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Monday, September 28, 2009

"Doctora..."

1:30AM
Lola's living room

I could have heard a pin drop...if somebody besides me were around to drop it. *nervous swallow*

I'm not entertaining any scary thoughts, as I am the only one (hopefully) who's awake in the house. All the others have gone to sleep hours ago.

My 84-year-old grandmother took ill and I was sleeping over to see to her needs, and to manage her. After the necessary history and PE and the essential labs (just 2), my suspicions were confirmed. My grandmother's condition (I won't say what it is, though) is a pretty common thing for the elderly.

I felt responsible for seeing to her care, because I happened to be, after all, the "first doctor of the family". (I have a tita and tito who hold doctorate degrees in law, but that, of course is another thing, totally.) I'm managing this as an out-patient case, of course, but with her being geriatric, and my very own grandmother, I'm keeping a watchful eye just in case anything gets out of...order. Managing/treating family members can be quite challenging, because you really have to keep being on your toes just to make sure you've got all the bases covered.

Like, for instance, with my lola... her current case is something I regularly see at the hospital wards and is a common complaint in the ER, but before I gave her the medication, I had to go check my books and look up on medscape.com if my management was still current, and effective. An evidence-based search rewarded my efforts.

In fact, I'm still up because I want to check if, from the time I gave her an antipyretic (fever meds) to four hours after (which is a few minutes from now), she wil still be afebrile.

My grandmother is into alternative medicine as well, and just yesterday, I noticed that she had charcoal dust arund her bedsides, and an open book, placed facedown on her tummy. She apparently had been reading about "The Healing wonders of Charcoal" before she fell asleep.

"Tsk, tsk.." I tutted, with a smile. My grandmother would always be after a cheaper panacea, a "cure-all", so to speak, all the time. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the fact that she had decided to comply with the medication I prescribed and administered was flattering. But then again, she always listened to what I said anyway (as is the privilege of grandchildren), sometimes she teases me and calls me "Doctora".


1:45 AM

Nope, no fever. She's sleeping soundly, and so is my Lolo.

So far, so good.

:-) Good night!

~ Sonia


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