Mom has two favorite expressions right now. The first is "I'm dizzy." This means, "My brain feels scrambled and I am having trouble understanding anything right now." Giving her a job, or just a sense of direction, such as sending her down to lunch or taking a walk with her, usually cures this.
Her second expression is "I have chest pain." This means, "I am feeling very anxious right now." Reassurance, a quick check of vital signs, and a Tylenol usually take care of this. The attendants in assisted living know these tricks, and they are usually quite successful.
Last nite, they reassured her and sent her down to dinner. Nana sat down, looked around the room and said to the manager of the Cafe, "I can't eat. I'm dizzy and I have chest pain." The manager immediately called 911. (No blame to the manager. When someone says something so ominous, that is the correct strategy 95% of the time!)
I was walking the dog on the beach at the time, planning out my next 24 hours... Clean the cottage, go through the fridge, take out the trash and recyclables, start packing for our trip, and then head home around noon on Monday and go see Mom.....when I received the call that she was on her way to the ER. Sigh... Stuff the wet, stinky dog in the back seat of the van, and off to Worcester....
On the way home, I tried calling the hospital to give them a heads up-- Mom sounds very articulate, but she is alert and oriented to self only. But she will charm the crap out of you and you won't even realize that she doesn't know what she is talking about. But Mom is so good at this game that no one calls me back. I arrive at the hospital 90 minutes later, and she is sitting up, smiling at everyone. Hooked up to monitors, her heartrate is 60, oxygenation is 100%, and her blood pressure is 110/60. The doctor comes in when he sees me arrive and says, "She seems ok-- just a few anomalies in her bloodwork." Yea, that would be her leukemia. He looked at me, surprised, and said, "Well that answers a lot of my questions." I then defined her two favorite expressions: "I'm dizzy" and "I'm having chest pain." He remarked,"And that answers my other questions." He smiled, and said that just to be cautious we would need to stay for another 4 hours. I settled in for a bit of a wait.
After the first hour, we looked out in the hallway to see one of my Mom's friends from her assisted living residence. "Rose!" I called and she smiled and waved. She was with her niece, and she had come in with arm pain. Oy. The ER was full, so Rose sat outside Mom's room and the ladies visited. Rose's niece and I decided that if they could have served us a little wine and cheese, this wouldn't be half bad....
We got back at around 11:30pm, and I tucked Mom into bed. I think she enjoyed her little escapade (her only complaint? "There aren't many men around here. Do the men go to another hospital?") Thank goodness that there weren't, or she might have dizziness and chest pain again tonite...
So, a little flip in my schedule (I will be heading back to the beach this morning to finish my chores down there, and I will leave for work from there tomorrow... after I check in with Mom this am...) All's well that ends well...
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