on my purse.
I saw her off and made sure she had everything. I promised to feed her cats and look after the place (as I always do). I got the name of the place she was going to and gave them my contact number for when she needed to be picked up.
I then headed up front to see what the paper work was they needed me to sign or look at. The lady at the front desk didn't have anything and was confused as to why I would be sent up front. I don't know the nurses and had already been there for 5.5 hours and wasn't in the mood for running back and forth. She kept telling me to go back to the room and I kept telling her that my grandma was already gone so no doctors were going to be there. _~_
Finally the lady directed me to the Nurses station in the area to find the doctor. I wanted to see about this paper work and catch up on the CT scan and X-ray which I didn't remember hearing the results of. I was told to ask for a nurse named Heather. So I find the desk (which is in a number of sections) and found a nurse and asked for Heather. The nurse tried to direct me to D-2 the room where my grandma was. I explained that I was looking for Heather and that D-2 was already cleared. It took a bit but she finally caught on to what I was looking for and directed me to Heather who was two seats away. _~_
Heather…was not a nice person and I could have done without talking to her. I asked her to find the doctor and she just kept telling be that the doctor wasn't going to tell me any of the information I wanted because of patient confidentiality. O_O He had been talking to me all night but WHATEVER! So I am dead tired and hungry and lazily looking around while waiting for the doctor and half fighting with this nurse. My eyes wandered up to the GIGANTIC (about a 52 " widescreen TV) screen directly to my left with (apparently) patient information on it. I only wondered if the room still said Linderholm on it and it only took me two seconds to located see that it was labeled dirty. The nurse saw me looking at the (again GIAGANTIC) screen and yelled at me for it saying it was patient confidentiality. O_o OMFG!! Anyway… I just told her I wasn't looking I was tired and my eyes were wandering around. I did think it was a pretty cool system for keeping all the rooms organized (in a spreadsheet like manor). I was too tired to care who else might be on there.
Thankfully the doctor came shortly after that and explained that all the tests done at the hospital came back fine. I thanked him for taking the time to come back and talk with me and then left without giving Heather another glance. From there I was just relieved to be leaving but worried about Grandma. I dragged myself out of the hospital and nearly hit a little girl who was playing near one of the big swinging doors (because I couldn't see her on the other side!).
I got in my car and headed for home. I got about half way there and realized that I still needed to feed the cats. So I turned around and went back to grandma's. I tried to feed them and got the momma kitty in but Muffy decided he didn't want to come inside. I spent about 15 minutes trying to coax him in and ended up accidentally letting the momma kitty out too. By then I was worried about them but too tired to stay so I gave up. They will be fine overnight outside. The raccoons will keep them safe. _~_ Muffy's a fighter anyway.
I got home around 10:30 and wanted to go to Burger King because it was close and cheap. Tyler, however, was too busy talking with his girlfriend and wouldn't relinquish the computer. -_- He didn't get off until 10:50 and it was too late by then. So we headed to Sharri's instead. I don't like Sharri's food but it was all that was open 24 hrs besides McDs which I don't like. We had dinner and Bo drove us home where I promptly went to bed.
I will know more tomorrow about grandma and update people accordingly.