911. What is your emergency?

Wow, who would have thought that I could stay calm, cool and collected when I called 911?

Okay let's back up a bit for a bit of info.... Tuesday had been another uneventful day here in the Coleman household. Off to bed like normal. But at 1:40 a.m. wednesday I was awaken with the trailer shaking. When I got up to see what was going on, I discovered that Bud was what he said, COLD.

So I gave him more covers. I thought it was because I had the air turned down and he was on blood thinners so he is always cold. And I went back to bed.

Around 5:30 a,m. I heard him get up, turn on the coffee and go outside for a cup of coffee. He spoke to the construction guys as they headed off to work. So I got up and was preparing to take him to the shower house for showers and start our day.

When he came thru the front door, thru the kitchen on the walker, and was shaking so badly he could hardly walk. He said "I can't get my breathe"
He got to the bath room and wanted to use it, but was shaking so bad I just knew he was going to fall, and then I was in deep shit trouble. I told him he needed to lay down on the bed. Again I thought he was just cold due to the meds he is on and it was a bit cool outside where he had been sitting.

He lay down on the bed and continued to tell me he was short of breathe, so I grabbed his nighttime sleep mask and told him to put it on, and turned the oxygen back on. He said something about calling 911 and then proceeded to say, wait a bit to see if it would pass. I went back to get dressed, when I heard him say "get me some help, I can't breathe".

Grabbing my phone, I kept hoping it would not give me fits in getting dialed out. (sometimes our phones only work when they want to).
I got 911 on the phone only to learn it was Macon County Nd we live in Dewitt County. So I had to be transferred. I told her I had a 63 year old male, who had a total hip revision 2 1/2 weeks ago and was having shakes and difficulty breathing. She dispatched the ambulance to our address and continued asking questions. Did his Chest hurt? I ask and his reply was. " of course my Chet hurts , I can't breathe" I encouraged him to settle down and not panic cause I knew that would only make him feel worse.

She stayed on the line with me, as I walked outside I knew I had to move the firewood rack so they could come in the back door. I told her I was going to make noise as I had to move a object. You could walk thru but to get equipment to the door I needed to pull it farther west.

I came back into the bedroom and he told me to tell them to hurry. She assured me they were dispatched and on the way. I told her to tell them to come to the second driveway, there was a orange Sonic in the drive and we had a flag in the yard right up front.

All this time, I still thought it was because of his meds. Wrong!
It didn't take them long to tell me he had a fever.

It was decided we would go to Clinton to John Warner, but if his infection that was causing a fever was from the hip we would then transfer him to Bloomington, but other symptoms lead us to think it might be blather to urinary tract infection.

Temperature was 104.7. No wonder he didn't make sense in some of the stuff he was saying. Why didn't I realize he had a temp? Normally he knows when he has a fever, but he didn't realize it either.

Severe infection! They started pumping antibiotics and IV into him, and slowly it started to come down. They wanted him to stay the night, but when he got to feeling better he wanted to come home. They gave us a prescription for a real strong antibiotic and told me to push water. And make a follow up appointment with his doctor. He drank 6 bottles of water that afternoon.

Yesterday we went to see his doctor. Kinda scary to think that had we not gotten help when we did that the infection could have gone to the heart, lungs or blood and then things would really have been bad. I purchased a thermometer since I couldn't find one here anymore. Monitoring his temp, blood pressure and urine output.

Told him last night, I didn't want him complaining again about having to go to the bathroom so much as peeing was a good thing.

They had sent the fire department out also, because he had said his chest hurts.
Thank you 911 operator, paramedics and fire department for your quick respond even tho he felt you were taking our sweet time getting here.

So, Wednesday is not a day that I want to duplicate anytime in the future!


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