Mom

Yesterday was emotionally draining. I spent the better part of the day at the ER with my mom. Not that it was physically demanding, really I was just sitting there, but to see her so old and frail, tired and worn out, it was just another reality that my wonderful mom is passing away.

My sister called to tell me Mom was transferred from the nursing home to the ER. She couldn't make it up there and was worried that they might put her on a ventilator (something my Mom really does not want). Hearing that of course I think that she is very bad off, and I offer to go there to be with Mom and make sure the Drs don't do anything she doesn't want. I get a little teary telling my husband Jonny what is going on but hold it together. All the way to the hospital I am thinking..."this could be it. I could be the one making it possible for my mom to die". From what the nursing home had said my Mom could not breath and her O2 stats were very low. Of course I was not expecting her to be sitting up in the bed talking to the nurses when I walked in the ER room. Happy that she was...yes...relieved...very! They had her on some oxygen and she was doing very well. After the chest x-ray confirmed that it was pneumonia they gave her a diuretic and she started breathing better and her O2 stats went back up without the oxygen.

After sitting there and watching her Stats for about an hour they decide to send her back to the nursing home...Good. Better for her to be there rather than in the hospital. What made me upset was that the EMT's bring her in and place her back in her bed and no nurse is around to make sure she is all set, in need of anything, or even to help the EMT's (who, by the way, are fantastic!). I came in and my poor mom is wrapped up like a mummy in three blankets and looks at me with her weary eyes and says "I really have to pee!" Do you think I could get a nurse to come to her room? Nope! I rang the bell on her bed and then the little old lady next to her kept asking me to bring her to the bathroom. So, I rang her bell...still nothing...now the both of them are really needing to go to the bathroom. I walk down the hall to the nurses station. Three of them are standing around, chit chatting (about what I am not sure, it could have been a patient). I inform them that 2 ladies have to use the bathroom pretty badly, could we get some help. Instead of one of them coming to help, they look around for a LNA. Is it beneath a RN to bring people to the bathroom?! God I hope they don't think that way, especially working in a nursing home.