Thursday, July 22, 2004
At five minutes to noon, today...
...five minutes before I had planned on awakening Mom, our phone was triggered by a trip ring and, sure enough, it was out, again. I weighed whether I should awaken Mom and spend 2 hours bringing her into the day before I called repair. Remembering the repair debacle from Tuesday, I decided, no, I'd contact repair first. Forty-five minutes later I was finished reporting the same problem that was supposedly repaired at 0630 yesterday morning. Fed Ex pulled up to deliver Mom's breathing medications. I didn't expect this to delay me but I became involved in a conversation with the driver I'm now glad I didn't miss. Once it began I decided the conversation was important enough to me as a caregiver that it was worth allowing it to play itself out.
The driver/deliverer noticed that the delivery was Mom's breathing meds and had questions for me. Did my mother, she asked, suffer from a lazy bronchial valve as her mother-in-law did? Had I ever heard of such a thing? She wanted to know because although her mother-in-law had clear pulmonary problems, her mother-in-law's sister had been diagnosed with the same problem although she suffered from cardiac problems. She didn't say this specifically but it was obvious that, based on her and her husband's experience giving care to her mother-in-law, who lives with them and is 87, she was suspicious of this diagnosis and wondered if it was being passed out willy-nilly to as many elders as medicine thought it could get away with.
I assured her that my mother was receiving meds because of COPD/emphysema and they were to reduce acidity in the lungs in order to attempt to prevent the possibility of lung cancer. Because I picked up on her medical suspicions, though, I encouraged our conversation to continue by addressing exactly what I felt was her fundamental concern. I told her that I've learned over the past few years that although doctors are not necessarily maliciously inclined toward haphazard diagnosis and prescribing, they bear watching as, considering the state of medicine at the present time, I've found that medical mistakes due to overlooking or not looking at information about patients has caused me a lot of agony.
To Be Continued
The driver/deliverer noticed that the delivery was Mom's breathing meds and had questions for me. Did my mother, she asked, suffer from a lazy bronchial valve as her mother-in-law did? Had I ever heard of such a thing? She wanted to know because although her mother-in-law had clear pulmonary problems, her mother-in-law's sister had been diagnosed with the same problem although she suffered from cardiac problems. She didn't say this specifically but it was obvious that, based on her and her husband's experience giving care to her mother-in-law, who lives with them and is 87, she was suspicious of this diagnosis and wondered if it was being passed out willy-nilly to as many elders as medicine thought it could get away with.
I assured her that my mother was receiving meds because of COPD/emphysema and they were to reduce acidity in the lungs in order to attempt to prevent the possibility of lung cancer. Because I picked up on her medical suspicions, though, I encouraged our conversation to continue by addressing exactly what I felt was her fundamental concern. I told her that I've learned over the past few years that although doctors are not necessarily maliciously inclined toward haphazard diagnosis and prescribing, they bear watching as, considering the state of medicine at the present time, I've found that medical mistakes due to overlooking or not looking at information about patients has caused me a lot of agony.
To Be Continued
