HOME MEDICINE MANAGEMENT
My parents had already started using a pill grid to help them know what to take at each time of day. If they couldn't remember taking the medicine, all they had to do was to check the pill grid to see if it was empty or had pills.
They gladly let me take over the pillbox management, especially since I was in constant touch with the doctor as to dosage adjustments of their congestive heart failure medicines. I weighed them and monitored their blood pressure every day. I also examined their legs and feet to gauge degree of fluid retention. It was quite an education. The doctor joked that I had become "the world's foremost expert on CHF" thanks to my daily monitoring of two CHF patients for "many moons."
We had been given nitroglycerin pills to use in case Dad had chest pains. Dad had a very low tolerance of pain and he assumed any pain in the shoulder or chest area was a heart attack. In the early days, I would immediately reach for the nitro. If that didn’t relieve it, I would take him to the Army Emergency Room. Most of the time, it was a false alarm. The E.R. staff would ask enough questions to determine that the pain was the arthritis in his shoulder or strained muscles from watching TV laying on his side or simple heartburn. Over time, we learned how ask the right questions to tell the real thing from what he always thought was a heart attack.
Instead of giving him the nitro first, when he complained of chest pain, I would have him sit down and sip some ginger ale. Nine times out of ten, that took care of the problem. As for shoulder pain, we made sure he didn’t lie down to watch TV. We never had that problem again. MORE>
|
|
