08:12 – Barbara’s dad is back at home with several broken ribs. While they were at the doctor’s appointment, he tripped and fell to his knees and then forward onto his face. Barbara was terrified, not just because he fell but because he started yelling after the fall. He should have been in a wheelchair or using a walker, of course, but Barbara’s dad is obstinate.
Thursday, 14 June 2012
10 Comments and discussion on "Thursday, 14 June 2012"
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Obstinate? You’re displaying your gift for understatement. As I recall Barbara’s dad is a Marine, and his picture probably appears in the dictionary as an example of obstinate.
In all seriousness, I’m glad to hear he’s home.
Yup, we men are obstinate. I plan to fight any kind of walking assistance tooth and nail. I was in the hospital last summer after another heart attack and checked myself out after 28 hours (against doctor’s orders). The nurse was following me with the wheelchair to take me to the front door which I did get into after she asked nicely.
The downside of failing is that if they can grab onto someone on the way down. My father in law has no feeling below his knees and is 300+ lbs. When he is going down he grabs anything and can leave painful bruises on the way smaller females of the species. He has a very tight grip.
s/failing/falling/
Yes. Barbara’s dad isn’t tall, but he weighs 200+ pounds. As she said yesterday, there’s no way she could catch him, and she’s afraid that she might be seriously hurt if she tried.
I guess I just don’t understand someone refusing to recognize reality. When I suffered the first vertigo attack a couple years ago, I used a walker frame for the first day or so. Better that than keel over. Now I carry a four-footed cane with me everywhere I go. I don’t need it 99% of the time, but if I start to totter I want to have it.
I had a vertigo attack two days before my first heart attack. I wish that I had been smart enough to check my blood pressure at the time. When I had my first heart attack, my blood pressure was 210 over 110. I assume that you are checking your blood pressure? I take 25mg/day of metaprolol. That gets my blood pressure down to 110/70 in the morning. I was also taking an alpha blocker for a while which had my blood pressure down to 90/50. I could barely stand up and walk with it. I dropped it after 30 days.
I guess using a cane or a walker is a sign of weakness. I’ve kidded with the wife that I may need a cane soon just to get up with my bad knees. I do walk 2.5 miles five days a week with no trouble so no cane. Yet.
BTW, my FIL has broken ribs also while falling. He really complained about the pain of them while they were healing.
Yeah, I had my blood pressure checked 20 or 30 years ago. It was fine.
I’m sure it’s still low. I attribute that to the superb condition I was in 35 or 40 years ago when I was playing serious tennis. At the time, I had it checked for some reason. The person who was doing it looked at me strangely, and eventually told me I was dead. No blood pressure and no pulse. I did at the time have a ridiculously low rest pulse.
Bob, I would enlist Barbara’s and her sister’s assistance to keep their father AND MOTHER away from the hospital. If he’s broken ribs, he’s going to be in agony any time he coughs or even makes a natural throat-clearing motion. Believe me. He’s going to rapidly learn not to do that, which means he’s ripe for pneumonia because he’s not clearing congestion from his lungs and bronchi. The hospital is an excellent source of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and if one of those settles in to the lungs, well, that’s about all she wrote. Not just direct infection, but his wife/their mother could bring the infection home after a volunteer stint at the hospital.
Thanks. Yes, I’ve been telling Barbara that for a long time. She’s talked to her parents about it but they simply refuse to consider it.
Pardon me for repeating myself. Has Barbara discussed it with her parents’ doctor(s)?
Given privacy laws it may be a one sided conversation. (Barbara talks, and the doctor listens.) If Barbara can win over the doctor, then maybe the doctor can use his influence.
My mother actually had pneumonia one Christmas, and my wife and I tried to get her to go to the ER because she was having trouble breathing. She called the doctor’s office the next morning. She was told to go to the ER, and she hung up the phone and called an ambulance. The ambulance took her to the ER, and she left the hospital a few days later.
Barbara’s parents won’t listen to their doctors. They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do, and won’t let anyone tell them otherwise.