#170 / 2010 Winter: Las Cruces, Mountain View Hospital

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND NOT SO UGLY

#170

Dec. 30, 2010

Sleeping in hospitals is never fun, I slept in them many a night when I was the primary caretaker for my mother for ten years. But this hospital felt like an asylum last night, The noises are always endless in a hospital, beepers go off when the IV drips are empty, chimes go off to call a nurse, But here....

Among the "ping pong" noise for the nurse and the rythmic "beep beep" for the IV, there is some poor soul on the opposite side of Joe's bed, obviously deranged, who screams all night long. "IIIIiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiii, ughhhhhhhhhhh, ayyyyyyyyyyy" the volume mounts to a loud moaned cry.

If she gets more agitated and starts moving the bed an alarm goes off, which the nurses ignore. "She will just set if off again," one said last night. I covered my ears with the TV portable speaker, put a pillow on my other ear. I got out my MP3 player and blasted both earbuds into my ear. But nothing would drone out "IIIIiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiii, ughhhhhhhhhhh, ayyyyyyyyyyy." At one-thirty I stomped outside and slept in the van.

Now for some good. Joe had a battery of tests. The doctors here didn't locate a clot in Joe's left leg, but that doesn't mean one is there, we are told. He was given large doses of Heparin and after 24 hours of aggressive dosing there was a different man sitting in front of me today. I guess the doses of morphine helped a little too.

We are convinced Joe did have a blood clot in his left leg that is tremendously improved. We are getting out tomorrow.

The not so ugly is: The third doctor for Joe now if we don't count his skin doctor came in today and advised us that Joe will be on blood thinners for life. We are opting to continue with the shots twice a day. If he goes to the pills he would have to go to a doctor's office once a week.

We'll get more prescriptions tomorrow and I guess talk at least to his two other doctors if they are open tomorrow, and with that hit the road back to Albuquerque. After 15 years we are going to get Joe's book ready to publish. As soon as that is done we expect to come back and have that procedure done on Joe's back if pain begins to be a problem. His pain for cancer has been minimal, it was all about the blood clots which are highly improved.

Happy Trails

Beatlick Pamela