My last post was a few days ago. Since then, after his twenty-six hour stay in ER, my brother underwent surgery to remove blood clots in his legs and to repair veins/arteries in his legs to ensure adequate blood flow. That surgery took place Friday, August 17. Before the surgery, the surgeon told me he wanted to keep my brother in ICU for the night following surgery so he could be closely monitored. The next morning, my brother said he had stayed in ICU because he had been given too much anaesthesia or had a bad reaction to it. No one can figure out where he got that idea, but he was convinced of it and was angry with the anesthesiologists. He also said the doctor who was to be his anesthesiologist wasn’t the one who handled it. When I had open heart surgery about fourteen years ago, I had some bizarre hallucinations…I wonder whether the same thing is going on with him? At any rate, he was moved to a private room on Saturday, so my niece and I went to see him. He was cranky and generally unpleasant, which I can understand after such major surgeries. He feels cold, so the temperature in his room was cranked up past 80 degrees, making the room stifling for others.
Yesterday, I awoke with chest congestion, a cough, and feeling general aches and pains, so I thought it best not to go visit. My niece and her husband did, though, and reported that he remained cranky and crabby. When her husband suggested it might be best to cool the stifling room, my brother snapped at him, saying something to the effect of “get your hands off that thermostat!” Her husband spent the rest of the visit in the hall, where the environment was cooler and more friendly.
After I had decided to stay away yesterday morning, I worked on a newsletter I committed to produce. During the process, my computer died. Despite multiple attempts to coax it back to life, it refused my first aid. So, despite feeling approximately lousy, I found the nearest Best Buy so I could have their Geek Squad try to repair it or, at least, recover my data and files. They estimate repair or recovery by Thursday, so I am tapping out this post with one finger, using my iPad and my niece’s WiFi.
This morning, after I finish a load of laundry, I will head up to the hospital to learn what I can about how long my brother is expected to stay in the hospital and where he will go after release: rehab unit in hospital, residential rehab facility outside hospital, or home. Unless he is much better than last time he was sent home, I will argue for a longer time in rehab, whether in or out of the hospital.
Watching nurses and nurses’ aides and the like, I have a much greater appreciation for the work they do. ICU nurses, especially, seem to have enormous responsibilities placed on their shoulders and they pull them off in a manner so cool and collected that I am in awe. Enough of one-finger typing. More later? Maybe.
