Janis is a dancer with the kindest heart imaginable. This photo was taken some years ago.
Friends of Janis and I have been staying with her for the past week because she has Parkinson's, complicated in the last month by orthostatic hypotension and numerous issues causing nausea, diarrhea, and dizziness. She has fainted and fallen. She has been to the ER 6 times this month. Each time it was determined that she didn't need hospital admission (?!) despite the fact that she is 74 years old, can't stand up for long, feed herself or take her meds without help and lives alone.
Today we finally were able to have a home health care nurse come to do an assessment which was followed by a phone call to a physician who completed the assessment. Her standing diastolic blood pressure was 49! The doctor said she need to go to the ER immediately. The nurse instructed Janis to refuse discharge from the ER this time. The hospital didn't tell her that she could refuse to be discharged. It's called "appealing the discharge" and gives a person 24 hours in the hospital at which time they again "appeal the discharge." Our goal is to have her admitted so that she can be discharged to an acute care rehab or acute care at home through something called COPES for low-income people.
Because Janis is so weak and her diastolic and systolic blood pressures are so low, I'm hopeful that they will admit her this time -- that she gets the medical attention she needs.
I've been up since 4:00 this morning, caregiving for Janis from 6:30 until her daytime caregiver arrived for the nurse and doctor assessment. I'm an early bird. Her daytime caregiver is a night owl and is staying at the hospital with Janis now. When I left the hospital, we had been in the overflowing ER for nearly 5 hours. There was a steady stream of people of all ages suffering and needing medical attention in an understaffed hospital with a limited amount of beds.
I'm going to get some sleep so that I can help out again tomorrow.
