2 LONG days...

What a couple of days it has been!

My 92 year old grandfather has been suffering from post herpetic neuralgia since Dec 24th. He was diagnosed with shingles about 7 weeks ago, and although the lesions have healed, he is left with /severe nerve pain in his eye, face, top and back of head. This is an unbearablee pain. This man, usually stoic in the face of any illness/injury (he has had both knees replaced) has been screaming with pain every two hours for days! My mother and aunt have been doing the besst they could to handle it. Christmas Eve they spent 7 hours in teh local hopital emergency waiing room, only to be sent to the doctor who performed his cateract surgery in March. The eye doctor dismissed him and addressed a letter to the emergency room advising he see a neurologist for pain management treatment. Instead, my mom toook him to a walk in clinic. The doctor there had incomplete information provided and perscribed oxycodone ( an opiate based medicine). No one seemed to remember the problems he had on morphine (severe hallucinations). The combination of the oxycodone and the pain he continued to endure has caused him to hallucinate and lose all track of what is going on. I have been trying to provide support long distance over the phone, and yesterdday, they asked that I come up to take care of him myself. My grandmother is not coping well with seeing her husband of 67 years suffer through all this. She has anxiety and needs as much support and comfort as he does!

After watching the man suffer for 4 hours with barely 20 minutes relatively pain free, I suggestedd to him that I thought he needed to go back to emergency and have someone assess the pain he was experiencing and possible suggest an alternative medication. He agreed to go by ambulance. The EMT personel was wonderful and treated both my grandparents with kindness and compassion for their situation. I went in the ambulance with my grandfather and my aunt drove my grandmother to the hospital.

Emergency was packed! In the corridor for patients brought in on stretchers, there were 6 patients in line. The wait was expected to be 6 or 7 hours. Grandpa was not very happy with having to wait, and wanted to go home on more than one occasion. I refused to allow it. We saw teh doctor at 2am. 9 hours after going in. For him, the only comfort was that he was able to lie down on a stretcher or bed for the duration of the wait. My grandmother was given food, juice, a warm blanket and a chair to sit on. When teh doctor arrived, he was wonderful. My grandfather was lucid enough to tell teh doctor he should speak with me as he was somewhat confused. We ended up with a pain patch, and very clear directions about how to manage for the next few days. He also gave us his office number as he would be available January 4th - 5 days before the family doctor was due to return from vacation. At least we ended up with a consistent contact to follow up with! We took a cab home and arrived at 3am. Grandpa had a horrible night. He had 3 HUGE bouts of pain that nearly incapacitated him. He screamed and asked what do I do. All I could do was try to focus him on his breathing and use yoga breathing to try and ride out the pain. He kept claiming he couldn't breathe, but managed to get through them - although all three of us were exhausted from it. I was worried that he kept rolling onto the side of his face that was sensitive while he slept, so I rolled up towels and lay them behind his back to keep him on one side while he slept. It seemed to work. I think I managed to get 2 hours of sleep.

Meanwhile, my kids had an anxious night as well. I have never been away overnight in their lives and apparently they had a hard time sleeping. So this afternoon when I came home, I promised to take them to the outdoor rink skating tonight. Fool that I am - thought that would be a reasonable plan! We brought one of 6's friends with us. Well guess what. The friend is not a very good skater. He spent about an hour on the ice - walking up and doen the lenngth of the rink. Then he decided to get off the ice for a break. On his return, he stubbornly refused assistance getting back on the ice and fell. Feet went up in the air, landed on his backside and one arm flung out onto the ice. I could tell from his reaction it was not a minor injury. Went inside to check him out and he could not move the fingers of his right hand. Called his dad, who took him to the hospital. Cam home with his arm in a cast. The kid broke his arm!

I feel horrible! Anyone want me to take care of their kids for a while?