Mum home.... but little thanks to the doctors!!!

I was able to bring mum home on Monday night. Sorry for the lack of update but it's all been so busy...

I had a call on Monday morning from a nurse who said,
"The doctor has been round, and says that you can take your mum home today! He says that the confusion was probably all just the urinary tract infection, and that's clear now, so she can go."
-WHAT????????

I had to bite my tongue, and just about managed to speak without shouting and snapping someone's head off! "Confusion"?????

She put me through to the doctor's assistant.

I explained that mum had NOT been admitted with "confusion" but with
(1)a droop to one side of her face,
(2)fluent aphasia, babbling, using all the wrong words, slurring,
(3)weakness in her right arm,
(4)inability to recognise anyone known to her, plus the fact that
(5)it seems she had been unconscious for 24 hours....
the paramedics, everyone in A & E and the doctor who saw her in the assessment ward ALL thought it was a TIA ("mini stroke"). The assistant I spoke to now said that she had had no idea of any of this, and that no notes of any of it were there!!!!! So none of the paperwork from the previous departments had been passed on! All they had recorded for her was what symptoms she had presented when she came to *that* ward- 3 days after it had all happened. By this time, confusion was probably the only symptom left, and the only one written down anywhere.

I stressed that everyone had suggested a TIA and then I was told that it was ok, the brain scan had been clear. So I asked them to carry out an ultra-sound on her carotid arteries (on the NHS's own website under strokes and TIA info, they list 4 tests for the condition- brain scan, various blood tests, an ECG and ultra-sound of the heart and/or carotid arteries- they hadn't done this last one...). They said that they would speak to the doctor and, if he thought it necessary(!!!!!!!!!), they would do one. But I could still come to collect her that afternoon

Well, I arrived at 3.15 and she was just being taken for the ultrasound scan! And on her discharge papers it now lists all her symptoms and says "Very Probably TIA". At last! They have it on her records!!!

The ultrasound didn't show any further clots but she has a follow-up appointment in 6 -8 weeks.

The doctor that had wanted to say it was all a urinary tract infection was hanging around but wouldn't talk to me. Grrrrrrrrr............. and if I hadn't intervened she would have been sent home with no clot-prevention medicine. I've read that after a mini-stroke there is a huge risk of having another one in one month, and a full-blown stroke in one year, UNLESS preventative medicine is given. I can't believe how close she came to having the whole thing dismissed as a urine infection! A mini-stroke is meant to be a warning, yet it almost got written off.

I asked if they had actually tested a "sample" that day to see the the infection had gone- answer was no. Had they actually done a sample when she came in to hospital? No. So how did they determine that she ever had an infection? Well, they bear that in mind because confusion can be caused by that. Okkaayyyy.... so the doctor put the symptoms of a TIA down to a urine infection that he had no proof of, then released her when he assumed it had gone, though he had no proof of that either. "Yes, well she's been on anti-biotics for it." ?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel a letter coming on.

-Especially as I have recently realised something else, far worse!

-They did the brain scan on Friday but didn't check it till Monday (because the doctors don't do rounds on weekends!) -and yet they started her on daily blood-clot prevention injections on Friday. -Not because of a suspected TIA, but because they didn't have time to see that patients were kept mobile. All the patients on that ward got it, to prevent thrombosis while being in bed for days. But this means that if the TIA had been caused by a bleed on the brain, they would have made it worse, as the injections worked by 'thinning' the blood- she would have bled even more.

All this at a time when the hospital was working to normal capacity- no rush on for flu outbreaks or anything like that. My God!!!

Anyway.............. I've tried to shield her from these details of course!

I'm relieved she is back home. But she is so down. She says she is angry at herself for getting ill, and annoyed and upset with herself. She is so quiet. Not chatting as usual. I'm more worried about this than anything else, now. I know she is tired, of course, and maybe in a few more days she'll be feeling a little more "up". But it is very disturbing to see her just sitting and looking into space. Early days, I guess.