In ER for 10 hours, Nan resting quietly now

Dear Ones,
I just stumbled in the door of our house at 6:45. We left last night for the hospital at 6:30. I have never seen more wasting of time in my life than last night. Dr. Melynk said he would call the hospital when I spoke to him as we were driving there. But we had to go through ER and they cover every base known to man, Nan had Xrays, EKGs, CTscans, blood work, more blood work. As the night wore on she was in terrible pain, the worst I have ever seen her in and she was only given a tiny bit of dilautid, 1/4 of her usual dosage the last time we were at the hospital. It did not touch the pain and she was begging for something to help the pain and finally they came with a tiny bit more, an hour later. We urged them to consider giving Adavan and the nurse said it was in the orders but it took two hours before Nan finally got Adavan and immediatelly went to sleep. At 3 this morning she began to shiver and shake, her heart rate began to climb and soon she had a high fever again. I asked them to give her tylenol and they finally did after waking our doctor up yet once again to get his OK. The because her heart rate went up during the fever the put her on the cardiac floor of the hospital. Last time she was on the oncology ward and that was great. What a night, we would wait sometimes up to 2 hours between seeing anyone. Fortunately we had a room to ourselves but Nan had a gurney and I had a metal chair. We had to suggest ice packs when her fever went up, we suggested the tylenol. Needless to say I am a bit out of sorts right now. Karen Cress happened to be up and I thought of her, perhaps God put it in my mind to call her and she was as always a great friend and counselor and kept me awake as I drove the 40 minutes home. I felt really awful leaving Nan at the hospital. She is not very lucid at the moment and is in a room that is far from the nursing station again. When I left they were pumping IV fluid into her at a rate of 125 an hour, I begged them to slow it down but they said they would ask the doctor when he came for rounds. I had to remind them that Nan has a resting heart rate of 110 and always has low blood pressure and we both kept reminding them that the reason we were there was high fevers and locating the infections that are causing them and getting the right antibiotics to control the bugs. They did start some antibiotics which cover lots of infections, of course we reminded them that Nan's kidney work at a 16% rate so watch what antibiotics they use.
As I prepared to leave her room I noticed her colostomy bag had come off so I stayed and taught the nurse how to change them, she was very nice and thanked me.
Now my dilema is this, I have a 10 am appointment here in the bay to see a house and many appraisals are to be delivered tomorrow morning, yet all I want to be is with Nan. Hopefully Dana will be able to spend the day with her until I can get back later today. I don't really want Nan alone at this point and I feel like a jerk being here and she there right this minute. The nurse told me, don't worry because we check on her every hour, like that is supposed to comfort me, every hour!
Well I'm heading to bed for a short nap. Thanks for listening. Think twice before going to an ER unless you need to. In the past the doctor has called ahead and we just walked in and went to the floor to the bed assigned. Not this time.

I need to remind myself that God is in control. I am having some trouble keeping it all together right now as I am still dizzy and pretty wasted at this point, jet lagged but I did not go anywhere on a jet.

Thanks for being there,

love

tim