Saturday, March 3, 2007

Time Stands Still

...when you in a hospital. Poor Dad was in such utter pain with his knee throughout the night, that he had the unfortunate pleasure of having an ambulance ride to Solders Memorial Hospital yesterday morning (7:00am). That was pretty upsetting for everyone. Out patients was a very long and tiring event, and finally at 4:00 in the afternoon, they admitted Dad into a room on medical floor to get some drip antibiotics and to be observed for the night. They think he may have an infection in his knee joint and the doc drained off some of the liquid that was causing all the pain. We will know today if the antibiotics have made a difference by today.
A little something to say about Nurses......oh my GOD, the are working so hard. They are a special breed of people. We met several nurses yesterday and LPNs (not sure what that means) and they were ALL amazing. Every one of them had a truly caring attitude towards my precious dad, like he was there dad too. How can they do that when they have just met him. The Outpatients nurse was Melody Palmer Morse and she was so caring, and really was concerned for Dad and originally, he was to be kept in outpatients on an 24 inch wide stretch bed in a room with 4 other beds that would be busy all night with "emergency" patients. But she was insistent to the Doc that my dad needed to be somewhere where he could rest and have time to heal. Sure enough, and I don't know how, she found him a bed upstairs on the medical floor. Which felt like a hotel when we got there. Dad said the bed felt like was in a double. And he had controls to put it up and down and all that. Oh, and when we got to the room, you should have seen the three nurses who stripped him down and dressed him in a Johnny and did the assessment. They were totally sweet but yet tough enough to stand up to his sharp comments (all in fun) and they gave it right back to him. I felt pretty good leaving him in there caring hands...

In amongst a long boring, yet interesting day at the hospital, I was in contact with home because Stephanie was travelling across the Maritimes on a bus heading home for March Break. She started her trip at 11 am and arrived home last night through the storm at 10:30pm. From Fredericton... ugh.. Poor Kid. But she is home, and as tired as I was, we stayed up and chatted til midnight, getting caught up on things... Michelle kept busy text messaging Stephanie on the bus (cheaper than phone calls on a cell) and when I got home, I was taught how to text message for when I am in the hospital today. Should be interesting. Dad is pretty insistent that he is coming home today... but I have other thoughts... we shall see.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Donna - thinking of you today as you continue your hospital adventure with your dad. Just a FYI - LPNs are licensed practical nurses - that is the course that Jane Harvey took in Yarmouth (done through community colleges). She was working in Middleton, but may be in Kentville now. Thanks for keeping us updated - I'll keep watching your blog and hopefully the news will be better soon!
Debbie