So last Sunday – someone (Not me) was complaining of the right eye hurting and a headache concentrated on the right side.

So we went to Emory Hillandale Hospital ER. They did all sorts of tests, blood, CT, etc. Tried MRI but because of a childhood injury that left a chunk of metal embedded in his cheek he couldn’t tolerate the MRI magnets. The ER Doctor there and I got to talking, he loves the RaspberryPi platform too. Good guy also.

They transferred him to the Emory Midtown Atlanta hospital intensive care unit. It’s because they thought they saw something in his visual cortex that was possibly stroke damage.

He was in Intensive care for three days, multiple pokes for blood draws,  CT Scans, Ultrasound of his liver and kidneys, no rest whatsoever. Finally they moved him to a regular room for another three days. The blood draws at 2AM started which irritated both someone and I.  But then the doctor says he’s got low Potassium and Magnesium. So they put him on supplements both IV and pills. The Magneisum is interesting , it’s 50ml of Magnesium Sulfate. He was wondering why his urine smelled funny.

Then they have him on a low sodium and cholesterol diet. But now it’s high blood pressure so they fire every possible drug into him for that. Until such time it came down to 114/68. BTW, one nurse fluffed me off when I said I could have sworn I saw that diastolic number. So when she left I powered up the WelchAlyn device and went into it’s logs. Yeah never lie to an InfoSci/InfoSec guy. That’s how I found that number above. As I told the doctor – it struck me the monitoring devices, volumetric infusion pumps, etc. all had simple interfaces. So easy to figure out.

Now first let me give accolades, the staff at Emory Midtown Hospital both ICU and Unit 61 was excellent. A stark comparison to the northeast.  I even told the nurses I thought they were great and it’ll be followed up by a nice letter to the hospital administration.

But when we spoke to the doctor yesterday he said maybe Monday or Tuesday someone would be released. Well it moved up today. It might have something to do with me asking for a printout of his medications and that we’d had enough.

For my poor guy was beginning to resemble a pin cushion. I mean double blood draws every day.

Now what struck me – they stuck in an IV port on his left arm. But they only use it for injections. But you could flush it and do blood draws with it. Instead they stuck him again and again.

Doctors will never say it but they’re stumped about the BP. I mentioned to the doctor maybe it’s the sodium thing. We’ll see, I will continue to monitor his BP at home. Because I showed the doctors and nurses my spreadsheet – nice and neat with statistical functions for all the five data points. Like I said, never, ever fuck with an InfoSci/InfoSec guy.