2:34 p.m.: Sigh. You can't blame the hospital, but I wish someone would make a notation about my mom's problem with temperatures.

Most of us get temps, especially as kids. It's the body's way of fighting off infections. When the temp gets too high, it's dangerous. Otherwise you keep it under control. I've had fevers up to 104°F and, although I've felt spacy (that "looking down the wrong end of a telescope" effect), I'm usually coherent.

Mom has never gotten fevers, which I mentioned in a previous post. She's gone through flu and all types of colds--possibly even her surgeries, but I don't know about that--without ever once getting a temp, until she got into her eighties. So when she does have a fever, even the tiniest one, it affects her; even at 100° she will become "spacy" and forgetful.

Yesterday the doctor apparently asked her if she wanted a nurse to come every day when they sent her home; today my cousin asked her why she said no. She said she doesn't even remember the doctor asking that question. She did have a fever yesterday morning which might have affected that answer; she's also eighty-six years old and slightly hard of hearing--she might have misunderstood the question.

So I wish someone would note both things on her chart and make sure when they asked her things she (a) heard and (b) understood!

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 2:53:00 PM

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