Admitted to Sky Ridge

K was admitted to Sky Ridge hospital tonight. Her caregiver took her to the ER, where they gave her an initial "triage" evaluation fairly quickly, but then she waited an hour to be seen. I got there while they were waiting. They thought they would be admitting her, after hearing the abridged story, of the severe pain on the right side, the refusal of dialysis due to the clogged fistula, the refusal to repair it, due to the high potassium. But first they setup IV access, took and X-Ray picture and blood samples, and made her wait awhile longer. They said the X-Ray images did not show any broken ribs on the right side, which got us worrying about what was causing the pain, maybe something more serious internally. When the labs came back, they saw that yes, potassium really was very high, and decided to admit her to hospital. She stayed awhile longer in ER, waiting on a room. They gave her a "cocktail" injection to lower potassium, with a large dose of insulin (yikes!), sodium bicarbonate, calcium, and, oh yeah, a bunch of dextrose to balance the insulin. I warned about the insulin, and her brittle blood glucose. On the way to ICU, they detoured with a stop in surgery, to insert a catheter in her neck, which would enable them to give her dialysis. That took about 40 minutes. The Doc said the surgery went well, and she'd be in ICU soon. Then a surgical nurse said she was in ICU, but we couldn't visit until 8pm, because the nurses were changing shift, and visitors weren't allowed. Argh! Finally we were able to visit, after she was settled into her ICU room. They started a 2-hr dialysis, and planned on another session on Tuesday. I headed home after 9pm, wondering if the dog had survived her long 6hr stay at home alone, but she was fine, sleeping in K's closet. She sleepily rolled on her back for a belly rub, as soon as she saw me.