Panic might not be the right word. Perhaps strong worry is
better. When the issue is your parent’s potentially life-threatening condition,
your chest squeezes out your breath and your stomach knots into a rock. I
suppose it’s a combination of dread, helplessness, and hope. It took my 99-year-old
mother’s nursing home three weeks to diagnose her cough as pneumonia. I was so scared,
panicked even, that this time, pneumonia might do her in. But I have to say that
my mother seems stronger now, so I needn’t have worried. After they finally did
diagnose it, these conversations occurred:
Me: I’m concerned about my mother’s cough.
Mom’s nurse: She’s not coughing.
Me: She just had a coughing jag that rocked her whole body.
Nurse: When the aide wheels her by the nurse’s station to go
to lunch, I listen and your mom is not coughing.
Me: Would you please come to her room to listen now?
Me: I have read that pneumonia is contagious; is my mother’s?
Mom’s nurse: No, but wash your hands a lot.
My conclusion: Caution is advised. Thank God for diagnosis
and proper medication, but know that the nurse probably has so many residents to
look after, her attention to my mother will be scattershot. Follow my gut sense
on when to clue her. And yeah, wash my hands a lot. No need to panic. As the British
World War II mantra goes: Keep calm and carry on.
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