Dad's in the Hospital:-(

Tuomo writes: Tuukka calls me Saturday morning at 9AM to come over: mom had called and told him that dad has been in the hospital since Tuesday! He had met with his physician about his sciatica, but the physician noticed some arrhytmia and wanted my dad to go immediately to the hospital. Since he was out on his car, he got the permission to take his car back home before going to Mariansairaala ("Maria Hospital"). Before leaving for the hospital he went to the bathroom and noticed some blood in his stool. Whoo boy...

I can't recall all the details anymore, but dad had been on this (Danish) painkiller Voltaren retard due to his sciatica. I decided to google it there and then and see what kind of information I could find out on its possible side effects. Turns out that gastrointernal bleeding is a common side effect for this drug, and in the case of older people "can be serious." Ack! Fortunately, by conveying this information (with the specification on older people conveniently omited) I guess I was able to calm my mom down a bit. Not that I'm a physician let alone a phrmacologist (albeit a blond one), I'm sure that relaying the information that the bleeding was probably due to the drug rather than some other cause was good news. In fact, at the hospital they had taken my dad off Voltaren, and consequently he had started to feel better.

I talked to my mom again tonight. On Sunday when we had last talked, my dad was supposed to go through some diagnostics and stuff, but as of Tuesday night Finnish time, none have been carried out. The doctor has been around only once, and nobody knows when my dad's going to be tested. The (Estonian) staff, while adequately friendly, tells my dad one thing ("I'll take your temperature") - and then act upon it like an hour later! I guess if things were worse, my dad would be taken better care of, and he would've been transferred to a better hospital...

Oh and nobody is around on weekends, so this week, with the Independence Day falling on a Thursday, is going to be the week from hell... no physicians, no doctors, no diagnostics until...?! Perkele...!

To make things worse for my poor dad, his "roommate" is this demented lady who's yelling things like. "What are these Commies doing here?" or "Kill the bleep-in' Russians!" Apparently she's been given the green light to transfer either home or to some other facility, but not only does the patient not want to move or go home but her next-of-kins do not want her home either. Considering how regimented my dad is (he has to listen to the news in peace and quite once an hour), having to deal with the misery of hospital food or poor service just pale in the light of having to deal with this additional misery.

Keep your fingers crossed; I'll keep you posted on how this procedes...