Monday, August 08, 2005

Weekend Update

I guess it's only fair that I take ten minutes and update everyone on the FIL situation . On Tuesday when FIL was admitted the hospital staff were doing everything they could to bring down his blood pressure. After many nitro patches and a double dose of BP meds his blood pressure returned to a less serious high of 194/96 on Wednesday morning. Husband visited with him Wednesday morning after work and although I should have been working, I spent a good part of my day attempting to contact his family Doctor with no success. Husband returned to visit with FIL before work in the evening. Apparently no tests were being run and from all intent and purpose it appeared that aside from BP meds no tests were being run to find out why this poor man's BP had risen so high and why he had collapsed. On Thursday we repeated the same routine, husband visiting his Dad and me trying to chase down the Good Doc. FIL was pretty certain that he would be released and let me know he would call me when it was time to come spring him from the hospital. The call never came. Husband returned that evening to visit again and on Friday I finally got in touch with the Good Doctor that advised me she had actually been avoiding me. She had been struggling with a moral dilemma and had finally convinced FIL that it would be okay to tell me what was going on. The whole truth so to speak.....Rotten OLD MAN! (I really say that lovingly for those of you that don't really know me...for those that do you can hear the laughter in my voice as I call him that!)
So here is the scoop....My FIL is a very heavy drinker! On Monday, he had a large greasy breakfast and proceeded to the local pub to hang with the cronies and get totally sloshed! Tuesday morning I was supposed to take him to the eye doctors appointment, thankfully it got rescheduled affording FIL a couple more hours to sleep off the hang over and also making it so that a neighbour would be taking him to the next appointment at 1:30 as I was in meetings and could not get away. He slept some more, didn't eat and forgot to take his bp meds. Well apparently all this combined leads to hypoglycemia in old men and they collapse in hallway and get taken to hospital. Then it causes an inability to tell the truth causing deep concern for the children. Apparently FIL's Good Doctor knows him real well! She dragged the nasty out of him and basically decided to keep him locked up to teach him a lesson. No alcohol, 3 squares and regular medication...see what it can do! By Friday, His BP was stable at 156/84, the swelling in his lower legs was gone and he felt great. After all this explanation the Good Doctor had a request for me...please could I ask his son (Husband) to be there for 4 pm when she would be reading FIL the riot act. She wanted a witness and someone that FIL cared deeply for to hear what she had to say so that he couldn't continue to lie to us. She yelled for 40 minutes and told him that if he didn't change his ways that we would all be kissing him goodbye very soon.
Well, Husband was upset, FIL was upset but truth be told I don't think much will change. He's 78 years old and it's real hard to teach on old dog new tricks!
Bender to follow I'm sure.
TTYL

4 Comments:

Blogger Colleen said...

like the old saying goes "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" and unfortunately there won't be much you can do if this is how he chooses to live out his remaining years!!! However,you can always hope that the wake-up call will be heard by all...especially FIL.

11:41 am  
Blogger Beware: Social Worker on the edge said...

Sorry to hear that the Rotten Old Man lol, is up to his tricks.
All joking aside it is still a very stressful time and if there is anything we can do please just call.
Give him a kiss for us.

1:14 pm  
Blogger Amy said...

Just caught up on reading your blog. Good to hear that FIL is okay, and you are right. Those three days will probably bring on some 'normal' behaviour for him. But whatchagonna do, eh?

The underwear description was too funny, L.

7:59 pm  
Blogger Kim said...

Ugh. It's not limited to old men honey, old ladies are the same way. FOr some reason they say "I"ve done this all my life, I see no reason to change now" and believe it. I hope your father in law was reached on some level and effects changes in his routine and I hope you all get to relax a little bit in the near future. Good luck!

7:02 am  

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