At the Hospital

well, where have I've been, you ask. First, my blog would not let me in to write, and second, I've been caregiving. Who you might ask, well my husband. We came back from Utah and Richard caught a summer cold or so we thought, He just could not kick it. He got sicker and could not breath well. It took me three days and a fever over 103 to get Richard to the Hospital. At 3:a.m. I drove him into Erie and to the best hospital it has to offer just to have him tell me he wanted to go to the VA hospital. I got him there and into the emergency room and after a little exam they said he had pneumonia. They tried to take a electrocardiogram and it just went crazy. I've never seen such a mess of squiggles in my life. The nurse thought it was the machine till the on call Doctor yelled " that is his heart beat" Now they had to lower the rate of speed, over 200 beats a minute and get it little bit more regular. After another hour they took him up to ICU. He had a good nurse there so I went home to call all of my jobs to quit the next couple of days work. I was called by Richard that they were moving him to another hospital because he needed a heart cath and someone to help with the pneumonia. I ran to the next hospital to see him where they just let him lie there for about 4 hours and until he had another heart attack. I ran to the best hospital in the area to check on my friend who went in that same night and to she Richards sister who was just put in for an infection in an amputated toe. Well Richard stayed in CCU another 10 days and had another heart attack, kidney failure, bleeding ulcer and blood in the lungs. Now don't worry, Richard came home on the fourth and went back to work on the sixth. I've been caring for another man in the same hospital as Richard was who is AP and keeps taking out the tubes. Some times you just have to laugh, just don't do it in front of the nurses in ICU or at a funeral home. Such is a day in a caregivers life.