Marking Time

It sort of seems like we've been marking time with Bettie's progress this whole month, her first at home from the hospital. It's not that there has been no progress...there has. But it has been greatly restricted by a recurrence of pain in the gall bladder area which has had her spending a great deal of time lying on the couch. This is time she could have been working on walking, right side movement, and speech. The issue has been that *#@ drain tube.

I had thought that as soon as the tube was removed (one week ago) everything would be wonderful. But as noted in the previous post, the rest of that day (Tuesday) she went straight down hill. However, by Wednesday morning there was vast improvement. Even more the next day and the next and the next. Each day there was some discomfort in the (former) drain area but not much and seemingly diminishing.

Then came yesterday (Sunday). She awoke with considerable abdominal pain and her blood pressure was up by 20 to 30 points (I had been monitoring it closely as Dr. Greenman suggested). I was able to contact Dr. Greenman and he suggested I bring her in to see just what was going on.

At Auburn Medical Center, Dr. Greenman did an ultra-sound scan and lab work. Though it is sort of frustrating to find nothing wrong, it is definitely good news. We came home after a mere 4 hours.

My daughter-in-law, Veronica's theory is, Bettie is healing slower than normal as a result of all her body has gone through. This is evidenced by the bruise that still appears on her forehead from her fall two weeks ago. If that still shows, it should not surprise us that her insides would be bruised too from the drain, and that has only been out a week. I think she's right.

Today (Monday) she is better, though there is still some pain in the affected area.

Everyone who sees her after an absence of a week or more sees improvement.

I'll just have to be more patient.