God never promised that life would be an easy road, but He did promise to be with us when we traveled the rough parts or the flooded parts.. He is always there for us when we fall and sets us back up when we let Him.
Wendell and I have had some difficult trials this past weekend. He had been feeling punky all day Sabbath, and then though he had a very good breakfast, he layed down and slept through lunch. When he got up, he still felt punky, and we ended up with spaghetti for supper.. without all the extras. To make a long story short, he went into insulin shock and we had to call an ambulance to get him to the local ER for help. Once given an IV dose of glucose, he was his old self again. It was very scary to say the least.
I went out for most of the day on Monday with Mandy and Joyce, and then about 5pm, Wendell said he wanted me to look at his leg once more. I'd looked at his swollen ankles that morning, but this was so much more.. His knee was double sized, hot, bright red and it stretched all the way down his leg to his foot. The other one was normal. I felt for pulses and found them.. it was likely cellulitis and not a blood clot. It was too late to take him to the PCP's office , so I called the on call doc and he said to go to the ER again to be evaluated. The ER doc was the same one that treated him the night before. He recognized Wendell and said he wished he'd seen the leg when he came in for his hypoglycemic event. We had caught the cellulitis early on, and he would go home on antibiotics for the next couple weeks.
This morning before I left for the office, it was already improved greatly.. his knee is swollen and so is his leg, but not the angry red and tight swelling of the night before. AMEN.
Office today was stressful with one patient having an event. I was never rattled.. but just asked the manager to get the doctor for me. He came back and evaluated the patient and we gave her some IV medication (steroidal) and within 5 minutes she was herself again. Only one patient had to have a second jag of the needle.. I believe it was not my skill at blame, but very fragile veins. I noted when I was discharging her that she had a hematoma around the IV site. I put another pressure dressing on it. The site wasn't bleeding, but I could see it bled under the skin even with pressure. I gave her an ice pack to apply to it too. Some patients can't tolerate the tourniquet and as soon as the venipuncture is completed, the vessels appear to just burst under the skin. I have several patients that I don't use a tourniquet.
After I finished, I went in to see the doctor about my arthritic hands. I told him the creams and gel that I tried to help with the pain just didn't make it. I'd had both hands Xrayed last week and had the secretary pull up the reports to save time. Bottom line is that the thumbs are bad and he said the creams/gels are useless. They need cortisone injections in both. I opted for Thursday when we won't be as crazy busy. I can endure that long.
I'm so thankful for so much. Things could have been so much worse this week. Family support and our pastor too.. prayer from all the family .. made it all so much more tolerable.