Papaw

My papaw had a stroke.  Several of them...

On June 2, 2015:

Mom is still at the hospital with Dad.  He isn’t getting released until Wednesday, June 3.  She asked me to bring her some clothes and bring dad some clothes he could wear when he leaves.  I went by mom’s house and checked on Papaw while getting their belongings.  He didn't look too good. His face looked real slouchy and droopy.  When I try to talk to him he couldn't talk, his words were slurred and long. Hey was ‘heeeyyyyy’. It appeared to me like he had just had a stroke of some sort.  I was really concerned.

I went ahead and packed mom and dad’s stuff and went outside and asked Pete to come in and look at Papaw.  He dealt with his dad having a stroke and was better equipped at what to do. He even called his friend’s mom who is a nurse and had her help us determine this. 

He came in and had Papaw raise his arms to see how high they would go.  We had him talk to us and asked him questions about himself like what his name was when he was born when his birthday was. He knew all the answers but he still didn't seem quite right. We decided to leave because I didn't know what else to do.   I got down the street and I had this bad feeling so I turned around and went back and checked on him again. His face wasn't as droopy when I got back as it was the first time I saw him. I decided to call mom and ask when Sheila was coming out to check on him. She said Sheila was on her way so I wait until Sheila got there. I told her about everything that I noticed with Papaw.  His face, his words.  She said that's normal and his face normally looks like that. I didn't think so, but she spends every day with him so I figured she would know better than I would. We went ahead and left, heading toward Bay City to give mom her stuff. It was a 40 minute drive from Angleton to Bay City. The moment I walked into the hospital room, Sheila had called my mom and told Mom that she doesn't think  Papaw is ok.  she thinks something is wrong with Papaw. I told mom exactly what I noticed when I was there, and  what was going on. She decided to call an ambulance so I had to rush back home to meet the ambulance or to take care of hospital stuff. Mom wasn’t able to leave dad and James was out of town so I had to be the one to handle all the hospital experience. Five minutes away from the hospital, Bo calls me to tell me that Papaw was just admitted that he's got the admission paperwork ready for me.As soon as I walked in the hospital he greeted me at the door and sign the paperwork and walked me over to Papaw’s bed area. It was a long ordeal.  All night long the nurses didn't know what they were doing the doctor didn't seem to know what he was doing.  Nurses wanted to repeat tests because they didn't document correctly. Luckily I was there to help advocate for Papaw.  I actually kept a log of everytime a nurse came in, what they did, and what they said.  It came in handy. I watched them  give him a catheter and that was traumatizing. I heard him crying in pain because it hurts so bad. They didn't give him any pain meds but they documented that they did so he went the whole evening without pain meds.  About 12:30 AM, they finally moved him to an actual room and out of the ER room.  Nurses came in shortly after to ask me questions about his health and other things about him.  They argued about his medicines he was talking, insisting I was wrong (like they would know over me?? One of the nurses initially entered it wrong so now I didn’t know what I was talking about).  I told them what I've noticed about him throughout the evening. I even told them how he had several mini-strokes while we were there and no one seemed to even care. I didn't leave the hospital until after 5 AM only to be at work three hours later.

He ended up staying in the hospital for nearly a week until the following Monday when we transferred him to a nursing home under hospice care in Bellville. I've seen him once since he’s been there and Aunt Jeanne goes and visits him regularly when she sees Grandma Ruth.  James and Dad and Coleton have seen him a few times. He seems to be doing ok.

Papaw was diagnosed with kidney failure, prostate cancer, colon cancer,  90% blockage of an artery in his brain.  He's had several many small strokes (they call it TIA)that day.   He's had strokes in the past and has had a severe stroke years ago that I just found out about.