Arg!!

Published

I'll preface to say I'm not looking for advice, just venting.

Dad calls tonight, and says "I've just got a question for you."

Uh oh. That never bodes well... (keep in mind I'm 350 miles away)

He tells me he has been miserable with a sinus infection, etc., and goes to his doc who gives him amoxicillin even though Dad tells him he is allergic to penicillin because "that was 30 years ago".

:stone

Dad says, "I've got this rash all over me."

He lives alone in the middle of nowhere, there's no way I'm going to tell him to pop a benadryl and forget about it... So I say "Go to the ER."

He argues. ER is busy. It's probably nothing. Yada yada. And by the way, what could they do anyway?

:stone

I tell him it might not be anything serious, or it could progress. He should go to the ER and have them evaluate the reaction and treat it. He asks what they treat it with. I said probably some benadryl and maybe some steroids. Well that gets him off on another tangent--- "I don't like the idea of having to take steroids. I don't want to catch diabetes."

"Dad, I don't think you're going to develop diabetes with a single dose of steroids to treat an allergic reaction."

"Oooookaaaay. If you say so...."

:stone

Then he says "oh by the way".

Uh oh again...

"I was awakened last week with my heart skipping around and couldn't get back to sleep. So I went to the doc and he gave me...uh, hang on...what's the name... digoxin."

WHAT?!

"He said my heart was going 150 beats a minute and that was too fast."

WHAT?!

"But the medicine fixed it. I guess I'm alright now. This morning my pulse was 50."

WHAT?!

"Dad, did you get a consult to see a cardiologist?"

"Do you think I need to see one?"

:stone

"Anyway, that is why he had to give me the amoxicillin even if I'm allergic because there is nothing else I can take while I'm on digoxin."

"Ooo... I seem to be getting redder. Oooo... there's blotches all over my neck! And a big strawberry looking thing under my arm. Wonder what that means?"

:stone

"Dad, go to the ER. Now."

"*sigh* Ok. But I bet it's nothing."

Now I know what will happen. The ER doc will tell him it's not a big deal, give him a benadryl that he "could have taken at home" and then Dad will call me back angry because I "forced" him to go to the hospital "in the middle of the night."

I can't win lol...

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

Don't you just love it?

Why are you asking me if you aren't going to believe what I tell you?:lol2::lol2:

good luck with your dad

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Don't you just love it?

Why are you asking me if you aren't going to believe what I tell you?:lol2::lol2:

good luck with your dad

He's a trip. He does this to me alot... asks my opinion about what he should do, and then argues with me about it. And it's always one of those "oh, by the way" kind of things lol. He doesn't get excited about anything. "It's nothing" Yeah? Then why are you asking my advice??

*sigh*

More often than not, I have to tell him a gruesome horror story and scare the crap out of him to get him to do anything.

He showed up at my door one day with his arm and hand bandaged up. I asked what happened, he says "oh nothing".... "My shirt caught on fire while I was burning leaves."

WHAT?!

Seems he threw gas at the fire to make it burn faster (something he would have torn me apart had I done such a dumb thing) and *WHOOSH*--- flaming Dad.

He had pretty bad burns around his elbow and hand/wrist, and I tried to get him in to see a plastics. He argued about it, until in exasperation I held my hand up in a claw and said "Do you want to look like this from now on???"

He went :lol2:

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you're too funny, emmanuel.

i think you'll have to continue w/scare tactics.

tell dad to call you when his throat starts swelling up and he can't breathe.

leslie

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Specializes in Cardiac Care.

I feel your pain. Really, I do. We can't pick our parents, can we?

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you're too funny, emmanuel.

i think you'll have to continue w/scare tactics.

tell dad to call you when his throat starts swelling up and he can't breathe.

leslie

LOL

Don't think I didn't consider that...

He came to me once, pulled up his pants leg and said "what do you think is wrong".

His calf was red, hot, swollen and he had a positive Homan's.

"I think you have a blood clot. Go to the doctor."

"I don't have a damned blood clot." (followed by assorted bitching and telling me I didn't know what I was talking about)

*sigh*

So I told him, "Ok, maybe it isn't. But if it is, it's going to break loose and go to your lungs and kill you."

After being discharged from the hospital where he spent a week on a heparin drip, he fussed at me because I made him miss hunting season.

:stone

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I feel your pain. Really, I do. We can't pick our parents, can we?

Well, I just love him to pieces, but this is exasperating, to say the least lol.

At 72, I doubt he's going to change now. Like I said, just venting :lol2:

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as a hospice nurse, i've been privileged to have some incredible relationships with my pts.

and i've known pts just like dad.

can i say, i'm in love?

leslie

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as a hospice nurse, i've been privileged to have some incredible relationships with my pts.

and i've known pts just like dad.

can i say, i'm in love?

leslie

He's a character all right. Would give you the shirt of his back, too.

Well, maybe not the one burned to a crisp lol.

He put off getting his hip replacement surgery with a barrage of excuses. One of which was that he wouldn't be able to climb up on the roof afterwards.

I said, Dad, you don't climb up on the roof NOW. What makes you think you'll have to after the surgery?

"Well. Ya never know."

:lol2:

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My mom didn't go to a dr for years, not since I was born. Everytime she got bronchitis she'd be sick for weeks, wheezing and coughing, and refused to go to a doc because "They not gonna do nothing." Either that or "I go doctah, they find something wrong and kill me." You get the picture.

In '97 she had a CVA and now swears by the medical profession.......EXCEPT......she will call me and ask my opinion on something. I tell her, then take her to the dr, where she proceeds to ask the same question. I stare at her like "Are you kidding me??"

Answer: "You just a nurse, he doctah." :angryfire

OR.........I don't know the answer to her question and she sez, "Why not? You nurse, right??" :rolleyes:

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.
Don't you just love it?

Why are you asking me if you aren't going to believe what I tell you?:lol2::lol2:

good luck with your dad

This is SO my mother! She's a nurse, by the way. She'll ask my sister (the internist) and me (the nurse) for advice, then totally ignore it until our responses are confirmed by my brother (the electrical engineer) or possibly her friend (the check-out clerk at Kroger). It makes me nuts!

Why is it so hard to raise our parents?

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For me, it is not just my mom, it is my husband too. Why do they ask and then don't listen.? Who knows

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