How many health posts?

How many health post for the month of January? There are four more days left in the month.

Mom started feeling bad Thursday afternoon. It came on suddenly, acute back pain. She hadn't fallen or twisted or done anything she can think of to cause pain. I should preface this with mom is ALWAYS in pain. She has post polio and Scleroderma along with being 85. This pain was different. She was in tears. I listened to her lungs and her left lung sounded gunky so she used the nebulizer and said she felt better. I asked her if she wanted some lortab or percocet and she said no. She didn't want to go the the doctor because it was too icy outside. Friday she felt crappy and didn't come upstairs. Saturday she felt really crappy. She didn't want to go to the doctor because it was foggy and wanted to wait until Sunday. This morning she woke up and was crying. She had been taking lortab in the middle of the night with out any real relief.  She didn't want to go to the doctor because it was supposed to snow. PLEASE!! Don shoveled a path, we put her in the wheelchair got her up the ramp and the snow started falling. that was 11:30 this morning. It is now 7:42 and we are STILL in the ER. They did a CXR and CT scan of her abdomen and kidneys. Nothing exciting there. Then they did X-rays of her lumbar spine, nothing exciting there. They wanted to admit her for pain control but the hospitalist said he wouldn't admit her unless she had an MRI to rule out a surgical problem.

No problem right? In the hours between getting here and making that decision we have had a blizzard. The airport has been shut down. They called the MRI tech to come in and do the test but she got stuck in the snow. The CT tech came in at 5 and said he could do the MRI at 7 when he got off of his shift as the CT tech. Around 7:15 they took her to MRI so I am still waiting. Mom is not real happy, she said it's been a really long day.  She's had a couple of IV pushes of Dilaudid so if she doesn't move she isn't in pain.

She said she was hungry so at five, I went and got her a cup of soup which she promptly barfed right back up. She had just said it tasted good. I didn't ask but I'm guessing it didn't taste as good the second time around. Good news is if she does have a "surgical problem" none of the food I gave her without asking permission stayed in her stomach.

9 p.m. and we have a diagnosis! Compression fracture of L3 and L4. She is being admitted tonight so we will figure out what they are going to do about it tomorrow. What a lovely way to spend the day. (That was sarcasm.)