Laundry List of Ailments



Finally have enough time and a cable connection that I can post about my brother's hospital stay. He was admitted to the Indian Hospital even though he had lost his CDIB card in a fire about 4 or 5 years ago. This not having it when he needed it now is typical of his lifestyle. He could have gotten it replaced many times but never did.

He had NO Identification on him except a receipt from a state trooper that had collected his license when stopping him and finding him driving w/an expired license. Another case of not bothering to take care of the bare necessities in life.

My Dad had picked him up that day to get his help on a farm project when he sees that he has swollen up by about 40 pounds. Can you say Congestive Heart Failure? Yes.

He was shipped out of the Indian Hospital by ambulance to a metro area public hospital. After a long litany of tests we have a laundry list of multiple diagnosis - (diagnosises???).

COPD - Emphyasema (sp?)
PAD - Periphial Artery Disease (legs & feet were purple/black-OH MY!!)
Heart Attack
Congestive Heart Failure

His heart is very damaged and enlarged and operating at about 20% of normal. His breathing on a scale of 1-10 (10 being normal) was running about 2 at the highest and about 1 1/2 sustained.

Lucky him - no blockages. Luckier him my Dad was an emergency room/intensive care nurse & nursing professor for years and could see his critical state. They took 20 pounds of fluid off of him in one day's time!

He has worked very intermittently throughout his life and we are hoping that he has enough work credits to enable him to begin collecting SS disability. Our tribe will be paying for the majority if not all of his hospital care.

He's 54 years old. He has always pushed the family away. He has five children and only one of them came to see him in the hospital as the mother of the child brought him as he's still a teen. The other grown kids didn't bother. None of his "friends" came to see him.

Sadly, these friends have always been more important to him than family. BUT, he was surrounded by his sisters, parents, nieces and nephews. Hopefully through this he will see that we really do love and care for him. Even when it's hard and for many years it has been next to impossible to get close without getting screamed at and pushed away. This is my brother whom I believe is undiagnosed bipolar.

The medical team at the hospital were all very nice except for the one lady who kept trying to treat him for diabetes and wouldn't believe any of us when we kept denying that he had it! They tag-team doctor at this particular hospital and I can't say that I cared for it - we never saw the same doctor twice and we were there for 8 days!!

Anyway, they released him right before Thanksgiving and he went home on oxygen and is currently staying at my Dad's house. No telling how long he'll willingly submit to that.

That's all for now - I just wanted to record some of it here for my own memory's sake and to thank all of you who prayed while we were there! The prayers were needed and are much appreciated.

To make this financial in nature - I had to raid the petty cash here at the house to the tune of about $60.00 in order to keep running up to the hospital and feeding myself while I was there on 'my watch'. Now will have to resupply that money from somewhere in the budget.