worst week ever

my mother really scared me. i don't know why she has to go and get herself landed in the hospital. i've been plagued with worry the entire week. and don't know if i can ever deal with anything more serious.

last monday she was in great pain and started vomiting. she drove herself (!) down to her doctor and they told her to go to the emergency room. when my dad and i got there she was sitting in two hospital gowns in a wheelchair in the middle of the emergency room lobby. she looked to sad. she looked old and small and painful. once she got a er room she was still very much in pain. the doctor came in and asked her questions that he should have known the answer to because they had already done blood work, a ct and taken a history that was sent with her. ug. so he said she would get pain meds (yay!) and start her on fluids.

the nurse came in and asked the same questions again. double ug. she said, "as soon as he gets them in the computer, i'll get your meds and fluids."

thirty minutes later (still in a little ball on the bed in a lot of pain with "the worst pain i've ever had, including childbirth," according to my mother) an ultrasound tech comes in. he says he'll be taking her to get her ultrasound now and "we'll be back in twenty minutes!" i told him no, she needs her pain meds! like right now and that he could not take her. he gives me a look. i look at him right back. i know how painful pancreatitis is... i've seen it. if they are going to be pressing and poking all over that area. she darn well is going to get pain medication before it happens. especially since she's been in pain aaaaalll day!

he leaves. bastard.* twenty minutes elapse. the nurse comes in with medication and fluid. finally. she had to deal with a patient trying to leave ama. fine. but stay on top of your other patients as well chicky. the ultrasound guy comes in immediately afterward (apparently he was hovering) and whisks her away to ultrasonography land.

i leave because it's midnight and i have to work at seven and the hospital is approximately on the other side of texas (it's a big state people). i get home to bed at one thirty. i fall asleep at what feels like ten minutes before my alarm sounds at 6:15am. shit.

every spare second from then on, i'm at the hospital. the next day the nurses (they suuuuuucked**) gave her tylenol by mouth in the morning. tylenol? her doctor came in at eleven in the morning and told her that she must request morphine*** when she's painful because this is very painful!!! request? just put it on the chart! ask patient if she wants some fucking pain meds. if her face is all squenched up and she almost can't talk to you because she's so painful, tell her she needs morphine. not tylenol! christ!

when i show up that afternoon, i ask the nurse when she can have meds and that she wants them that often. every two hours! i made my mom promise to ask. and then i gave her my "pain is like a train" speech.

for your reading pleasure and edification: pain is like a train. trains are very heavy. they start off slow but then they get faster. once a train gets going, it's very hard to stop. translation. take the truckin meds (see what i did there? although, pain is not like a truck because that just doesn't rhyme). you have to stay on top of pain (hee, hee). you have to strike preemptively. if you feel a headache coming, take the advil now, if you wait, the "train" will have already left the "station" and you've just thrown a "grappling hook attached to your belt" at it. not gonna happen.

she came out alright. i have some reservations about her treatment and i wish i could have been up there when her doctor visited but she's home and alive. at one point she looked at me and said, "wouldn't pancreatitis be a bad way to go?" i said, "no! NO! you can't say that! no! you are not allowed to say that! your mother lived to be ninety four so i am guaranteed 33 more years! no!" she said, "i'm getting old bec." and i said, "thirty three more years!"

*he's probably not a bastard but he did give me a look. therefore, his "name" had to be slightly maligned.
**they really sucked. i was scared to leave her alone at the hospital for fear of the shitty nurses.
***it's actually buprenex but that's a whole other story about the crappiness of the nursing staff.