Christopher, my oldest biological nephew, is serving in the Tampa, Florida mission. His next youngest brother, Clark, is expecting his own mission call on either Wednesday, December 26th or Thursday, December 27, so we all head down to St. George to watch him open his call, participate in his ordination as an elder, and attend his endowment session on Saturday.
It's going to be fun spending a few days with extended family over New Years.
Clark's call didn't come on Wednesday (kind of expected with the Christmas holiday), so we hustle down to St. George on Thursday to ensure we're there by 7 pm for the opening. But it doesn't come. Drat! We'll have to try again on Friday and pray that it really comes.
Friday, Dale and I run a few errands and arrive back at the Farnsworths just around lunch time. My observant husband notices that the mailperson is parked in front of the mailbox stack, so I run into the house to see if Cliff or Tressie are home. Cliff is but he doesn't have the mail key.
"It's okay. The mailperson is there now. Maybe if you show them your driver's license to prove your address, she'll give you your mail."
A few moments later, Cliff triumphantly waves a large white envelope from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints bearing Clark's name. It's going to be a busy couple of hours for Clark.
At 6:45, he meets with his bishop at the house, in the basement by the pool table for his living ordinance temple recommend. (It's the quietest place in the building because there's so many extended family members and friends there.)
At 7:00, Clark opens his call to the Independence, Missouri--Spanish speaking mission. He reports to the MTC on March 6th. Not much time to get ready. Chris even got special permission to join by Skype so that he could participate.
At 7:45, Clark leaves his own party to meet with his Stake President for a living ordinance temple interview.
At 8:00, he's ordained at the Stake Center to the Melchezidik Priesthood, office of an Elder.
By 9:10 tomorrow morning, he needs to be at the St. George temple to receive his own endowments.
Whew! I'm exhausted, which might explain why I feel like torturing Bailey, my youngest niece and the one who can entertain me and make me laugh the most at not-quite-two-years-old.
So, when we're all sure that Bailey is paying attention, someone pulls my oxygen cord apart into two separate pieces and I immediately slump and slink down as if I've been unplugged and am now dead. Bailey is immediately concerned and makes motions to reconnect the cord and wake me up again. Ah, I can breathe again and magically come to life.
We replay the scene at various times over the weekend, but Bailey doesn't want anything more to do with it. If anyone picks up my cord and threatens to disconnect me, she waves her hands in front of her, saying "No, No, No" as she runs out of the room. It's good to know she cares about me so much.
Finally, after torturing her several times and joking that she's going to be traumatized for life, I hit upon something that might help her feel better about my oxygen cord. So, I arrange for my cord to be disconnected while I slump dead again and deliberately place the two parts of the oxygen cord at her eye level so that she'll "accidentally" discover it as another niece guides her over to me.
"Oh no, Bailey. What happened to Trisha? Can you plug her in again? Good job, she's plugged in."
And, once again, I'm magically healed and sitting up, and Bailey got to heal me. She feels much better about that than watching me slump over.
Purple Everywhere
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Showing posts with label supplemental oxygen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label supplemental oxygen. Show all posts
Friday, December 28, 2012
Saturday, September 1, 2012
ER Visit and Supplemental Oxygen
It's late, late Friday evening. Why do abrupt changes in my medical status always seem to occur on Friday evenings--just after Urgent Care has closed and the only place for some help is the local ER? I hate the ER. If you're dying--absolutely cannot breathe, having a heart attack, bleeding to death, been shot, etc.--the ER is the place to head. If it's anything else, they're just going to bother you by running every test known to the medical staff so they rule out anything egregious and cover themselves and the hospital from any future claims of negligence.
Anyway, it's late. I've fallen asleep and wake up. Suddenly I notice (or finally pay attention to the fact) that I'm having a lot of trouble breathing. Crud! I'm pretty sure I know what this means. There were no PEs in my lungs, so I probably need supplemental oxygen at night. But the only way I can get it now is by visiting the ER. I definitely don't want to try and sleep without oxygen because O2 levels naturally go down a little as I sleep.
Sorry, Dale. It looks like we get to visit an ER yet again. We head out of the door about 11:30 p.m.
Unfortunately, our insurance changed and now we have to visit Timpanogos Regional Hospital, instead of the American Fork Hospital ER, which is just 1.7 miles from our house. The AF staff is kind of used to seeing me and really listen to what I tell them. When I had the PEs before, I marched into the triage area and said, "I'm having trouble breathing. I just came from my primary care physician's office, where my O2 was in the low 70s, and my blood pressure and heart rate are elevated. I need you to rule out: 1) sepsis or some kind of gross infection throughout my whole body 2) low red blood cell counts that need an infusion 3) pneumonia and 4) pulmonary embolisms." They listened, ran just the tests they needed to for those four conditions, and found the PEs.
Not Timp!
Why can't they just listen to me? After all of this time and all of these treatments and their side effects, they think they know my body better than I do? Ha!
I walked in and told them that I was having trouble breathing, and that I needed supplemental oxygen. I'd had blood work drawn on Wednesday that was all good and a PE scan on Thursday that was negative. I just need supplemental oxygen.
