Tuesday, Oct 6th.
We (Juno & Bonnie) left the house at 1:00 for her doctors appointment…two doctors, three offices (they sent us to the wrong office to begin with), numerous phone calls along the way (trying to find the blasted hospital – doctors may be skilled in their areas of expertise, but giving directions isn’t one of them), one ER room experience (the experience from hell – I need to be on some focus group on how to improve customer service when the patient is throwing up, and about to fall out of her wheel chair from fainting), one hospital admission and 9 hours later, I returned home (oh and one Sonic burger and onion rings too).We are thankful that Bonnie was admitted to Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix. Not so much for their ER, but because she will be seeing a team of three top notch Liver surgeons.
The latest (and folks this changes by the day, depending on who we talk to)- Bonnie’s larger veins going to her liver are blocked (blood clots) and she needs to have the blood clots removed (they use the term rotor ruder). Those comments were made by the doctor who said, “But I don’t work on livers anymore, so I can’t help you.” He then suggested one of two hospitals with expert liver surgeons – one being Mayo (here in town) and the other Banner Good Samaritan (where we ended up going). Remember, we are in the doctors office, Bonnie can’t walk 10 feet to a bathroom and the doctor says, ‘sorry for having you make the trip.’ So there Bonnie lays on the examining table, as I’m on the phone trying to figure out what do I do with my bride. Finally I say, “Bonnie you are not looking good, we’ve got to do something.” It’s about 3:00 and all I know is that I am NOT taking her home in this condition.
Obviously since we remained in the examining room so long after the doctor left, we were to become squatters so we needed to leave. With permission, we borrowed a patients wheel chair and returned to the van where more calls we made.
We started to return to the hospital that Bonnie was in from the previous week (another 40 minute drive). It’s 3:30ish, I wasn’t sure how to get there from across town, so I pull into the nearest parking lot. So if any of you from the area so our van in a shady part of town, in a parking lot of a very questionable establishment:
- it wasn’t me going inside to meet some friends Jack Daniels and Jim Beam
- it wasn’t me going inside to share the faith
- it wasn’t me looking for a good home cooked meal
- It was just Bonnie and me, parked so I could focus on trying to find a hospital (where’s a GPS when I need one?).
We turned around and went to Banner (about 10 minutes away). Once admitted they administered some IV’s to Bonnie – we told them two hours earlier she was dehydrated – and they started numerous other tests. The good news is her hemoglobin was 11! I would have lost that bet, based on her condition we were both certain it was dropped considerably. The admitting nurse was surprised they admitted her, but said our Naturopathic Doctor had contacted the Liver Specialist and they were already aware who we were there and were ‘committed to finding an answer to this situation.’ The nurse inquired about how we found out the names of these doctors. We shared the previous doctor didn’t work on livers and said she needed someone with a high level of expertise and recommended these guys. She said, they were so good and that they are transplant specialists! Depending on what the doctor’s say and their plan of action, will determine if I fly to Michigan for my Dad’s funeral service. After discussion with McKenzie we decide that she would not be returning for the service.
Love,
Juno, Bonnie and McKenzie