Hospital Adventures
In truth, my mother has a solid history of being so old school as to not feel the need to drink water, hence a propensity for dehydration. True, she had a cold and was congested, but before that first ambulance ride, the temperature had returned to normal. Aside from treating the dehydration, there was a good possibility of a complete turnaround. I had seen my mother sick like this before, nothing a few IV fluids couldn’t cure.
While she was under care, no Covid test was performed and the doctor who examined her noted only her nausea and the dehydration issue. We were sent home to recover from the ordeal and recuperate.
In the coming days, however, her symptoms worsened. By Tuesday, she was back at the emergency room, in worse shape than before. After five hours waiting to see anyone, she asked to be brought home. She vowed to retreat to her bedroom and Thanksgiving would have to go on without her.
Go on it did. On Thanksgiving Day, some of the family came over and my mother stayed in her room and ate soup. She was weak and barely tolerated our checks for blood pressure and temperature readings, giving her meds, forcing water on her and keeping a close eye on anything deteriorating.
On Saturday, two days after Thanksgiving, she was again deteriorating and the ice chips we fed her were pretty much too little, too late. We were able to set up a tele-visit with her primary doctor on Tuesday, but that never happened. Instead, with her health in decline, she had no choice but to agree to yet another visit to the emergency room.