Paging Nurse Tammy...

My mom was diagnosed with cellulitis awhile back and before that she suffered a pulmonary embolism . They have tried her on a few different types of antibiotics but she was not able to stay on them. On May 11th she had an appointment with her pulmonary doctor and he is very concerned about her legs. They do NOT look well at all. So he wanted to start her back on antibiotics. We had to come back the following day so she could get set up. Oh... I forgot to mention, she will be set up with an IV and I will have to administer the IV push antibiotic twice a day.



Truthfully, this does not bother me at all. I don’t mind it and this kind of stuff is pretty easy for me. The nurse put in her IV and gave her the first dose of the medication (Ancef). Then it was up to me to continue this twice a day (every 12 hours). We were given the medication, the alcohol swabs, the tape, and the saline and extra “socks”.

  

 The Saline syringes, the Ancef syringe and alchohol pads

I ask them how long the IV should last and they tell me only 3 days! Excuse me?? I was like, then show me how to do this, so that I can do this, because I can’t keep bringing her down here every 3 days. Then they said well, in the hospital they always change the IV’s every 3 days. I giggled out loud. I can’t tell you the last time my mom was in the hospital and they followed that “rule of thumb”. Oh puhlease! We decided it could stay in as long as it was good. Meaning not leaking, not hurting, still able to push the meds in, blah, blah, blah.


Daily at 11am/11pm I put on my little nurse hat and gloves and give her, her medication. She lays in bed (I know she has it really rough!) and I sit on the bed next to her (again, really rough) and I take care of business. I undress it, clean it, do saline, clean, medication (which has to be spread out over 10 min or she may get sick), clean and then another saline. I cover it back up and then put the “sock” over it. It is like gauze but it just slides over the arm as to cover the area without having to use any staples tape.

 

Mom's arm with the "sock", getting ready for the IV push.

 Mom's arm without the "sock" and I am getting ready to "drug" her up!  LOL

 One of the parts of the treatment is that she is supposed to stay off of her feet. She is supposed to be in bed with her legs elevated. ELEVATED. The key word here is ELEVATED. For some unknown reason this last week she has NOT been doing that. Talk about being a BAD patient, she would have won the award. OMG, I told her she was going to be the death of me.


We had another doctor appointment today and her legs look worse. Yup you heard me. WORSE. The swelling has not gone down, there is still redness and there are more blisters. HELLO??? Does she not see this?? I mean if she doesn’t take care of this she could lose her fucking leg!!! I don’t know how else to get this through to her. I have shown her scary gross pictures. I have had doctors and nurses talk to her. I have done research and read it to her. UGH!! PARENTS!! When the doctor saw her leg, let’s just say he was a bit more concerned. In the middle of the appointment he excused himself to make a phone call. That worried mom. I said to her, maybe he is checking if they have room in the hospital for you. She HATES the hospital. That is her biggest fear to go back in to the hospital. I keep telling her it must not be if you won’t stay off of your feet!!!! Any way he checked with the infectious doctors and consulted with them and they will be calling us tomorrow so that we can get in to see them. OMG!! Really?? Trust me I am NOT going to say what next. I know better than to do that. Hell I don’t have to, it just keeps coming anyway, without an invitation of any kind!


While we were there since the IV line had been in for a week, we had a new one put in. So that way we could continue with the antibiotics. He did mention some other “possible” things that it could be…so needless to say I have been researching tonight. I just want/wish/hope/pray that one of the doctors can figure this out and get her on the road to recovery. He had also mentioned that it could just be from the blood clot. You see the original blood clot was in her leg (from her knee surgery) it broke up and parts of it went to her lung. However, my question to that is then why are both of her legs like this? Wouldn’t only one leg be like this?


After the appointments today she was pretty tired. Once we got home and I got her fed and got her into bed she pretty much slept the afternoon/evening away. This is exactly what she needs to do. Stay off of her legs with them elevated and get better, damn it!


Side note: As if there hasn’t been enough stuff going on, the other morning she “kinda” fell out of bed and got stuck between her bed and nightstand! I had to come and help her. Talk about sore and bruised. It looks like someone beat the crapola outta her.


Nurse Tammy needs to get to bed because she just realized how late it is and her morning shift will be starting in no time!