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I'm even more weary of snow now.... ugh.
Feb. 10th, 2015 09:51 pmSo, more white shit falling from the sky, highways, transit, and suchlike all failing due to running out of places to plow the snow. The snowblower was running poorly, only operating, and weakly at that, at full throttle and full choke. But it ran enough to clear the snow that fell overnight from the driveway and walk. It didn't deal with the heavy snow and ice chunk mixture that the plow left across the end of our driveway and over the fire hydrant, so those had to be done partly by shovel and very slowly with the machine.
After I got the driveway cleared, took the machine down to the repair shop. They just called me back a few minutes ago (830 at night. He's working late) to let me know it's fixed. I'm a little suspicious of the tank of gas I've been using for it, so I'm gonna pour it into my car and get a fresh fill of gasoline in it tomorrow.
Getting ready for Boskone. tomorrow (wednesday) evening is truck loading. I'll probably have to work late for the day jobbe though, as we were closed yesterday and today. Thursday at 3pm, we get the galleria room at the hotel and start setting up everything.
Unfortunately, the hospital scheduled a meeting with my mom and all the doctors about the health care for my dad at 330. Could not be a more inconvenient time for me, but I will deal, somehow.
I haven't been to visit my dad since friday night. I don't want to share this cold with him or anyone else at the hospital. But I'm feeling better, and should be able to visit tomorrow evening. Will be deciding on that tomorrow after work. Mom has been to see him every day though, and she says he is better each day in general. Was able to talk to him today, even though he is hard to understand with his dentures out.
Dad is now on the antibiotics for the Lyme Disease, so that is good, and they transferred him back to the regular ward from the ICU. LUng function is getting better, and he is starting to eat things like pudding and jello, so hoping we can remove the NG feeding tube and get him back on real food. Some of the doctors are pushing for a surgical stomach tube so he can be fed via that instead of the NG tube.
ANd I'm gonna list the fuckups by various staff people at Newton Wellesley hospital, so I can read the list at the meeting.
1) After he had been there a couple of days, he had been given two CT scans, Endoscopy, and various blood and urine tests. They didn't find anything that would explain his symptoms. So the Hospitalist doctor in charge of his case, gave up on trying to find a cause, and started pushing my mom to put him into hospice care. It took some pushing by my mom and me to get him to continue chasing the root cause.
2) While waiting for the MRI of his head to happen, after he had been there a week, the PCA who was feeding him pushed too much food too fast into his mouth and he ended up aspirating some of it into his lungs. This got him his first trip to ICU and also put him NPO. (nothing by mouth) They failed to arrange for any alternate source of nutrition, either by NG tube or IV. This starvation (and recall, his presenting symptom at admission was sudden large weight loss (18 lbs in a month) that he didn't have the body weight to sustain him, led to serious deterioration of his health.
3) MY mom, one of my brothers, and I were pushing the doctor to put in a NG tube and to feed him via that. The hospitalist who had given up on my dad was back in charge of him with his return to the regular ward, refused to order this. It wasn't until the doctor who was covering for the weekend was contacted on saturday and he ordered the NG tube placed and feeding via that to start.
The tube finally was successfully placed sunday (we had tried to place it saturday, but he was unable to understand why we were shoving a tube up his nose, and fought it off) It was put in sunday when he was more awake and able to understand what we were doing. The failure saturday was an ordinary medical risk, not a fuckup by the hospital. Some folks are understandably upset when they are woken up from a sound sleep by someone shoving a long tube covered with cold surgical lubricant up their nose. I'm sure I would have been upset too.
4) Dad was evaluated by a neurologist for possible causes sometime in the second week. Neurologist didn't find any causes, but he did mention that his mental status was not quite consistent with alzhiemers, and we should re-evaluate that diagnosis. Then the neurologist disappeared from the scene. When my dad was evaluated by the swallowing specialist, to see if he could be given food again, she suggested also that there was something going on bigger than the swallowing issue, but she was apparently ignored by the hospitalist, who continued to do as little as possible while he was starving my dad.
5) My dad was in the hopsital for almost two weeks, when I heard on the radio driving in to visit a news story about lyme disease. Dad regularly worked around the yard, and got tick bites a couple of times each summer. I mentioned this to the nurse when I visited, and she poo pooed my concerns. Thankfully she must have reconsidered this, and someone ordered a test for Lyme Disease, which turned out positive. Finally, a possible root diagnosis, and something that could be treated. It took a couple of days to line up the infectious disease doctor, and get the treatment for the Lyme disease started. Further delaying his treatment. I presume the recalcitrant Hospitalist was responsible for this further delay.
I am not at all happy with the level of competence and professionalism displayed by the Hospitalist in charge of my dad's case. He has exhibited the all too common mental failure of giving up if presented with a situation that does not appear on his internal mental map. He did the appropriate testing the first couple of days, but after the second CT scan that showed nothing causative, he apparently gave up on my dad.
