This is turning into a real roller coaster ride. The morning started off at home normally, took my pills and played my games. Late morning when I still hadn’t heard from VNA about the nurse to do my blood draw, I called. Got a call back on the landline, which I missed as the handset was out of charge, but I was able to redial and got through to the scheduler in Concord who told me that the nurse had a family emergency and that there wasn’t another available. That was when we decided to go to Emerson to get it done there.
Butt slid downstairs. It was harder this time but I made it into the car. We arrived at Emerson and that’s when it happened! Maureen pulled in at the entrance and went to get a wheelchair. I hauled myself out of the car and on my good leg maneuvered myself so I could sit in the chair. It was a very wide chair and we couldn’t angle it towards the car. As I pivoted to lower myself in the chair I heard a crack in my good leg and the world went white. I found myself sitting in the chair but my vision was all off. It was much brighter outside and my field of vision blurry. I didn’t feel terrible, just stunned by what had happened.
In the blood lab they declined to do the blood draw and called in a doctor. They put an IV in my arm, with a saline bag, as apparently I was severely dehydrated. He said I needed to go to the ER. Msureen said she could push me (even though it’s up a slope) but the EMTs had turned up and said it would be best for me to have a stretcher. So that’s what we did -lifted me on to a stretcher followed by an ambulance ride of less that 100 yards.
The “good” leg is no longer good. It was pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to go home. It’s quite painful and I can’t put any weight on it. The doctors in the ER took x-rays but didn’t see anything, so maybe it’s just a bad sprain. I messaged SLC, but it was after 5 pm. Fortunately, one of the doctors was able to reach him. SLC wants me back at MGH tomorrow. Emerson is deferring a CAT scan until I get there.
Initially my systolic blood pressure was low, in the 80s. This is consistent with the fainting (aka syncope) episode. After an hour or so however the blood pressure came up. They also drew blood for a blood culture and a Sepsis Lactic Acid test. The first test put me in the elevated zone, with a measure of 3.1 mMo/L (milli Moles per liter). A later blood test had me returning to the normal range of 1.8.
I’m not happy at all with VNA and will not use them again. I specifically asked them when booking nursing appointments for the two blood draws on Monday. The nurse they sent yesterday couldn’t do it so there was no point in her coming out. The dressing she replaced on my left leg quickly fell off after she left. The OT person they sent out couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, and PT never showed up. They didn’t return my first few phone calls when I asked what had happened to the results of the blood tests, and those turned out to be time critical as they showed that my WBC had increased. Finally, if they had sent a nurse to do the blood draw today like they were supposed to, then I wouldn’t have needed to go to Emerson, and the fall would never have happened.
