Dad and I began the day with mom this morning. Mom’s legs were on the side of the bed and one was hanging off the bed! She was very agitated and confused as well. She was trying to tell me that she was “upset” because she didn’t know what “group” she belonged to. She was trying very hard to tell us something but couldn’t get the words out correctly. Mom asked for her make up so I put it on for her. Dad said not to do it because he has trouble getting it off and makes a mess of himself and mom in the process and mom laughed! Mom’s nurse came into the room to take her blood pressure and mom said, “I had my temperature taken already” (because I said that was what was going to be done)—and mom was RIGHT!! It had been taken already!! She remembered! This is progress. Mom’s CNA said she dropped her children off early at the sitter to get here to get mom ready for the doctor appointment today. Dad asked mom what day was today; he said, “Yesterday was the 24 so what is today?” Mom said, “The 23rd?” So I said, “23 came BEFORE 24 so what comes AFTER 24?” Mom said, “Oh…25 then.” Mom gets oriented very quickly in the mornings once we are here though thank God. Mom’s CNA from the daytime worked day and night yesterday and she said that, after Terry left last night, mom was very, very agitated and kept trying to climb out of bed. The aide said that there will be a request for higher mats to be put beside each side of the bed so mom can’t climb out easily. Mom asked about the doctor’s visit today for the testing and she wanted to know the name of the doctor. She also wanted to know if that doctor was the only one involved with her. She also asked again about what happened to her. Dad and I explained everything to mom and she said, “Boy…I would have to say I don’t remember any of that at all.” She listened intently and asked many relevant questions about what happened to her. Dad told mom that we all come every day to help her get better and that she is getting better every day. We hold Aunt Carol up as our success story for mom. At one point, mom said, “Am I going to die? Dad is so serious.” Dad said today that, one night a year ago, right before all this happened to mom, mom got choked up one night and told dad, “I want to die before you because I don’t want to be alone without you.” Funny how things work out.
Once we made it to the hospital for the pre-op testing, mom and I did finger exercises. I held my hand up before her and asked her to imitate movements I was making. Mom did them all—slowly but she did them. She also was able to imitate the finger movement requests that the intake evaluation nurse asked her too. The nurse at the hospital told us to ask the facility to do bladder training with mom---get her using the bed pan and toilet again asap because we told the nurse about mom’s urine retention problem of late. Mom still has the foley bag for her urinary tract infection. The nurse told us to have it removed asap. The nurse did extensive urinanalysis tests to determine if the urinary tract infection went away yet or not—that way we can request that the catheter comes out asap. The nurse also said we can request an eye exam for mom using pictures rather than letters if need be. I will ask about this. The nurse asked mom to touch each individual finger of each hand to the thumb on the same hand and mom did this with both hands! While we waited in the waiting room, mom asked dad what he was going to make for dinner and smiled. She told us all she was sorry it was taking so long and that we should all go eat lunch because we are probably hungry. Mom will be at the hospital all day on Friday for the cerebral angiogram. We had a mishap with the van the company sent to bring mom from the hospital back to the facility. They took well over an hour to get to the hospital to pick mom up and when they arrived, it was the wrong type of van!!! It was a van for vent patients which meant there was a huge guerney and no room for the wheelchair. After I called the company and straightened out the confusion, it took over another hour for the right van to come. All together, it took more than 2 ½ hours of waiting for a transport vehicle to get mom from the hospital back to the facility. When it arrived, we found that the dispatcher of the transport place had driven the vehicle!! Not EMTs!! When the person lifted mom into the vehicle using the lift the person stood on the back of the lift with mom and the wheelchair. I then decided to stay around and doubly check that all was done correctly in transporting mom (safety belts…). Mom’s anxiety grew and grew the longer she had to wait. She began to speak irrelevantly. She began to ask for the scissors again. I tried to distract mom by playing, “I see something___” and naming a color. Mom did well with the game. Next, we called Nancy (our cousin) and Anthony and mom talked on the phone to them. After a while, mom said, “Kathy, I am sitting here asking God to let me out. To let me get home.” Mom’s aide and I moved her up in the chair to make her more comfortable. As the time passed, mom grew more and more upset until, finally, she cried a bit and dad stood beside her and held her in his arms and comforted her.
When mom returned to the facility, she was much calmer and focused. The speech therapist came to see mom and gave mom some apple juice and 3 graham crackers to eat. Mom devoured them!!! Then mom asked for water. The therapist gave mom regular bottled water --- not thickened liquid and mom drank it all!!! No problem!! I tried to tell mom something while she was eating---a direction---and mom smirked and said, “Oh shut up!” and then laughed. I told the speech therapist not to give mom binding food given the constipation. The therapist never checked mom’s chart to see that was an issue. The therapist is going to begin to give mom breakfast and lunch tomorrow (the therapist will be present to watch how mom does). This will be followed by having dinner later in the week. Hopefully, next week mom will be back on food! I told the therapist not to give mom a lot of carbohydrates and to select protein and healthy choices. No waffles, pancakes, syrup… It makes mom woozy and tired. After she finished eating, mom and I wrote on the white board with the new multi-colored markers I bought her. She spelled words and I wrote. Sometimes, mom has been spelling what she wants to say when she has trouble finding the right word to say. Today, she spelled w-a-t-e-r when she wanted to ask for water and had difficulty finding the right word. Mom also couldn’t remember my name at the hospital at one point (she was beginning to get anxious then) and she called me by my last name… “Mrs.____.” Before I left, mom asked if Claudia and John were coming tonight. I told her it would be only Claudia and mom said, “Oh when?” I told her it would be around 6 p.m. and mom said, “Gee that’s a long time from now!”
Claudia came to put mom to bed tonight. Dad left. Claudia said mom wasn’t bad at all. A little restless but not bad. Claudia invented a new game…a picture of a park scene and a butterfly that is detached from the scene. Claudia asks mom to put the butterfly various places on the scene! Mom loved it. Mom got about 50% of the directions correct. Then they watched the MET game and mom asked many questions about the game. Claudia gave mom the baseball card of the player up at bat and mom would read the card while the player batted. Then Claudia put the mitts on mom and they looked at the question cards—pictures of people and things and you ask a question (written on the back of the card) and mom answers the question. A verbal reasoning task. Mom loves to do the cards!!! Mom calmly tried to get the mitts off after a while. Mom was still awake when Claudia left. Mom told her to go to sleep. At 9:00 p.m. though, mom got really agitated and loopy. It is like the key time all this behavior begins. It is distressing to see the change in mom from last week to this one. She was much more lucid last week.I pray all this delusional behavior subsides when the UTI disappears…..
“The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace.” Psalm 29:11
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