the sickie

How does one reason with an elderly sick parent? I guess as diplomatically as possible without crushing all their sense of self. I had the Sunday shift with my dad and kind of dreaded it because I knew I would probably be wrangling him over to hospital. When I got to the house at 9am, I had him take his temp to see how our day would head. 100 degrees. Yep, time for the ER! Enough with sitting back and waiting, I need to know what’s going on with his body. With very firm determination, and the help that he thought it was his day to see the oncologist, we slowly made it to the car. Lee has had a temp since Thursday, coughing, labored breathing, disorientation, not hungry and a shift in personality (mainly due to feeling super cruddy). A recipe for a bad bug.

Fast forward 5 hrs and a diagnosis of pneumonia had been issued. 5 hrs…. is it even possible to get out of ER in under that time? He’s back at home, pumped full of extra fluids and an antibiotic. He had a  raised heart rate due to dehydration and probably the fever too, but the saline really helped drop that down. It wasn’t fun. He might admit in a few days that it was a good thing to do. He still thinks, as of Sunday night, that he’ll be going into the oncologist today. Wrong! The only distance he’ll be going is to the trusty old couch that’s well over 30 yrs old. I think it’s time to do something about that, at least get the cushions re-stuffed or something! No visit with Dr Fiorello today. Maybe next week when everything has settled down…. and I hope it does!

Now if we can just figure out how to de-stress my sister…. she’s wrapped up rather tight these days due to all the medical stuff going on!

Oh, I did get to see the first fawn of the year. The little tyke was still wobbly on it’s legs and uncertain about walking up wood stairs. It camped out in the back yard with mom not too far away. It must have been under 24 hrs old. Cute!