7-28-2021 Pneumonia

(Marilyn's Perspective)

I got there this morning around 8:30 and she was getting a nebulizer treatment. The girl administering it just said it was a breathing aid. 

A little later, Paula (speech pathologist) came in to give Linda food by mouth again.  It was Cream of Wheat, and Linda wasn't crazy about it, but she ate enough to make Paula happy. I asked Paula about the x-ray that Linda had yesterday and Paula didn't know.

Linda sat up for a while.  I tried to get her to play Tic Tac Toe with me but I think she just wasn't in the mood.  Around 10:30 or 11:00 she started saying bizarre things, like "Turn that stereo down, it's too loud, but make sure Steven Spielberg is being taken care of."  Or "Would you run out and get me a Coke?"  The interesting part of this is that she was speaking very clearly and usually she is hard to understand.

Around noon no one had come to tell me about the chest x-ray so I went to the hall and flagged down a nurse and asked her if she knew the results; she said "pneumonia" and kept on going.  I went out to a common area and called Tricia and we decided to stay calm and take this a day at a time.  The doctor had left for the day so I found the Head Nurse and asked for more information.  She stressed -- as did the nurses -- that "it was treatable" and Linda was put on a 10-day antibiotic regimen.  I mentioned how bizarre Linda had been this morning and the Head Nurse said a lot of times an infection can have that effect.  I was also told that there was a possibility that the pneumonia may send her back to the hospital.  If that happens, I guess we would need to revisit how Medicare would handle that.  Thank goodness Tricia has been staying on top of that.

In the meantime I asked if Linda's therapy would continue and they said as long as she can cooperate they would expect to keep it up.

So I left around 1:00 and went home.  I'll be back there again early tomorrow. 


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