ALZHEIMER'S BLOG:

Get a call at 200 am for a women with abdominal pain. Run to the nursing home for a 87 yr old female. She has a feeding tube, but has had a tachy pulse so the doctor wants her to be npo. She is on oxygen, and has a foley. She is obese weighing at 300 pounds. She is complaining of abdominal pain, but since they can't give her anything through the feeding tube, they have no way to give her any pain medication. So my job is to bring her to the hospital for pain medication. The nurses ask me if I could give her something. The only thing I carry is morphine and she has allergies to morphine. So we take this poor women at 230 in the morning alone, no family around and put her on a stretcher, take vitals, put her on a ecg monitor because her pulse is 130 and take her to the hospital. Oh yea --- She has Alzheimer's.

Sincerely,
Marie Fostino
Alzheimer's A Caretakers Journal
Seaboard Press An Imprint of James A Rock Pub, Co.
www.mariefostino.com
www.mariefostino.blogspot.com