One stick and five hours later

It has been a crazy, stressful twenty-four hours at my house. I picked up my mother Wednesday morning so she could watch Carson while I took care of some paperwork up at the school and then pick Courtney up. She started complaining about her knee hurting that evening and was starting to have trouble walking. We applied some ice packs and later even tried heat packs, but nothing seemed to help. She took some Tylenol, since she can't take Ibuprofen, and that wasn't touching it either. She got up several times during the night, but insisted it was just arthritis like her doctor had told her a couple of weeks before. She said her doctor had even offered to prescribe her pain medicine, which she refused, to help with the discomfort. Yesterday afternoon she was hardly able to walk across the room and was talking about getting a walker. I was so aggravated with her for not getting the medicine to help her.

She finally said something to me about looking at her leg and how it was swollen. When I looked at it I could immediately tell it was not arthritis. I started going through things in my head trying to figure out what was wrong. I looked online and found some similarities between what I could see and the information I found on Deep Vein Thrombosis, aka a blood clot in the leg. Since my mother has a blood condition in which she makes too many red blood cells and has trouble with blood clotting, I felt it made since. I told her what I thought and that we needed to take her to see her primary care doctor. She didn't argue and almost seemed relieved to be going to the doctor. I called her doctor and they didn't have any appointments, but the receptionist said to leave a message for them to see if they could work us in. After waiting two in a half hours, they called back and said to take her to the ER, that they agreed with me about the possibility of the clot and the best course of action would be the hospital so they could do a doppler ultrasound to see for sure. After calling my mother-in-law to come and get my kids, my husband and my sister, we were off to the hospital.

We were very surprised to get to the ER and not have to wait. They had called us back within five minutes of being there. I don't think we got back that fast when Carson broke his arm. They examined her and said it was possible for her to have a blood clot, but also she could have Cellulitis, an infection in her leg. They wanted to go ahead and take some blood for labs and start an IV. The nurse was very good and got it on the first stick, which made my mother very happy. They soon came and took her to have the ultrasound and came back with good news, no blood clot. I have never been more happy to have been wrong. They did say she had the Cellulitis and would like to keep her overnight to give her IV antibiotics and monitor her.

We had a room and were moving in. It was not a private room, so there would be no room for me to stay the night. I really don't think she would have let me stay anyway. Once she was in the room, they hooked her back up to the antibiotics and fluid. She was fine for a little while, but soon starting itching and turning red. I went to get the nurse and he came back, looked at her and went to get the doctor. The doctor came in and said the itching and redness were caused from the antibiotics and fluids being run to quickly. They lowered the rate and gave her some benadryl just in case she was having an allergic reaction. She is allergic to several things, so we couldn't be sure.

I stayed with her until she ate and the benadryl kicked in, then she was ready for me to go home and for her to get some rest. I called the hospital just a little while ago and they said she was going fine and would receive another dose of antibiotic around 3am and they would give her benadryl first and run it over four hours instead of the original two. The doctor seemed hopeful that she would be able to go home tomorrow. I'm sure I will be up bright and early in the morning to go back to the hospital and hopefully bring her home.