Off to the Hospital

Phone calls at 4:30 in the morning are disconcerting enough. When they are from your 90 year old mother's aged care facility they are Very Disconcerting Indeed!

They had called an ambulance and were sending her to hospital. Her blood pressure was very low. She had been extremely fatigued and was getting increasingly confused. Her leg was very swollen and painful. Off to hospital for her.

And in hospital Stella remains. Her blood count was rock bottom, her blood pressure was almost non-existent. Her readings were so low that they prompted her GP to call me just after 8:30 to see what on earth had happened. Stella herself had just assumed she had overdone it at her 90th birthday celebrations and that she should slow down a bit. If that had been the cause, though, she should have been much better. It wasn't that raucous a weekend! It turns out that she had had a very slow internal bleed - which almost certainly accounts for all the odd symptoms she's had since Christmas. 

She spent pretty much all of Friday in the Ballarat Base ED, before being moved into a ward.She's had four units of blood and they're trying to stabilise all her odd readings. She won't come out until tomorrow or Tuesday. However, once Stella goes into a hospital they always seem very reluctant to let her out again, so who knows when she will finally escape.

I stayed at home on Friday, just in case.  Ian and I went to see her on Friday late afternoon and took her phone and some pyjamas in for her. Wendy came up yesterday morning and she, Lindsey and I went to visit. Wendy is heading home again this morning but Lindsey and I will call in this afternoon. We'll see how she goes.

A much better colour.
She had been an alabaster white on Thursday

It would be very useful if I could have my car back. Life is nice and quiet travelling on the buses but it is very inconvenient not having a vehicle if I need to get to the hospital or to Rupert and Hugo's place. Not to mention getting to work!