Referring to the palliative care people to put my dad into hospice care and be allowed to die. My dad's condition was not on his mental map, and he just assumed that he was going to die and stopped looking for a cause. ONly our continued advocacy on behalf of my dad, pushing him hard to continue looking for a root cause, kept him desultorily ordering random tests. I suspect, mostly to mollify me and my mom, not through any desire to actually cure my dad.
After I got the driveway cleared, took the machine down to the repair shop. They just called me back a few minutes ago (830 at night. He's working late) to let me know it's fixed. I'm a little suspicious of the tank of gas I've been using for it, so I'm gonna pour it into my car and get a fresh fill of gasoline in it tomorrow.
Getting ready for Boskone. tomorrow (wednesday) evening is truck loading. I'll probably have to work late for the day jobbe though, as we were closed yesterday and today. Thursday at 3pm, we get the galleria room at the hotel and start setting up everything.
Unfortunately, the hospital scheduled a meeting with my mom and all the doctors about the health care for my dad at 330. Could not be a more inconvenient time for me, but I will deal, somehow.
I haven't been to visit my dad since friday night. I don't want to share this cold with him or anyone else at the hospital. But I'm feeling better, and should be able to visit tomorrow evening. Will be deciding on that tomorrow after work. Mom has been to see him every day though, and she says he is better each day in general. Was able to talk to him today, even though he is hard to understand with his dentures out.
Dad is now on the antibiotics for the Lyme Disease, so that is good, and they transferred him back to the regular ward from the ICU. LUng function is getting better, and he is starting to eat things like pudding and jello, so hoping we can remove the NG feeding tube and get him back on real food. Some of the doctors are pushing for a surgical stomach tube so he can be fed via that instead of the NG tube.
ANd I'm gonna list the fuckups by various staff people at Newton Wellesley hospital, so I can read the list at the meeting.
1) After he had been there a couple of days, he had been given two CT scans, Endoscopy, and various blood and urine tests. They didn't find anything that would explain his symptoms. So the Hospitalist doctor in charge of his case, gave up on trying to find a cause, and started pushing my mom to put him into hospice care. It took some pushing by my mom and me to get him to continue chasing the root cause.
2) While waiting for the MRI of his head to happen, after he had been there a week, the PCA who was feeding him pushed too much food too fast into his mouth and he ended up aspirating some of it into his lungs. This got him his first trip to ICU and also put him NPO. (nothing by mouth) They failed to arrange for any alternate source of nutrition, either by NG tube or IV. This starvation (and recall, his presenting symptom at admission was sudden large weight loss (18 lbs in a month) that he didn't have the body weight to sustain him, led to serious deterioration of his health.
3) MY mom, one of my brothers, and I were pushing the doctor to put in a NG tube and to feed him via that. The hospitalist who had given up on my dad was back in charge of him with his return to the regular ward, refused to order this. It wasn't until the doctor who was covering for the weekend was contacted on saturday and he ordered the NG tube placed and feeding via that to start.
The tube finally was successfully placed sunday (we had tried to place it saturday, but he was unable to understand why we were shoving a tube up his nose, and fought it off) It was put in sunday when he was more awake and able to understand what we were doing. The failure saturday was an ordinary medical risk, not a fuckup by the hospital. Some folks are understandably upset when they are woken up from a sound sleep by someone shoving a long tube covered with cold surgical lubricant up their nose. I'm sure I would have been upset too.
4) Dad was evaluated by a neurologist for possible causes sometime in the second week. Neurologist didn't find any causes, but he did mention that his mental status was not quite consistent with alzhiemers, and we should re-evaluate that diagnosis. Then the neurologist disappeared from the scene. When my dad was evaluated by the swallowing specialist, to see if he could be given food again, she suggested also that there was something going on bigger than the swallowing issue, but she was apparently ignored by the hospitalist, who continued to do as little as possible while he was starving my dad.
5) My dad was in the hopsital for almost two weeks, when I heard on the radio driving in to visit a news story about lyme disease. Dad regularly worked around the yard, and got tick bites a couple of times each summer. I mentioned this to the nurse when I visited, and she poo pooed my concerns. Thankfully she must have reconsidered this, and someone ordered a test for Lyme Disease, which turned out positive. Finally, a possible root diagnosis, and something that could be treated. It took a couple of days to line up the infectious disease doctor, and get the treatment for the Lyme disease started. Further delaying his treatment. I presume the recalcitrant Hospitalist was responsible for this further delay.
I am not at all happy with the level of competence and professionalism displayed by the Hospitalist in charge of my dad's case. He has exhibited the all too common mental failure of giving up if presented with a situation that does not appear on his internal mental map. He did the appropriate testing the first couple of days, but after the second CT scan that showed nothing causative, he apparently gave up on my dad.
Referring to the palliative care people to put my dad into hospice care and be allowed to die. My dad's condition was not on his mental map, and he just assumed that he was going to die and stopped looking for a cause. ONly our continued advocacy on behalf of my dad, pushing him hard to continue looking for a root cause, kept him desultorily ordering random tests. I suspect, mostly to mollify me and my mom, not through any desire to actually cure my dad.