Nope. They get to run their standard battery of tests: chest x-ray, blood work, and more blood work. Each time a test is run, we have to wait 30 minutes to an hour to get the results. They don't even trust the blood count results from Wednesday. What's a girl to do? So far, everything has been normal and not actionable.
So next we get to try a breathing treatment. They don't work. They never work. They just make me feel jittery. I tell that to the poor respiratory therapist who comes to administer the treatment. She listens and offers to go fight it out with the ER doctor. After all, whose insurance company wants to pay for something that I don't want or need? After another 30 minutes of waiting, the ER doctor is back, ready to argue for his point of view. You know what? The area around my chest does feel tighter and more constricted than usual. Fine. I'll let you try the breathing treatment--not to help my lungs but to, hopefully, loosen the constriction and resulting sharp stabbing pains around my entire thoracic cavity. 30 minutes later: one breathing treatment administered, bodily shaking occuring, and the stabbing pains in my chest are lessened by maybe one tiny degree. Are we finally finished?
Another 30 minutes goes by, and it's time for one last chat with the doctor. They could do one more thing (which now I cannot remember), but I know it's going to be useless. I know, and now I know that they know, what I've been saying all night and early morning. My body needs supplemental oxygen. Please! Can we just get a tank and go now? Off the oxygen, my O2 readings drop down to about 73. On oxygen, only about one liter, it jumps right back up to the low 90s. Please!
There's some more delay as they figure out what medical supply company my insurance prefers. They're recommending Alpine Home Medical, but they're having a hard time locating an oxygen tank from Alpine. Finally, someone on another floor finds one tank that isn't labeled. They give it to me (after about 5.5 hours of waiting) with the promise that someone from Alpine will be at our house waiting for us to arrive so that they can deliver a concentrator.
We're finally back home about 4:00 a.m. Luckily, today is Saturday and we get to sleep in just a bit. I'm exhausted!
Anyway, it's late. I've fallen asleep and wake up. Suddenly I notice (or finally pay attention to the fact) that I'm having a lot of trouble breathing. Crud! I'm pretty sure I know what this means. There were no PEs in my lungs, so I probably need supplemental oxygen at night. But the only way I can get it now is by visiting the ER. I definitely don't want to try and sleep without oxygen because O2 levels naturally go down a little as I sleep.
Sorry, Dale. It looks like we get to visit an ER yet again. We head out of the door about 11:30 p.m.
Unfortunately, our insurance changed and now we have to visit Timpanogos Regional Hospital, instead of the American Fork Hospital ER, which is just 1.7 miles from our house. The AF staff is kind of used to seeing me and really listen to what I tell them. When I had the PEs before, I marched into the triage area and said, "I'm having trouble breathing. I just came from my primary care physician's office, where my O2 was in the low 70s, and my blood pressure and heart rate are elevated. I need you to rule out: 1) sepsis or some kind of gross infection throughout my whole body 2) low red blood cell counts that need an infusion 3) pneumonia and 4) pulmonary embolisms." They listened, ran just the tests they needed to for those four conditions, and found the PEs.
Not Timp!
Why can't they just listen to me? After all of this time and all of these treatments and their side effects, they think they know my body better than I do? Ha!
I walked in and told them that I was having trouble breathing, and that I needed supplemental oxygen. I'd had blood work drawn on Wednesday that was all good and a PE scan on Thursday that was negative. I just need supplemental oxygen.
Nope. They get to run their standard battery of tests: chest x-ray, blood work, and more blood work. Each time a test is run, we have to wait 30 minutes to an hour to get the results. They don't even trust the blood count results from Wednesday. What's a girl to do? So far, everything has been normal and not actionable.
So next we get to try a breathing treatment. They don't work. They never work. They just make me feel jittery. I tell that to the poor respiratory therapist who comes to administer the treatment. She listens and offers to go fight it out with the ER doctor. After all, whose insurance company wants to pay for something that I don't want or need? After another 30 minutes of waiting, the ER doctor is back, ready to argue for his point of view. You know what? The area around my chest does feel tighter and more constricted than usual. Fine. I'll let you try the breathing treatment--not to help my lungs but to, hopefully, loosen the constriction and resulting sharp stabbing pains around my entire thoracic cavity. 30 minutes later: one breathing treatment administered, bodily shaking occuring, and the stabbing pains in my chest are lessened by maybe one tiny degree. Are we finally finished?
Another 30 minutes goes by, and it's time for one last chat with the doctor. They could do one more thing (which now I cannot remember), but I know it's going to be useless. I know, and now I know that they know, what I've been saying all night and early morning. My body needs supplemental oxygen. Please! Can we just get a tank and go now? Off the oxygen, my O2 readings drop down to about 73. On oxygen, only about one liter, it jumps right back up to the low 90s. Please!
There's some more delay as they figure out what medical supply company my insurance prefers. They're recommending Alpine Home Medical, but they're having a hard time locating an oxygen tank from Alpine. Finally, someone on another floor finds one tank that isn't labeled. They give it to me (after about 5.5 hours of waiting) with the promise that someone from Alpine will be at our house waiting for us to arrive so that they can deliver a concentrator.
We're finally back home about 4:00 a.m. Luckily, today is Saturday and we get to sleep in just a bit. I'm exhausted!
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