Life Gets in the Way................

of my posting on this blog lately...........................!!!!
First of all, as I may or may not have posted here, my mom has had pneumonia.  It was caught early and she's really doing well.  Her meds have been adjusted and so far, knock on wood, etc....she seems to be doing better as far as her anxiety levels, etc.... go.
My brother has a staph infection in his leg/hip from having hip replacement surgery on May 27th.  He was doing well, but he started running a fever about 2 weeks ago, then he started having extreme pain in his leg, bad enough that he called his wife to leave work to take him to the emergency room.  They took blood, put him on antibiotics and sent him home.  The next day, they called him to come back  to be admitted to the hospital to be hooked up to IV antibiotics because of the STAPH!!!  They went back in and took out part of the prosthesis, cleaned it all out, drained 4 liters of YUK, replaced what they took out, put in a drain, sewed him back up, and then hooked him back up to antibiotics and iron by IV.  Finally, yesterday, he got to go home...with the IV still hooked up for at least 6 - 8 weeks.  Home Health will come to his house to help him with this.  He is not out of the woods and won't be till the 6 -8 week period is over and they find the infection is gone!!!!  Prayers that this will be the scenario!

I haven't felt too well myself so I finally went to the doctor on Tuesday of this week.  I tried to go on Monday, but due to the 4th holiday my doctor's office was closed.  I saw a different doctor in his group on Tuesday.  Anyway, it seems that I have strep throat!  I haven't had strep throat since I was a teen!!!  That's been about 42 years ago!!!  Anyway, I really didn't feel good, knew that my tonsils looked rough, but didn't expect this.  I am better now, though, after being on antibiotics by mouth and getting 2 shots!

Yesterday, I got a call from one of Mother's nurses that she was fussing because she wanted cough syrup (I did tell you she has pneumonia, right?  Is cough syrup an unreasonable request?), a mint (again she has a dry throat, unreasonable?), and her pictures had fallen in the floor (She has LOTS of pictures of her 9 great grands, and 2 great nephews and one of the CNAs knocked a bunch of them off the wall by being careless with Mother's chair or something.  Again....unreasonable?)  This nurse was rattled because she didn't have time to deal with all of Mother's demands!!!!!  Uh, she had time to call me!  Oh well, I told her I had strep and didn't really need to be around Mother, even though I'd been going everyday up until I found out what I had, but she seemed so distressed that I decided to go.  When I got there, Mother was whiny, but she wasn't yelling like the lady next door, or crying, like her roommate, so I really don't know why I was called.  This nurse said she thought I wanted to be called before they ever gave Mother meds to calm her down.  UH.............this same nurse has given Mother all kinds of meds before, but she's never called me first!  Actually, since Mother's meds were adjusted I don't feel the need to know every time they give her something.  I never asked to be called every time anyway, just when she was inconsolable.  She was not like this at all yesterday.
I was feeling so rotten, though, that I'm afraid I wasn't very nice to either this nurse or my Mother.  I kind of lost my temper, not too badly, but badly enough to make me feel awful!  I told Mother that she needed to be more patient.  That's like telling a 2 year old that he/she can't have a lollipop when they are right in front of him/her.  Anyway, I also let this nurse know that I felt like her call was unnecessary.  I had called to let the nursing home staff know that I wouldn't be there for a day or two, but obviously that word wasn't passed on to this nurse.  My biggest complaint about this home is the lack of communication among the staff members.  I talked to the PR person about this issue yesterday.

I've been asked to paint the windows across the front of the nursing home.  I'm going to try to get it done next week.  This won't be as big a project as the fence.  This is a temporary painting that I hope I get to change on occasion with the season changes, etc.......