General Update #17

Nurse arrived at 1:18 p.m. with another dose of pain medicine for Joyce. Noticed that the oxygen meter alarm was sounding. Nurse increased Joyce's oxygen flow up to 2.5 from 2 litres. Dusty relayed Joyce's comments about having difficulty in breathing and taking deep breaths due to pain in her chest. Nurse informed Joyce that she should be sitting in the chair for lunch and to assist with proper breathing. Nurse summoned nurse's aides to Joyce's room, letting them know that Joyce should have been moved back to the chair following the suppository given to Joyce earlier in the day. Nurse's aides expressed exasperation at the nurse as the nurse did not tell them to return Joyce to the chair. Nurse stated that they should have done that when the food was delivered. Minor interpersonal passive aggressive recriminations toward one another ensued. Nurse's aides initially have moved Joyce into the bathroom after getting her out of bed around 1:25 p.m. with hopes she will have a bowel movement before being placed in the chair and allowed to eat her lunch.

Nurse gave Joyce her pain pill (unconfirmed type) while Joyce was seated on the toilet at 1:28 p.m. as well as having administered insulin. Nurse asked Joyce if she was feeling hungry and Joyce told her no. Joyce was asked if she felt like she needed to have a bowel movement by the nurse and Joyce told her no. Nurse asked Dusty if Good Samaritan would be able to take Joyce into their care tomorrow if Joyce could not be discharged from Gritman today. Dusty informed nurse that would be something that Dana, Joyce's case worker, would have to determine as he hasn't yet received any updates in regard to Joyce's discharge and transfer timelines. Nurse departed to see if she could locate Dr. Brown or Dana for updated information given Joyce's lack of bowel movement since being admitted to Gritman. 


Message(s) from Joyce:
None.

Current location:
Gritman Medical Center, Room 226.

Current pain level:
4 out of 10 at 1:01 p.m.

Visiting information:
No change from previous post.
Confirmed with nurse's station shift leader at 9:30 a.m. - currently only 1 visitor per day for Joyce, no exceptions. Once current visitor departs Joyce's room, no further visits for the rest of the day. No swapping out visitors (example, Dusty cannot remain on hospital grounds while Craig goes to sit with Joyce for an hour and then Dusty returns to room).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

General Update #92

07/24/2020 Dusty missed calling Joyce due to personal schedule conflicts. 07/25/2020 Dusty called in to check with Joyce at 1 p.m. following a training session he attended for Scouts BSA. Lunch today was spaghetti "with a delicious meat sauce," a side of veggies and dessert was vanilla pudding. Joyce confessed that she might not have remembered it had the tray not still been sitting beside her with the remnants of the meal. She had today off from physical therapy but did have speech/mental therapy. She said that some of the questions that the speech therapists ask her are "laughable" because they ask her if she has lived in rural areas and then ask her about what she thinks living in the rural areas are like after already verifying she lives in the country. Dusty suggested that the therapists are trying to use something basic, like knowledge of Joyce living in the country, to then ask questions about living in the country to see how Joyce recalls information or rela...
Read more

General Update #95

07/27/2020 Dusty called Joyce to check in and wish her a good night while he was preparing dinner for Jess. Joyce was alert and quite talkative. Dusty reviewed the plan for the telehealth appointment scheduled for tomorrow and Joyce stated that no one had told her that was occurring. Dusty suggested to Joyce that they were going to visit with her tomorrow morning ahead of the appointment based on what Rachael had told him and Joyce concurred. Dusty questioned Joyce about her decline of participating in the urinary incontinence therapy as well as her reported lack of performance with physical therapy. Joyce stated that she had been looking forward to the urinary incontinence therapy work but according to her they only spoke to her once about it and then never again approached her about it.  Joyce felt like they don't do enough PT with her even though she wants to do more PT. She cited today that they only had her walk back and forth using parallel bars for a few minutes before givin...
Read more

General Update #85

Dusty and Jess called Joyce in the evening on July 4 to wish her a happy Independence Day.  Joyce reported that her pain levels were fairly low, even after doing upper body physical therapy work earlier in the day. She was a little disappointed with her meals served. She had been hoping that they would serve hot dogs and potato salad for lunch or dinner but none were to be had. Joyce could not recall what she ate for any of her three meals she was served. At the time of the phone call Joyce had not seen any fireworks out her north facing window but she could hear several concussive blasts of fireworks being set off near Dusty and Jess' apartment.  Joyce said that she did not see or hear the Let Freedom Ring Tour (a B-25 Mitchell, a F-7F Tigercat, a P-47 Thunderbolt, a P40N Warhawk, and a P51D Mustang), which was sponsored by Hangar180 , fly overhead around 5:45 p.m. but she might've missed it most likely owing to having been napping at the time. She stated that she was excited...
Read more