Keep Calm

Keep Calm

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Decending Rapidly into the "NyQuil Blues"

This just has not been a good week. I noticed Monday that Debbie had a cough developing. By Wednesday she appeared to have a really bad cold. She took some
"NyQuil" Gel caps and went to bed. About 1 am she awoke with terrible breathing problems. I knew immediately that she had pneumonia again. So I called an ambulance and off we went to the ER. We arrived about 1:45am. After the routine oxygen and chest x-rays and all that I heard the doctor say that he was sending her for a CT scan. I assumed that he meant on her lungs. After about an hour I went out for a cup of coffee and to my surprise found that they had removed all the coffee machines from the hospital. What were they thinking? Any way after a while I heard my name over the paging system. I returned to the ER and the Doctor said that they had done a CT of her brain and that it showed some definite shrinking of the blood vessels and veins. This was probably because her O2 sats were only 84. When she put the oxygen hose on they went up to a proper 98. He therefore admitted her to the hospital. He said that she had a little pneumonia in the base of her lungs and with the low O2 she was in danger of a stroke or heart attack. He said that he wanted to do an MRI. It was now about 4:am and there wasn't anything I could do there and if I didn't get some rest I was not going to be of any use to her when she did come home so I left for home and tried to get some sleep, Yea right, like I could sleep. I was afraid that if I took an ambien I would sleep all day and miss a phone call or something so I just laid there with my eyes closed till about 8:am.

I returned to the hospital about 10:am to find that they had not moved her to a regular room yet and that they decided not to do an MRI but did a second CT scan instead. Now I am being told that both CT scans were normal. This dose not jive with what the first ER doctor on the graveyard shift said. Trying to get a straight answer from any one in a situation like this is like pulling teeth. One shift does not know what the previous shift said or did. It is crazyness. So now she is at home on home oxygen. They delivered aa O2 concentrator that makes pure O2 from the room air and 5 portable tanks for when she leaves the hous. Trouble is that the tanks are to big to carry on her mobility scooter. I have to contact her doctor to obtain a presciption for the smaller unit that can be worn over the shoulder or hung on the back rest of her scooter.

Trying to sleep in the same room with an oxygen conentrator is difficult because it makes this odd sound that I can only describe as "Darth Vader" Breathing.
Oh yea the night she took the NyQuil she had also taken an ativan and later 4 tsp of Robitussin with codeine so she was also over medicated. Reminds me of a song that my band and I used to do.

NyQuil Blues
---------------------------------

Give me a bottle of NyQuil
That restful sleep my body needs
I said give me a bottle of NyQuil
That restful sleep my Body needs
With it analgesic decongestants
and them antihistamines.

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