As I mentioned in a previous post, the doctor scarred the shit out of mom last Wednesday.
By Saturday, we still haden’t heard from the doctor. She said she would get back in 2 days.
Meanwhile I got a notice from Kaiser that mom’s test results were in. I checked them and something looked very BAD! This one kidney test showed a result of 171 and normal was less than 30.
I wound up making an appointment as “Jeanne”, but planned to show up as her son to speak with the doctor alone.
Bad idea. When they called her name to go into the private waiting room, they noticed that I wasn’t an 89 year old woman. What was their first clue?😎
And when I told them I just wanted to talk to her doctor alone, they said OSHA wouldn’t allow it.
Meanwhile mom was calling me, leaving crying messages. I was on line at Kaiser when I got them.
“Why aren’t you answering the phone? I know it’s bad news and you’re afraid to tell me”
Soon after, her doctor called me and said her kidney functions are stable, even better than the last test!
And she said the 171 number was not bad for an 89 year old kidney.
Mom was relieved to hear the news after 4 days of worrying like a psychotic.
Somewhere alone the timeline, mom asked me “What should I do?”, meaning the choice between dialysis and a painless death in her sleep. That’s a heavy question I won’t answer. She has to decide for herself.
The 30-something doctor never should have been so nonchalant when talking about death choices.
Have a little empathy for us older folks.
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