By: Revanche

Enough with the crises, already!

December 11, 2007

I came home from work, mentally exhausted and still sick yesterday, to find my mom looking like a pufferfish. No, she hadn’t eaten one, she just looked like one. Apparently she was having some crazy allergic reaction to some hair dye or some such thing and had been swelling up and itching all day.

*shaking head*

You’d THINK they’d tell me earlier in the day. No, of course not, she just suffered all day and was wild with discomfort and actual pain by the time I got home.

$5 worth of diphenhydramine and three hours later, she was sleepy and no longer itching like mad. Diphenhydramine was what we used to give at the clinic, in injection form, to doggies with beestings and other random allergic reactions. The doggies would come in, fat-faced and miserable, and get a couple of shots to relieve the swelling and itchiness. It’s Benadryl, basically. I just didn’t bother to pay double the money for brand name Benadryl because the store brand stuff is exactly the same.

There’s not much you can do with that sort of allergic reaction if you don’t know what caused it, but I sent her and Pa off to the emergency room anyway in case there was something else wrong.

It turns out that she’d gotten an infection from scratching, so they have to pick up a prescription for an antibiotic today.

Lessons for the day:

If you’re swelling up, itchy and can’t think of any reason why, I don’t necessarily recommend self-medicating, but DON’T WAIT to get some help!!

If she’d told me earlier, we would have tried the diphenhydramine in the morning, she wouldn’t have been so miserable all day, and we would have saved the money on antibiotics as well as several hours in the emergency room in the middle of the night.

Selfish as it may sound: I honestly cannot take any more drama. Especially any more hospital or health related drama. Please take care of yourselves, everyone, and we can return to our regularly scheduled, drama-free, finance-oriented postings. It’s for the greater good, really.

4 Responses to “Enough with the crises, already!”

  1. That’s sad that you seem to be the one that always ends up having to solve all the problems.

    that’s the kind of thing that a mom should know how to do already–take care of an allergic reaction without someone telling her to go to the emergency room.

    They MUST know how to do these things themselves…they raised you, didn’t they? You had to get your smarts from somewhere, and who told them to get you medicine when you were 4 or 5 and got sick?

    I know it must feel like if you don’t intervene, the problem will compound and you’ll end up dealing with a bigger mess later, but maybe consider telling your parents that you need a timeout for a while. Maybe they are counting on you too much to fix everything and tell them how to handle issues.

    If you get stressed and sick(er), who is going to take care of everything? it’s for your and their benefit to give you a break for a while.

  2. SavingDiva says:

    I don’t think you sound selfish at all. Your mother is a grown woman…you shouldn’t be responsible for her dealing with an allergic reaction!

  3. ~sense to dollars~ The scary thing is that if she made a bad decision to stick it out, it might just be because she made a poor judgment call but could very well be because her mental status has been questionable for a while. She’s got pretty crappy health insurance so her resources are limited, and I haven’t been able to scare up any other insurance options on my own, but I’m worried that there’s something actually wrong that has her thinking in a really screwy and illogical way.

    She’s got an appointment for a brain scan in January, I don’t know what that’ll reveal but I’m worried.

    ~savingdiva~ *sigh* I’m afraid they’re rapidly hitting the other side of “grown” now. I never thought I’d deal with my parents as geriatrics before I was married!

  4. Ah, I am familiar with mental illness. I really hope it’s not that, and if it is, it’s something easily fixable.

    I can’t tell you how much of a mess my sister has made for our family (financially and otherwise) due to her bipolar-related terrible decisions. And the most frustrating part is that we can’t even get mad at her for it, since it’s really not her fault–when she snaps out of her ‘episodes,’ even she can’t believe she did the things she did. She takes her medicine, she goes to therapy and uses the methods she learns there–that’s as much as she can do to control it.

    It’s different with a parent, though–that really would be rough. I feel for you. Think about where they’d be without you–wow! They are very lucky to have you around.

    Ok, back to studying.

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