Yesterday morning I was awakened at 7am by a doctor wanting to get consent for a blood transfusion.
No problem. All of this stuff has been discussed and I know what the right answers are, even if I can't find where she squirrelled away the living will paperwork.
Why did I have to give consent? She was given a heavy-duty painkiller yesterday and she was totally zonked. Not capable of making her own decisions.
Unfortunately, when she gets meds that "good," she tends not to react well to them. She spent the rest of the day pretty much asleep, and later on was confused. Luckily I was there when they came in to do an echocardiogram ... she fought with the echo tech, and I had to help hold her.
This morning a nurse called to inform me that there would be a call from interventional radiology, for consent for a PICC line. She's had one of these before. Why does she need it now? Well, on the one hand, her veins are quite fragile, and, I'm told difficult to stick. On the other, she became angrily confused overnight, apparently wanted to leave the hospital, and pulled her IVs. All of them. She may have had as many as three running.
She is now restrained.
On the upside, the cardiologist thinks she clinically looks "better."
siswolf arrived yesterday evening from Rhode Island.
|