home, what now

Cookie, my wife, seemed to experience a new low relative to her health each day that passed . This was the situation even though she was in the hospital. Medical efforts to to diagnose the problem include the usual battery of tests. The one procedure that would over a period 0f time cause the most pain and misery was the constant collection of blood. She is described as a hard stick. The veins in her arm were small, they rolled and many times required multiple sticks in order to obtain the specimen. This exercise only became more difficult and painful with the passage of time and by the end of that hospital stay her arms and the backs of her hand resembled the color of a rainbow. She was in such pain and misery and I suffered right along with her. This situation was to drag on for the next few months. Mind you now this whole episode was designed to assist the medical profession in their efforts to diagnose and develop a modality addressing her failing health. She had been experiencing declining health for several years as her medical attendants had removed , rerouted and medicated while observing and treating her steady decline. She had developed a severe case of psoriasis over the years and was wracked with widespread inflammation. Hygiene was extremely important in the treatment of the symptoms but because of her steadily deteriorating condition she was not able to maintain at a proper level . Though not exactly life threatening some of these symptoms did contribute considerably to her misery. While in the hospital some of them were , rightly so, addressed but the symptoms appeared to take on the major focus. I am not a Dr. but I strongly believe in cause and affect. Treating the symptoms is important but in order to achieve a cure you must address and correct the underlying cause and it was here that modern medicine was failing. Her caregivers did all they could to alleviate her pain and suffering but by the end of her hospital stay it was obvious that she was still a very sick lady. The next stop was the nursing home for rehabilitation. Rehab from what to what? As many of you have experienced, either personally, or as a caregiver, we were facing a discouraging, dismal and dreaded experience.PTL JPT