As you know Sam is not the only person in my family with a brain injury. My dad has a severe brain injury and is a quadrilpelgic. He lives in the local personal care home (30 miles away). well yesterday Dennis and I were in Npw picking up the rest of our appliances to move to the new house. We werent even home 15 minutes and the phone rang and it was the PCH... dad had been having some major seizures ALL DAY... so they were transporting him to the hospital to see the doctor. we jumped back into the van and headed the 30 miles back to town to the hospital. The doctor there gave him dilantin -- but not after he had 2 seizures in 20 minutes while we were there. The doctors explanation for them (please keep in mind that this is NOT his regular doctor) is that there iscar tissue forming and causing these siezures. after 14 yrs..... never a real issue with seizures before but now after 14 yrs. to say the least i was, and still am, not impressed with this doctor. he doesnt even know what the history is surrounding my dad and his injury is and he is going to just flippantly give me an answer of "scar tissue". I had to also warn the nurses (at both the PCH and the hospital) that even when dad was on dilantin before he had seizures.... but not of these magnitude.
Dennis and I went for lunch while he was getting his med's (dad was sleeping at this time) and then I went to the PCH to see if there was any reason that they would know of why he is having them -- I asked if his routine had changed, if he had been dropped or his head hit, etc and i got a very loud "NO!" -- shock and horror on thier faces... i was trying to be polite and not accusatory. They had no answer to why things have changed... so back to the hospital we go and wait... and wait... no seizures-- good sign.... "he is resting and we will send him back to the PCH tonight." "OK then we will go and please call me when you are transporting him back. Thank you"
By the time 7pm rolled around there was still no call so i called and low and behold dad was back in his room sleeping.
Today I called and was informed that he had had 3 more seizures this morning... even while on dilantin... his regular doctor was not in his office today, so they (the nurses at the PCH) cancelled dad's appt that we have been waiting for in Wpg (for dental surgery) for MONTHS but never spoke to the doctor about it. I was hoping that they might be able to make a CT scan appt for him too while we were in the city. (Dad needs to be transported by ambulance for most of his appts and this makes him extremely agitated) You would think that if all of a sudden a resident with severe TBI starts having seizures that you would try contact his doctor.... i mean we live in a small town... i am just so frustrated!!!!!!!!
The first doctors 'diagnosis' of scar tissue makes me want to not only scream but it makes me wonder about Sam.... he has never had seizure activity and he actually has physical scar tissue -- does this mean in 14yrs we can expect more to pop up in our life? That the local doctors will be so callous and ignorant about it all that they wont care or the nurses wont fight to alk to a doctor when we need it?
I am so angry right now and frustrated... i am sure this post makes no sense what so ever.
2 comments:
Sid had seizure last year, and that is when we found out that it is fairly common in brain trauma. some sort of short circuit happens. I didn't understand a lot of it. just remember being angry and perplexed as to why if it is so common it isn't addressed as something that could happen. sorry for your frustrations. we will keep praying for you and yours as always..
Jodi - it makes perfect sense to me.
I have found that Dr's only try to mask the symptoms instead of finding the answers... If they don't know then they should find someone who does - and not in six months.. NOW.
Some day they will come to thier senses??? Lets hope.
Post a Comment