A hospital for each of us

Ed is in Grant Memorial Hospital in downtown Columbus tonight (Wednesday night). I was in Doctor's Hospital emergency this morning.


Yesterday, while helping Ed shave, I was standing, bent over, and reached to the right side of his face in a twisting motion--stupid move. I injured my back, creating a muscle spasm that only intensified as the day went on and I did more things. I was up during the night with it, and at 5:50 a.m. today I called Daughter Debbie and Tom for both of them to come. Debbie stayed with Ed; Tom took me to the emergency. The pain was so intense and localized that I thought maybe I also had a kidney stone. After a CT scan and hearing my symptoms and seeing the agony I was in, the doc pronounced a severe muscle spasm that could take weeks to undo (let's hope not), and gave me IV pain killers, sending me home with a prescription for Vicodin and instructions to see my regular doc tomorrow.


Meanwhile, Debbie tried to get Ed up at 8 a.m. to take morning medication and get him to, with grandson Kurtis's help, his 9:15 appointment with the oncologist. He was confused, dazed, altered, very weak, refused the medicine, didn't even realize I wasn't there. She called the oncologist who said, under Ed's and my circumstances, to call 9-1-1 and get him to the hospital. By the time the doc responded, Tom & I were on the way back home, so she waited to call. Ed was sound asleep, so I had some breakfast, called my chiropractor to cancel today's 3 p.m. appointment and tell him what was going on with me and Ed, and called my regular doc for an appointment for tomorrow. Then we called the emergency squad. Ed had a chest x-ray and CT scans of the head and chest. The brain lesions are still there tho not multiplied. There is lung metastasis. There was questionable pneumonia, so he received an IV antibiotic along with the fluids that the paramedics put him on. Because he had not had his morning pain pill to make him foggy (in my "expert" medical opinion), in the afternoon he was fairly lucid, but by evening he was hallucinating--and recognizing that he was. He is in the hospital overnight at least. We'll know more tomorrow what the next part of the plan is. It's good that he's in the hospital because I could not take care of him at home right now. If they send him home, his "kids" will have to set up some sort of schedule to be with us at home along with, hopefully, help from Hospice.


So while I thought I would be updating the blog with the results of his oncology visit, instead I'm home alone with some back pain and on Vicodin. Daughter Judi will pick me up in the morning and take me to the hospital since I can't drive myself right now. We'll see what develops there. Debbie, Tom, & Judi stayed with me all those hours at Grant Hospital today, for which I am very grateful.

Joni