I headed back to the work week having been out on Friday attending a continuing education course, and was looking forward to the minimal cherry bombs of herding the kindergartners at work (I’m sure that will pop up from time to time as a bit of discussion; for now, it’s just an ongoing struggle of the job that, after a year and a half+, continues to be as annoyingly old as the first month I started.)

About 11:15 I got a panicked call from Chick — Snowy was bleeding out into the commode and it was obviously not just a minor matter. She called Snowy’s doc and eventually got direction to take Snowy to the emergency room. I strapped on a rocket and blasted over to St. Luke’s to wait on their arrival.
Snowy was SO ANNOYED at Chick for ‘making a fuss’; even after being shown the blood, she adamantly insisted it was not hers. Denial makes it so in her slowly fading mind. Snowy has Alzheimer’s, and it does progress. Snowy refused to take Chick’s hand and get out of the car, so she allowed me to get her out and into her wheel chair for Chick to take her in to check in while I took their car to park.

St. Luke’s is an awesome hospital, as we had found out about a month and a half ago when we’d gone there when Snowy had a small stroke (TIA). However, as in most emergency rooms, if you don’t come in with bells and sirens blaring in an ambulance, you wait. And wait. And wait.

People were very nice, but Snowy was already exhausted by the furor and her own fussing resistance. Soon she was dozing in her chair as we waited and waited.

While we waited, an elderly gentleman, who had come in due to post-op dizziness from heart valve replacement, decided that Snowy had the sweetest, lovely face and that thus she must be the sweetest, loveliest lady, and he rolled his wheel chair up next to hers and proceeded to talk. Over an hour later, I do not believe he had taken breath while he had given us details of his life and his wife’s going back 40 years that I would bet his wife would be mortified for strangers to know — except I would bet by now she is used to it. Snowy began to nap in earnest leaving Chick and me nodding like bobble-heads with stretched smiles pasted across our faces as we did our best not to be in the least rude to the old gentleman.

The admitting nurse, who, along with 85% of those in the waiting room, was privy to the unending monologue, decided to rescue us and he pulled the gent to do some paperwork and then rolled him to another part of the waiting room (several people came flying out of there as soon as he started to talk again).

Eventually Snowy was called back and Chick went with her, having the most information about what had happened. She was able to elicit sympathy from the nurses and before long got their permission for me to join.
Several exams were done, x-rays, etc. Snowy lay on the ER bed looking paler and paler and fading. Chick and I perched on the uncomfortable chairs and waited anxiously. We got reports on the low platelet count and the GI consults that would be expected. We were not really expecting it when they said Snowy would be admitted. Then we just had to wait for a room to become available.

From 11:30-@6:00, we ‘did’ the ER — mostly sitting (or lying) and waiting for something to occur. She finally got in a room right after 6. She’d had little to eat all day, just part of her morning Boost. Now she was tagged for clear liquid diet, and we were told they wanted to do a colonoscopy on her the next day so they could check out what was going on and hopefully be able to fix it while ‘there’.We stayed with her until late in the night and she was fast asleep before we headed home to rest and bounce back early the next day. Chick was up and out of the house about 5 AM and was there again until late late late that night. I was later there, and was at work trying to keep things together while waiting to hear from Chick what was going on and when I needed to run over (not far from the office).

The GI doc checked things out and expressed her opinion that Snowy would not be best served by a colonoscopy — not that she couldn’t do the procedure, but the prep leading up to it would have been horrible for her to go through. She didn’t think we would learn anything that could be fixed. So we concurred with her advice. The internist who had the case, same one that we’d had with the TIA, said, fine, then he’d do a CT scan. One was done and then the rest of Tuesday we had no word from or of him no matter how hard we tried.

Thus Snowy had to spend another night in the hospital. She had already started getting confused about where she was and why. The Alzheimer’s was making itself known and Snowy was paying the price. Once again we stayed late late late at the hospital until she was settled down.Chick again got up before dawn and spent several hours with Snowy before she had to slip out for some med tests of her own for her forthcoming adventure. I got to the hospital a little after she’d left and Snowy was watching the door and wondering where Chick had gone. When I reminded her (as Chick had done herself), Snowy didn’t remember. She still didn’t understand where she was and why.
I was there to be sure and catch the doctor to find out what was going on. When he finally turned up, he walked in saying, “She can leave”, like he expected me to go on and roll her out of bed and out the door right then. It doesn’t work that way.

He said that the CT scan showed that she had no cancer, at least none that could be detected without a biopsy, although she did have cirrhosis of the liver — although he didn’t explain how someone who rarely had anything alcoholic to drink in her life would have such. The bleeding they felt was probably from diverticulitis and it had come to a stop. Since Snowy basically ‘eats’ Boost, key lime pie, ice cream, and part of an occasional grilled cheese sandwich, the doc didn’t think she’d been eating anything that could have triggered the bleeding.
He, and all of the docs we saw, told us we did the right thing to bring her in and insisted that we do the same if something similar happens again. With the low blood platelets it was necessary for them to intervene, hydrate her with IVs, and test for what was wrong.

The sad p.s. to the story is that when she came home, Snowy didn’t remember that she lived here. She had it in her mind that she had been in a nursing home (the hospital) and that we had come and rescued her. She didn’t recognize the house that we’ve rented and lived in for over a year, and insisted that Chick give her a tour.
She humbly asked if she had a place to sleep and where was the bathroom, and her knees buckled with emotion when Chick showed her her room — she couldn’t believe that we had gotten all of her furniture and things moved into a ‘new’ room and set up so fast. She wept. It made us weep. We have done everything we could to wrap her in love and comfort and security.

We don’t know whether with the passage of time she will reclaim any of the last year. She’s long not had much ‘present’ memory as the Alzheimer’s doesn’t let things STICK long enough to make a memory. But she did know where she lived and that she had a room.
We canceled the small Thanksgiving dinner we were going to share with some sweet neighbors who are just starting to deal with one’s dad’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and tried to reaffirm Snowy’s daily routine in hopes of helping her find that part of her path again. The sweet neighbors brought by a goody basket of leftovers and we gave thanks for their kindness.

I give thanks for Snowy’s return from the hospital with no worse a diagnosis and before the stay could completely erase her.I give huge thanks for Chick and her love and care and deep bond and connection to Snowy. I give thanks for our critters who wanted us back and snuggled us with their love on our return. I give thanks for bosses who wanted me to be with my family and said prayers for Snowy. I give thanks for Sis who kept everything humming at work so my absence was barely noticed. I give thanks for all of you, my friends, who care.