Thursday, May 14, 2009

We are temporairly suspending normal programming






We will take a break from our usual publication of random musings to keep tabs on my mother’s recovery. Agnes had an acute gall bladder attack Monday morning and a number of other complication ensued, so that she went from being uncomfortable to acutely ill within 36 hours. The medical staff intervened to prevent cardiac failure and stabilized her sufficiently for surgery Wednesday. Unfortunately she had to have the old-fashioned surgery, not the newfangled laparoscopy kind that would have gotten her out of here in a day or two. The good news is that the liver and pancreatic tests are back to nearly normal, so she is recovering. So for the next few days I will sit in this cold room with a warm laptop for company, listening to the bong bong bong beep-beep-beep whoosh whoosh hisssssssssss noises that surround me. Mom has been fighting the restraints, so she is pretty well sedated still. She recognized me last night, but today there are no lights on. The plan is to start to wean her off the respirator and try to get her out of bed in a few days. I’m guessing a skilled nursing home with some physical therapy will be required to get her back on her feet.

Meanwhile the technology in this place is pretty amazing. She has more tubes than I knew there were places, although amazingly enough, there are no drains in the incision. In addition to the machine that breathes for her, there are 4 bags of stuff dripping in to her neck, where there is a handy-dandy port for syringe injections, and blue leg warmers that squeeze her calves rhythmically to assist the circulation in the lower half of her body. I would never embarrass her by photographing her looking so terrible, but you have to be impressed by how much stuff they have hanging off the walls. .

However the technology that is totally unimpressive is the free WiFi. You get what you pay for, and occasionally my computer can find Yahoo, but no way can I get through the firewall. So I’m working off line and hooking up to the lan line in the computer room where mother lives.