Wednesday, June 30, 2004
I'm discouraged...
...about Mom's anemia and our visit to the Valley yesterday. The visit itself seemed to go well, Mom insisted on walkering everywhere we went and walkered well. The doctor's visits, well, I'll talk about those later. The most discouraging aspect of yesterday happened today when her PCP's office called me about the results of yesterday's CBC blood draw. Despite the iron I've been feeding her and the meaty meals her hemoglobin has dropped to 8.9. So I guess I will set about the difficult task of trying to calculate giving her iron one hour before or two hours after eating. This is going to be tricky considering the way our life is set up. I decided, though, on my own, to order a very strong over-the-counter iron poly-saccharide, Niferex-150, also pretty expensive, which should be in tomorrow. I'll switch her over to that Friday, probably, and hopefully the blood draw her PCP has ordered for next week will show some improvement.
I've also decided to allow an upper GI. It's an imaging test using barium. She tolerates these well. I doubt that any bleeding will be found. No bleeding is ever found. I am continuing to hold firm against the endoscopy and the bone marrow biopsy.
More on everything else later. Suffice it to say that with every bit of research I've done today and every moment of deep consideration of all the bits of information I've gleaned from doctors, much of which is contradictory, I just can't think about any of this anymore for awhile, let alone write about it. Mom's tired of all this. I'm tired of it, too. I'm at the point where I want to forget doctors and medicines and just let her live medical-establishment-free until she dies. Adult Protective Services would consider this neglect but they would not, of course, consider this ridiculous medical catch-22 we're in abusive or negligent. We're being led round and round in circles now and I'm feeling the strong need to stop the spinning.
I need to switch the water on the roses. Maybe I'll write more later today, maybe tomorrow, maybe I'll just take a couple days off from considering any of this and try to sit back and enjoy this time I have with my mother without doctors or thoughts of medicine, hoping she's enjoying it, too.
"I'm tired. I want to go home." That's what Mom said yesterday afternoon after our last doctor's visit. We had planned to remain through rush hour, have dinner out which she never refuses then head up the mountain when the freeways were clear. After the day we had, though, especially the last doctor's visit, I didn't blame her, that's all I wanted, too, to go home.
I'm tired of this medical lock-step we're in. I'm tired of hauling Mom off to doctor after doctor and getting absolutely nowhere while she chants in the background, "I don't think I need to see any more doctors. I feel fine." Even when her hemoglobin was 5.7 and she needed a transfusion she told me, "No I don't, I feel fine." And, the thing is, regardless of what goes on inside her body, most of the time she does feel fine according to her determinations.
All I want is to go home. That's all.
I've also decided to allow an upper GI. It's an imaging test using barium. She tolerates these well. I doubt that any bleeding will be found. No bleeding is ever found. I am continuing to hold firm against the endoscopy and the bone marrow biopsy.
More on everything else later. Suffice it to say that with every bit of research I've done today and every moment of deep consideration of all the bits of information I've gleaned from doctors, much of which is contradictory, I just can't think about any of this anymore for awhile, let alone write about it. Mom's tired of all this. I'm tired of it, too. I'm at the point where I want to forget doctors and medicines and just let her live medical-establishment-free until she dies. Adult Protective Services would consider this neglect but they would not, of course, consider this ridiculous medical catch-22 we're in abusive or negligent. We're being led round and round in circles now and I'm feeling the strong need to stop the spinning.
I need to switch the water on the roses. Maybe I'll write more later today, maybe tomorrow, maybe I'll just take a couple days off from considering any of this and try to sit back and enjoy this time I have with my mother without doctors or thoughts of medicine, hoping she's enjoying it, too.
"I'm tired. I want to go home." That's what Mom said yesterday afternoon after our last doctor's visit. We had planned to remain through rush hour, have dinner out which she never refuses then head up the mountain when the freeways were clear. After the day we had, though, especially the last doctor's visit, I didn't blame her, that's all I wanted, too, to go home.
I'm tired of this medical lock-step we're in. I'm tired of hauling Mom off to doctor after doctor and getting absolutely nowhere while she chants in the background, "I don't think I need to see any more doctors. I feel fine." Even when her hemoglobin was 5.7 and she needed a transfusion she told me, "No I don't, I feel fine." And, the thing is, regardless of what goes on inside her body, most of the time she does feel fine according to her determinations.
All I want is to go home. That's all.
