10-22-05 What is today??

First, I want to thank everyone for making this place my haven. When I get a moment to escape, I read all of your comments and I find myself wrapped in hope. Hope is quite hard to scrape from the walls of our reality right now. Thank you all so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers and for giving me a soft place to fall.

With that in mind, I am posting here for myself as much as I am to keep everyone in the loop. I need to log these days and moments. I need to release the anxieties. I may need somewhere to go to remember.

***Medical Science is not a science.
I am not a doctor. I have no knowledge of what it is like to be a doctor. It is not at all like television shows. Not even the reality ones. The difference between what we watch and what we live lies in the editing.
It is too easy for us to believe that going into the hospital means a number of strangers with medical degrees will congregate about discussing all of our symptoms and will magically come up with not only the answer but the potion to cure it.
This is a misconception.

What actually happens is this: You are admitted. A round-the-clock staff logs readings from various machines over a period of hours. Sometimes you have bloodtests, cultures and a variety of photos.
One doctor takes this information and makes a diagnosis based on past experience and relevant histories. He then treats you for this diagnosis. This is not the answer. It is actually just another question.
The doc says "We think it is pneumonia." So he treats you for pneumonia. If that doesn't work, then you've ruled out pneumonia.
The doc says "We think it is (insert relevant ailment here)." So he treats you for ailment. If that doesn't work, then you've ruled out ailment.
Later, rinse and repeat.
THIS is medical science.

I'm not offended. It's the best we can do.

Dad update 10-22-05:
We've ruled out pneumonia.
His fever goes down in the early hours of the morning. It stays just above normal most of the afternoon, then it inexplicably raises to 103 - 104 degrees just after 5:00p.m.
This is the pattern of the day.
He was receiving a daily dose of bacterial antibiotic. This made no change.
Yesterday, Dr. Bashra decided we need a different antibiotic. Dad got that some time in the night.
Also called in...Dr Carillo - Infectious Diseas Specialist.

I'm surfing the internet for symptoms of West Nile Virus (Which I've ruled out btw.) and we're joking about "Bird Flu".
At least it's not Mad Cow.

I joke...but we don't laugh. It seems like nothing is a joke anymore. We are frustrated and angry and tired.
My Dad wants to go home, but his sentence has been extended at least until Monday or even Tuesday. He wants to lash out at everyone. He wants to scream from boredom.
He makes harsh remarks because he is so very frustrated. My poor mother gets the brunt of this. She wants nothing more than for him to come home as well.
She wants to fix him and feels helpless. Her eyes brim with tears most of the time.
I tried to get her to come home - and she wants permission to do so. She needs rest. But she reminded me, "We have been together since I was 18yrs old. In 41 years we have slept apart maybe 9 times!"
She loves him so very much. They love each other. But they are so bathed in fear and uncertainty that they hang on every word....every inflection of hope or despair.
This is a brutal roller coaster.

We had a bad moment last night. It is my nature to demand. I am a control freak and I will speak my mind to anyone when things are out of control.
My mother is taking on far too much. She watches over my father all night. She wakes to give him Ibuprofin every four hours. She wakes if he has chills or sweats from fever. She changes his sheets over and over again and cleans him up and puts him back to bed.
She and he, keep making comments that "the nurses are so busy" or "they wouldn't know his fever had gone up if we didn't tell them". I heard this sort of thing for most of the day yesterday. By nighttime I had had my fill.
I tried to push Mom into telling the nurses they need to check on him every 2 - 4hrs all night. She just wouldn't do it.
So I did. I have nothing to lose. No one does. I am angry because she won't TELL them to help her.
I was chided very badly for "offending" the nurse. I didn't offend anyone. In truth, I didn't even say anything to the nurse. I said to my mother IN FRONT of the nurse "You need them to come in here. You need to know that she heard you and I don't think she heard you. You have to tell them what you need!"
I think Mom finally broke and started doing it last night. I hope so. She cannot continue to take on this much...and it's not her place...and she isn't qualified...and they're paying through the nose so it's OK to be demanding.
No one needs to be rude, but someone has to be demanding.

Enough for now. The days are running one into the other and I cannot tell them apart. I have to leave tomorrow and I will leave without knowing. I will be making trips back and fourth until this is resolved.

Dear God - Dad is not a test case. Give him back!