The Hardest Days of my Life...So Far

I'm writing to release some emotions about the hardest days of my life so far.

To begin with a little background information. My mom has been sick many years with heart problems, kidney problems, eye problems, circulation problems, and other things. I can't tell you the number of times that we've been told she wouldn't make it and she rallied back and was better than ever. My mom was a fighter and was very stubborn, she didn't want to ever give up.

Now back to my experience.

Mom started having strange episodes on Wednesday night (August 1st 2007), she lived with my brother and his family. My sister-in-law Nell heard mom yelling for her wednesday night and went running downstairs. She found mom laying on her bed connected to her dialysis machine. She said mom's lips were black and her skin was grey, her fingernails were solid white. Mom thought she was having a low sugar attack (she was diabetic also). Nell checked her sugar and it wasn't low, so she got mom to moving around and her color came back, so she didn't call anyone since mom didn't want her to at that time. She also couldn't get a blood pressure to register, but they had been having problems with that already.

I called to check on mom the next morning and Nell told me about the strange episode, we both thought it sounded like mom's heart. I told her that I wanted to come out later to see mom and bring my daughter. She told me to wait and call later because mom was so weak to see how she was doing later that day. Nell called me back a few hours later and said mom was having another attack and Home Health wanted to come and check on her and to be on standby. (Standby for us meant that we needed to be ready incase we needed to head to Birmingham to one of the larger hospitals in our area, we are in a small city and our local hospital is not the best to go to for heart problems)

Nell called back within the next hour to say that we were headed to B'ham because the home health nurse thought that mom's body was shutting down and she was dying. I called my husband, my sister, and my uncle to let them know what was going on. My husband came home and we headed to mom's house to ride to B'ham with my family. When we got to their house we found out that the ambulance drivers said they had to go to the local hospital first, so we all jumped in our cars and headed there.

To backtrack for a minute this is what happened when the first responders got to mom's house. The first responders were from the fire department and they said that they could not take her straight to B'ham, but that if we got an ambulance from the hospital that they would take her to the hospital of her choice. Well when the second ambulance got there all they would hear from Nell and the home health nurse is that mom was a dialysis patient and they said she was probally dehydrated and wouldn't listen to anything else. They kept rolling their eyes at each other at everything Nell or the nurse had to say. They also said they could not bypass a local hospital with her blood pressure so low and convinced my mom to say that she would go to the local hospital.

Okay back to the hospital. Since the ambulance drivers were convinced that she was dehydrated, that is all that the doctor would listen to. To make a long story short we stayed at the local hospital 6 hours to be told that she was dehydrated and to go home and drink a gatorade. (It took 2 hours to draw blood, mom had tiny veins and it was extremely difficult to get blood, she was stuck 6 times, the first nurse was new and used the largest needle they had, when it was obvious that her veins were extremely tiny and got a small amount of blood, which the trainee with her said was enough to do the cbc test. She left and the next nurse stuck her twice with smaller needles with no success, finally the er nurse stuck mother's hand and had to drip blood drop by drop into a pediatric tube, then she said we need a little more for the cbc test and I said the first nurse got enough for that, the second nurse to try for blood, said the first nurse threw the blood away, I was furious and the er nurse said someone needs to tell her not to throw blood away. She again had to get blood drop by drop.) The only tests they ran at the local hospital were blood tests, ekg, and a chest x-ray.

By this point mom was ready to go home, so we took her home and we all ate supper together. She also drank her gatorade. She had been home about an hour and a half when I left with my husband and daughter to go home. I got my daughter down for the night and had been home about 45 minutes when the phone rang and it was my sister telling me that mom was having another episode and that the ambulance was coming to get her. I took off for my mom's about a 10 minute drive. When I arrived the fire department, ambulance and the home health nurse were there. We found out that the earlier ambulance drivers had lied to us and that they should have taken mom to b'ham earlier when she requested to go.

I got into the house to find out what had happened, my sister said that mom had gotten up and walked to the couch. She said I feel funny and fell over on the couch. My sister said her lips were black, her skin was grey and she started shaking like she was having a seizure and passed out. My brother ran to call 911 and by brother-in-law ran across the street to the home health nurse's house for help. The fire department arrived and said again that they could not take mom to b'ham, but that the other ambulance could if that is what we requested. The other ambulance drivers loaded mom in and my sister-in-law rode with them and they headed to B'ham. My brother, sister, brother-in-law, and myself loaded into the van and took off for b'ham. (It is around 10:00 p.m.)

We arrived in b'ham shortly before midnight. We were allowed to see mother two at a time, so we took turns. They were able to draw blood on the first try and the doctor was upset that an iv hadn't been started, even though Nell explained that she is a dialysis patient. Mom had been in the er for about 30 minutes when she said that she didn't feel well again and started going gray, etc. The doctor or nurse (not sure what he is) was with her and ran and got her a heparin shot, he gave her the shot and said she is having a heart attack. (Mom didn't have normal symptoms when she had a heart attack, she never had the chest pain or typical symptoms.) He said we are moving her to ccu and she will have an arteriogram in the morning (Friday morning), it is already around 1:00 am. He let us ride to ccu with her and put us in the ccu waiting room and said after they get her settled you will be allowed in to see her. (Normally their are 4 visitation times for 30 minutes.) Most of the people in the waiting room were asleep, so we are quietly sitting there when the doctor/nurse comes back and takes us to the surgery waiting room, he did this so we could talk and not disturb the other people. Around 2:30 am they let us all go back and see mother and tell her goodnight. It is now 3:00 am, so since we have been told they will do her arteriogram in the morning we all decide to stay the night in the surgery waiting room (very uncomfortable). A few of us slept for maybe an hour or a little longer, my sister and I couldn't sleep. Around six the others woke up and shortly thereafter we went back to the ccu waiting room. Most of the other people were awake by this time. Visitation wasn't until 8:30 am, we waited about an hour and then got some breakfast. We all took turns visiting mother at the 8:30 visitation, she was in good spirits and was ready for the test to be over.

(I'll continue more later, the story goes through Thursday, August 9th 2007)