Log
07:00 AM: The hospital called my cell phone, wanting a current list of Mom’s meds. I provided this, along with the sliding scale that we use when preparing her insulin doses.
10:00 AM: Mom upset again. JoJo and I will be going up shortly to visit and to do our weekly shopping trip.
10:30 AM: Blood sugar: 253.
11:00 AM: Sister JoJo and I visited her. Apparently, the endocrinologist with the hospital visited her and acted cavalier about her foot problems and, according to her, shrugged off the charcot as no big deal, saying that she should be able to walk on her afflicted feet. NOT! Plus, he ordered some changes to her current insulin regimen. He recommends her using less Novolog insulin (a less aggressive sliding scale), and he has started her again on the drug metformin. He also wants to switch her from Lantis to NPH insulin. Now she’s tried metformin before and she had some nausea, though admittedly, we were never able to positively link her taking metformin with these sick feelings. However, stopping metformin along with a couple other medicines, did improve the nausea. So we’re concerned about putting her back on this drug. But the endocrinologist feels that it will help her. So we’re going to follow his instructions and hopefully, she won’t get sick again. If she does however, we’ll take her off of metformin again.
We’re also pushing for a consultation between the doctors at the hospital and her orthopedic specialist. The nurse on duty grew a little testy with me when I asked her for status on how this arrangement was progressing. I did talk to her specialist’s office and cancelled her appointment for this coming Tuesday. The specialist’s office recommended that we ask the nurse who is caring for Mom for the consultation. Hopefully, they’ve made some headway on getting this set up. I’ll follow up later today.
05:30 PM: Got word that Mom’s orthopedic specialist (not the one resident at the hospital) stopped into see her this afternoon. He thinks that her left foot, just like the right one, definitely has charcot foot syndrome. However, he feels that it’s not as bad in the left foot. This is good news. However, her right foot, he says, is probably going to require surgery to get it to heal the right way. This is bad news. Plus, there’s nothing more they can do for her at the hospital for this. So she’ll likely come home tomorrow.
06:00 PM: I laid some plywood on the steps and supported it with several blocks I found around here. This should enable us to wheel her in and out of the house, once she gets home.
09:35 PM: Just got off the phone with Mom. She sounds tired and still a little frustrated. But she says that the nurses and staff at the hospital are treating her well, although she was a bit perturbed because the hospitalist passed by her door earlier this evening but didn’t look in on her. She had questions. But we’ll ask them tomorrow. She thinks she’ll need a high-seated toilet and the railing reinstalled in our bathroom. But I’ll wait until we talk to her physical therapists to see exactly what they recommend for her bathroom as well as her bedroom. We may have to get a hospital bed with a trapeze triangle that she can use to lift herself in and out of the bed. We’ll just have to see what they say.
Tom Hesley
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