Whirlpool

 It has been a very rough time:

• Friday, my Mother-In-Law fell at her assisted living apartment and had to be taken to an Urgent Care facility.   She fell and hit her head and face.  She was bleeding (from a bloody nose) all across the apartment until discovered. She could not get herself back up to a standing position.
• At Urgent Care, she received a CT that showed no broken bones and no indication of brain bleeds. She was bandaged up and sent home
• On Saturday, we had to rush her back to Urgent Care because she was hallucinating.  This eventually led to having her transferred to the hospital which took several (~10 hours) because of a bed shortage due to Covid/RSV/Flu patients filling up the entire hospital.
  
• At the hospital they were doing nothing, and my wife asked for my MIL to receive either another CT or an MRI.  The attending physician kept denying such a scan, and would not address the hallucinations as being other than dementia.  We told this fellow over and over again, that my MIL did not have these symptoms prior to the fall that had just occurred within 48 hours before this.
• He refused an MRI but performed another CT with inconclusive results.  His biased, very jack-*ssed response to my wife about wanting an MRI was "... well, you know she is old, you do not want an MRI because it could show things you don't want to know about...."
  
• He then proceeded to discharge my MIL less than 24 hours after her being admitted.  
• My MIL was still hallucinating wildly, seeing cats, and kids, and fires, and strange people all around her. 
• We get her back to the assisted living apartment.  She is still hallucinating.  My wife has been staying with her all day and overnight since she returned to the assisted living apartment.  This is because my MIL keeps imagining and seeing things and getting scared and wanting to get up and to leave.  My wife's siblings have been minimal to no help.. even though they are retired and do not have jobs. I have volunteered to take overnight shifts for my wife.  But, she is wanting to be there for the occasions where a health care worker may show up.  
• My wife took her to her primary care physician on Tuesday to try to get her help in sorting things out.  The primary care physician is suggesting the hallucinations are likely from the impact of her fall, and that the last CT does not show any bleeds, which gave us tremendous relief.  She says that it is likely the brain is working to repair from the trauma of the fall and that "hopefully" the hallucinations will dissipate over time with rest.  
• My wife reported to me this morning that my MIL slept through the night for the first time, since the fall, and this morning she seemed closer to "normal".  So, hopefully that is a good sign.
• My mother-in-laws nose is the size of an orange, and the entire front of her face is now a massive, brown/purple bruise of discoloration. She also has two dislocated fingers.  
  

That is about all I can spew out in the few moments I have at this time.  It has been a chaotic whirlpool of emotions and time.  Being apart from my wife has been hard but necessary, my and her travels to and from the assisted care apartment have been many, many, many over the last several days.  Interspersed in this I have been also trying to prepare my classes for the start of the semester.  Our house is in disarray, and everything feels like chaos.  But, hopefully, we are (as of this morning) starting to see improvement and a potential pathway back to something more "normal" for us too. I hope so.

Health "Care" here in the US is so horrible.  There is a definite age bias where the elderly are dismissed and considered discardable.  It is disgraceful.  

PipeTobacco