{"id":246,"date":"2012-01-30T01:06:10","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T07:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/?p=246"},"modified":"2014-09-10T22:29:55","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T03:29:55","slug":"surgery-cough-and-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/?p=246","title":{"rendered":"Surgery, Cough and Confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 am on Thursday, Jan 14th<\/sup>, 2010 I\u2019m standing in the dim light of the St Boniface Hospital atrium.\u00a0 I\u2019m waiting for my Mom and my Aunt to arrive for my Mom\u2019s surgery.\u00a0 I\u2019m looking around concerned that something happened; I\u2019m not used to arriving anywhere before my Mom.\u00a0 She was always early.\u00a0 Then I hear my name, which being Lisa is pretty common, I look around but I don\u2019t see anyone that I know so I assume that it is another Lisa.\u00a0 As I scan the atrium I see someone walking toward me with a big smile and slowly realize that it is my Mom.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t recognize her.\u00a0 I felt awful and tried my best to cover for myself.\u00a0 She was happy, excited about the surgery that would reverse her colostomy.<\/p>\n

We got through the pre-op all right.\u00a0 The doctor was joking and made my Mom at ease.\u00a0 He was very good at that.\u00a0 My Aunt and I sat through another surgery, but this time it was during the day and this time we didn\u2019t lose her.\u00a0 Mom came through the surgery very well and they were able to accomplish everything they had set out to.\u00a0 Mom\u2019s body wasn\u2019t quite as strong as it had been during the last surgery but she seemed to be coming around pretty well.\u00a0 She needed a little more meds and she wasn\u2019t up and around quite as quickly.\u00a0 She was a little confused off and on.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t sure if it was due to the medications she was on or if her nutrients were low.\u00a0 At the time we took it in stride but now as I look back it haunts me.\u00a0 The confusion was what she always wanted to avoid.<\/p>\n

She was all right until Saturday evening.\u00a0 That was when the confusion seemed to take over.\u00a0 My Aunt had been at the hospital until late afternoon, and then I came to take over for the evening.\u00a0 Mom seemed okay until the nurses tried to get her ready for bed around 9:30.\u00a0 I had just called home to let Pasith know I would be home around 10.\u00a0 There were visitors in the next room that were a little loud and for some reason this set Mom off.\u00a0 The nurse came in and Mom accused her of being an imposter.\u00a0 She was the same nurse Mom had seen for the last few days.\u00a0 Mom wouldn\u2019t allow her to come near her.\u00a0 Mom was also very angry about the voices coming from the other room.\u00a0 A second nurse came in to help out.\u00a0 But still Mom wouldn\u2019t allow them to come near her.\u00a0 \u201cAnyone could put on that coat.\u00a0 How do I know you\u2019re really a nurse?\u00a0 How are you going to prove it?\u00a0 Who are you really?”\u00a0 Mom was looking to me to confirm that these nurses were imposters.\u00a0 So I had to ride the line of not upsetting her but also work with the nurses so they could do their job.\u00a0 I tried to tell Mom that these women really were nurses and that I remembered them from before.\u00a0 I tried to convince her they were safe.\u00a0 Mom wasn\u2019t buying it.\u00a0 So I asked the nurses to leave for a minute so I could talk to her.\u00a0 I asked her to trust me.\u00a0 \u201cNo.\u00a0 How do I know they are nurses?\u201d\u00a0 So I asked her, \u201cWhat if the nurses are able to get the noise to stop next door?\u00a0 Then can they get you ready for bed?\u00a0 I will stay right here and I\u2019ll make sure that they don\u2019t do anything wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

I went out in the hall and discussed the deal.\u00a0 They agreed to send the visitors home and asked me to stay the night.\u00a0 I said that I would see if Mom\u2019s situation would change by 11.\u00a0 If she was still out of sorts I would stay.\u00a0 Mom kept asking the nurses who they were and gave them a little grief but they finally were able to do their job.\u00a0 They asked me again to stay because Mom was still very distrustful and had tried to get out of bed.\u00a0 So I called Pasith and said that I wouldn\u2019t be home that night.\u00a0 The nurse brought me a cot and I settled in for the night.\u00a0 Another issue was that I had a really bad cough at the time.\u00a0 I had tried everything to get rid of it but it just wouldn\u2019t go away.\u00a0 So now I have to sleep on a cot in my Mom\u2019s room and hoped and prayed that I wouldn\u2019t cough too much keeping everyone up.<\/p>\n

Soon after I laid down the first time I heard movement and jumped up.\u00a0 My Mom was sitting up and moving her legs over the side of the bed.\u00a0 I asked her if she was okay.\u00a0 She said, \u201cI need to go to the bathroom\u201d.\u00a0 I said, \u201cNo you don\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0 She had IV and a catheter in.\u00a0 \u201cHow do you know?\u00a0 I need to go to the bathroom.\u201d\u00a0 I walked over to help her back into bed, stifled a giggle and said, \u201cMom, you have a catheter in so you don\u2019t have to go the bathroom.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh.\u00a0 Well I didn\u2019t know that.\u201d\u00a0 And we both went back to bed, for another half an hour.\u00a0 And for the next 8 hours she woke up every half an hour and tried to get out of bed.\u00a0 Another frequent conversation that night was, \u201cWhere am I?\u201d\u00a0 My answer was, \u201cSt Boniface in Winnipeg.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m not in Steinbach?\u201d \u201cNo Mom, you\u2019re in Winnipeg in the hospital.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat happened?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cYou had surgery and you are okay.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAm I in Steinbach?\u00a0 Where am I?\u201d \u00a0My Aunt came in around noon on Sunday to relieve me.\u00a0 My cough was the least of my problems that night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

6 am on Thursday, Jan 14th, 2010 I\u2019m standing in the dim light of the St Boniface Hospital atrium.\u00a0 I\u2019m waiting for my Mom and my Aunt to arrive for my Mom\u2019s surgery.\u00a0 I\u2019m looking around concerned that something happened; … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248,"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246\/revisions\/248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/puzzle-peace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}