spO2 - Not as Catchy as Grey's Anatomy
Alright, so yes... Hospital visits tend to come in groups for my family I suppose. My grandma went to Kaiser Permanente which isn't quite a hospital, but was having an allergic reaction to her blood pressure medications. She's doing better, getting more rest than she has in some time, but today I took my dad in.
Because of his work in construction and smoking, he was diagnosed with COPD about four years ago. When that's all he has, he functions alright, but about a week ago he came down with a cold. He tried to manage the best he could, but this morning he could tell he was getting too low on his blood oxygenation, leaving him fuzzy headed, weak, and constantly winded.
We went to the urgent care center first because it's cheaper, and we weren't sure it was life threatening. The nurse saw me and assumed I was fine and went about erasing names slowly, making sure she didn't miss anything. Then I offered to have my dad sit and she realized he was the one there for help. She checked his blood oxygen and then had me drive him to the ER.
This was a new configuration for me. I'd never before been the driver to the ER... Well, or urgent care for that matter. I dropped my dad off at the front ER door and parked the car and by the time I was back in, he was in a wheel chair and being taken to an ER room already. It was the fastest we'd gotten in.
Sparring the nitty gritty details, this was the most efficient, competent, compassionate and kind I'd ever seen anyone at the hospital. I don't know if the research panel I did managed to effect change, but regardless of the reason, it was rather good. My dad was almost back to normal, but when they took out the oxygen canula he dropped back to questionable oxygen levels, so they decided to keep him over night.
He was transfered to the sixth floor of the new building (of which ER is a part). It's way fancier than the old building. Wood paneled floors, special lounges and amenities. I would have loved to film there when I was younger if it had existed and wasn't INCREDIBLY INSENSITIVE, lol.
He got settled and his nurses were fine. Sadly his current doctor is sorta crummy. he's wanting to do all sorts of unrelated tests and the whole time we've been cringing when it came to the price point, but they already have their financial aid ball rolling, so that's good.
Anyhow, with luck he'll get out tomorrow... I really hope so.