Tapping time.

I'd like to follow my last post with a loud sigh and let you all know that everything is fine with my Mother. And I almost could, if it were not for the lingering doubts in my own mind about what has gone on over the last week. In short, I don't feel like I have all the facts, ma'am.

I was never a patient child. I literally struggled with my impatience for as far back as I can remember. I can remember fighting with one old girlfriend because I was tapping my foot as she was talking to a friend in a parking lot outside church on one Christmas Eve. Well, between that and the loud sighs, she wasn't really very happy with me.

And I haven't improved much with age. When I find myself in this particular position - one where I must bide my time until medical tests are in, or for the doctor to show up, or some other stinking little roadblock - I can feel many of the old demons crawl into my consciousness.

You should see me in traffic . . .

Mom has a UTI (urinary tract infection for us mere mortals) that somehow developed (they think) into a blood infection.

"Uh, Doc . . . how does that occur?"

They don't know how, or really even if, this occurred. They do know she has an infection that needs treatment, so they are transferring her to a nursing care facility so that she can be kept on intravenous antibiotics for 10 days. So now they are, one of these days, shipping her off to one of three possible nursing homes in the immediate area. Maybe today . . . maybe tomorrow . . .

I keep thinking that they perform surgery and send you home the same day, and they will be keeping my mother for nearly two weeks for an IV drip.

Tap, tap, tap.

Okay . . . look. It isn't that I don't believe that she needs the care, but this is very frustrating. She's had something like 5 different doctors look at her; a urologist, an endocrinologist, an infectious disease specialist, a cardiologist and . . . hmmmm . . . there was another one . . . . Anyway, with all this speciality, how come we aren't getting any closer to an answer?

I remember a time when doctors made house calls. (Yeah, and they did walk uphill, in the snow, BOTH WAYS) All right, no they didn't, but you did feel like they took ownership of their patient's care. In this age of managed health care and specialized medicine, it feels like we have more doctors and less oversight, more tests and fewer answers, more information and less understanding.

I don’t think that doctors are any less committed than they used to be, or that yesterday’s doctors were better or more educated than today’s. But I can’t shake the feeling that in the days that Doc Bucher lived down the street, and dropped by the house on his way home for dinner, somehow we had more faith in our medical care.

I do want to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers on behalf of my mother. It meant a lot to me.