Wednesday, June 23, 2004
There is a Blood Pressure History Back-up...
...posted, as of last night, on Mom's Daily Tests and Meds. The doctor has a previous 20 reading history from June 8th back. What you'd see, if you looked at it, is her unusually low blood pressure for the 4 days or so before the blood transfusion.
The above mentioned tests and meds journal is where I'll be keeping her up-to-date numbers and meds history from now on.
I'm, unhappily, feeling like I need one more day, just one more day to recuperate. We've got to go for the blood draw. And Mom is opening her eyes no later than 1000 today. She might not get fed until 1100 or so but her eyes will be open at 1000. I have business calls to make that I'm hoping I'll get around to making today. We'll see. I just can't seem to catch up with myself since the transfusion and the visitors. Damn.
One more stunning aspect of working with Dr. Gold: Friday, June 11th, after we'd arrived home to Prescott the night previous, one of Dr. Gold's people called to see how Mom was doing. Amazing.
You know, I almost quake in my boots for Dr. Gold. Aside from his cracker-jack mind (I love physicians with cracker-jack minds), he developed, early, possibly before he started training to become a physician, a sense of compassionate listening, diagnosis and treatment that is pretty rare in a physician as young as he. He also has not yet reorganized his approach to patients based on 10-15 minutes of face time. I find this extraordinary. I hope he is not beaten down by the changes in his profession. I hope he is not overloaded with patients and Plan Capitators to the point of feeling forced to practice in a less effective manner than that for which he is gifted. I think this man came to non-alternative medicine with an already strong, well exercised healing spirit. He is in the right profession. I hope his healing spirit survives non-alternative medicine.
Did I mention this, lately? Let me check...
No, I don't think so, but bear with me if I have...
So, sometime while Mom was in the hospital, MCS and I had a conversation about medical care of the old while discussing Mom's care and Dr. Gold's suggested recommendations (I know, sounds redundant but it's not). "You know, MCS, the research and development needed to medicate and handle old age properly are going to be done on us. It's not being done, much, on Mom's generation because in many cases they're too old. Look at Mom. It will have to be done on us because we're the bulge in the belly of the snake. Thus, we'll benefit only marginally. It will be our kids and their kids who will benefit."
"That's right," she confirmed.
In some ways I like this idea. It means, for instance, that physicians will have to listen to us exactly the way Dr. Gold listened to my mother and me. In some ways I find the idea frightening. For instance, mistakes will be made and discovered on us. We'll have no choice but to take risks with treatment. Thus, insurance rates will remain high. Second opinions will be more confusing than reassuring. Personal Medical Advocates (Medical Valets, if you will) will become the trend, paid for through insurance or retained through one's family lawyer-on-retainer. For some time to come no one will be sure what is cause and what is effect. Mighty dicey, I'd say. More dicey than what I'm doing with Mom's health care.
Well, I'm feeling as though a bit more will be possible today than I previously felt. Perhaps I will post the Doctors and Patience essay this evening. It's undergone some minor changes since Mom's blood transfusion but the main hold up is designing a page for it. I've been, lately, applying all my imaginative and manipulative powers to negotiating Mom's recent health crisis and the fall out, including visitors. More to say on that topic, later. No bad, just rumination.
Later.
The above mentioned tests and meds journal is where I'll be keeping her up-to-date numbers and meds history from now on.
I'm, unhappily, feeling like I need one more day, just one more day to recuperate. We've got to go for the blood draw. And Mom is opening her eyes no later than 1000 today. She might not get fed until 1100 or so but her eyes will be open at 1000. I have business calls to make that I'm hoping I'll get around to making today. We'll see. I just can't seem to catch up with myself since the transfusion and the visitors. Damn.
One more stunning aspect of working with Dr. Gold: Friday, June 11th, after we'd arrived home to Prescott the night previous, one of Dr. Gold's people called to see how Mom was doing. Amazing.
You know, I almost quake in my boots for Dr. Gold. Aside from his cracker-jack mind (I love physicians with cracker-jack minds), he developed, early, possibly before he started training to become a physician, a sense of compassionate listening, diagnosis and treatment that is pretty rare in a physician as young as he. He also has not yet reorganized his approach to patients based on 10-15 minutes of face time. I find this extraordinary. I hope he is not beaten down by the changes in his profession. I hope he is not overloaded with patients and Plan Capitators to the point of feeling forced to practice in a less effective manner than that for which he is gifted. I think this man came to non-alternative medicine with an already strong, well exercised healing spirit. He is in the right profession. I hope his healing spirit survives non-alternative medicine.
Did I mention this, lately? Let me check...
No, I don't think so, but bear with me if I have...
So, sometime while Mom was in the hospital, MCS and I had a conversation about medical care of the old while discussing Mom's care and Dr. Gold's suggested recommendations (I know, sounds redundant but it's not). "You know, MCS, the research and development needed to medicate and handle old age properly are going to be done on us. It's not being done, much, on Mom's generation because in many cases they're too old. Look at Mom. It will have to be done on us because we're the bulge in the belly of the snake. Thus, we'll benefit only marginally. It will be our kids and their kids who will benefit."
"That's right," she confirmed.
In some ways I like this idea. It means, for instance, that physicians will have to listen to us exactly the way Dr. Gold listened to my mother and me. In some ways I find the idea frightening. For instance, mistakes will be made and discovered on us. We'll have no choice but to take risks with treatment. Thus, insurance rates will remain high. Second opinions will be more confusing than reassuring. Personal Medical Advocates (Medical Valets, if you will) will become the trend, paid for through insurance or retained through one's family lawyer-on-retainer. For some time to come no one will be sure what is cause and what is effect. Mighty dicey, I'd say. More dicey than what I'm doing with Mom's health care.
Well, I'm feeling as though a bit more will be possible today than I previously felt. Perhaps I will post the Doctors and Patience essay this evening. It's undergone some minor changes since Mom's blood transfusion but the main hold up is designing a page for it. I've been, lately, applying all my imaginative and manipulative powers to negotiating Mom's recent health crisis and the fall out, including visitors. More to say on that topic, later. No bad, just rumination.
Later.
