Ric drew a map of how to get to the hospital, and Debbie filled us in on what to expect when we got there...
We got to the hospital about 22:15 and found the room OK... Betty was laying in bed hallucinating and mumbling. However, she recognized Karen and I with no problem. As I mentioned, she had broken her left clavicle, and the whole side of her chest and shoulder was a mass of bruises. I'm sure that it looked worse than it felt, because nothing could feel that bad and be survivable...
Anyway, Betty was having trouble with reality, and she kept twitching and constantly moving, obviously near a state of neural collapse. She had been given pain-killers the day before that seemed to start this process.
After spending about a half-hour trying to calm her down, Karen and I stood out in the hallway, Karen crying her eyes out, sure that her mother was going to die an any time.
Her nurse finally came in, and said that the doc had prescribed ativan for her if we thought it was OK. I felt that we had no choice, really... Betty hadn't slept for 48 hours, and was obviously not going to get any better without sleeping, and she was certainly not going to go to sleep in the state that she was in. So the nurse brought her some oral ativan and she was asleep in about a half-hour.
So Karen and I kinda hung around, almost a death watch. I would go outside occasionally to smoke, and just generally roamed around trying to stay awake. Karen would sleep for short periods, but never very comfortably.
Betty was still sleeping when the doc came in, he was a really nice younger guy with an affable manner and an enormous nose. I did manage to not joke about the nose, but I'm sure that he's heard all of the nose jokes in the world already.
Anyway, he thought that there was nothing wrong with her heart, that she'd had a vaso-vagal reaction, and that this might precipitate a much lower baseline regarding the Alzheimers. He also thought that she could go back to her apartment, but Karen and I had doubts about that, due to what we'd seen earlier...
The doc made arrangements to take Betty back via ambulance, and, since she was still sleeping, we left for Ric and Debbies house.
We talked with Deb quite a bit, then we laid down for a while when she left for the hospital. In a coupla hours, we got up and went to Betty's apartment, and found her sitting up and eating her dinner.
And completely cognizant of everything that was going on around her.
She was very fuzzy about the fall that she'd had, though, but that is understandable.
We stayed with her until suppertime, and during that time she did not say or do anything inappropriate at all. Karen and I were amazed, thinking that just last night she was on her death bed...
In my understanding, this is not usual behavior for an Alzheimer patient. The disease manifests itself constantly, with very small amounts of lucidity thrown in, just to fool you... but this was a solid six hours.
Something to think about....
Anyway, we went home and had a very nice supper, thanx to Debbie, and everyone turned in early, even though the Chiefs were playing Thursday Night Football... which they won, I found out the next day.