I’ll start this entry by saying first that mom is fine.
I woke this morning early to the sound of my phone ringing (the call in the middle of the night…oh boy). The caller ID said the name of the facility and so my heart jumped. The night nurse called to tell me that as she passed mom’s room last night at 2 a.m., the nurse found mom sitting on the mat on the floor beside her bed looking around. The nurse said mom was pointing at the wheelchair and appeared to be fine. Mom was put back into bed and inspected for any signs of harm. Mom appeared to be just fine. The nurse said that mom had been very agitated from 9 p.m. through 2 a.m. The nurse sat with mom to calm her down from 2 -3 a.m. and then mom was checked every 15 minutes to see how she was. Thank God she wasn’t hurt. QUESTIONS….Why didn’t the bed alarm go off? If it did go off, why wasn’t mom tended to immediately? How long was mom on the floor? Why weren’t the notes from downstairs in the old unit transferred upstairs to the new unit???
Anthony and I went to see mom really early this morning. Mom kept asking Anthony why he was here with her so early. It appears that mom remembers that Anthony doesn’t come to wake her in the morning. Then, after hearing that Anthony was worried about her, mom apologized over and over for being “a pain in the neck” to everyone. So like mom. I asked her what happened last night and she said nothing and then I asked if she slept last night and she said she didn’t. I told her we heard she was on the floor last night and mom said, “Well…well.. actually, I got out of bed and there’s a long, blue mat on the floor and I was sitting on that.” She remembered!! I asked why she got up and she said because she wanted to go to the bathroom. I told her, and also reviewed with her, that she needs to ring the bell and ask the nurse for a bed pan for now until she can walk better. But…when I asked mom a few minutes later what she should do if she needs the bed pan she said, “Get up and go to the bathroom.” She laughed a bit though so I am wondering if she is just ‘pulling my leg.’
I left for work and Dad joined Anthony and mom. Anthony said that mom had breakfast and read magazines and talked while I was gone. Mom ate breakfast by herself!!! BUT the speech therapist gave mom PANCAKES!!!! With SYRUP!!! God help us. I inquired as to whether the blood work and urinalysis from the hospital pre-op testing was back yet or not and was told it hadn’t come yet. The Physician’s Assistant saw mom yesterday and has an order in for mom to be seen by the resident doctor and then by an urologist. I am hoping that mom doesn’t lose the sensation to eliminate from having a catheter for so long….right now, she still gets the urge to go which is critical toward being able to use a toilet again. I spoke to the speech therapist when I returned and was told that mom will be on a full diet tomorrow---I am not sure if we are allowed to feed her or if the therapist still has to be there or not. The therapist is ordering a chest x-ray to see if mom’s chest is clear.
As an aside…we started all over again regarding the family/patient lounge conditions… Each floor and unit had a lounge with AC and a bathroom. Each lounge had many issues regarding these items…!! I had to call maintenance to get them all up and running appropriately. So far, on this floor, the bathroom door doesn’t lock (it’s broken) and the soap dispenser is also broken. The ACs were also not working. After 4 phone calls to maintenance, the ACs now work but the bathroom door still doesn’t lock and the soap is a no go too!
I put mom’s make up on next. And I gave her a hair cut too. Next, we did some cognitive activities. The first one we did was with paper clips. Claudia had bought mom some 2 inch long plastic, colored paper clips. I threw them in a pile on the table and asked her to sort them by color saying, “OK, can you find all the yellow ones and put them in a pile?” Then we did the same for all the other colors (yellow, orange, red, green and blue). Mom did this activity with no problem at all and she loved it too!! Mom is very organized by nature. Next, I showed mom laminated, rectangular cards with a colored rectangle in the middle (one color at a time) and I asked her to find the matching colored paper clips and clip them to the card. It was hard for mom to maneuver her hands at first, but she did it! She said, “Wow. My fingers feel like they have coal on them” meaning it was hard to move them the way she wanted to. Mom held the card in her left hand and placed the paper clips on with her right hand. At one point, mom needed me to visually model how to put the clip on the paper and then she quickly imitated what I had shown her! She also repeated the direction a few times saying, “You want me to put them on the card, right?” as she worked. Mom worked hard and then said,”Hmm…why can’t I get these on?” but she persisted. Mom developed a strategy for putting them on the paper. She would take a paper clip in her right hand and slide it along the paper starting in the middle of the paper and moving toward the edge…as the end of the clip hit the edge, it would naturally slide onto the edge of the paper. Mom persisted so much!! She is dedicated. At another point in the task, she asked me, “Why is this so tedious?” I asked if she wanted to do something else and she said no she wanted to put all the clips on the various papers. All together, mom put a total of 46 paper clips on 5 different pieces of laminated paper!!! Mom wanted to do more when we finished!! Next, we used the box my friend, Maureen, made for mom. It is a box that is divided into 11 compartments. There are also 5 different types of flat, cut out baseball item pieces. There are about 12 pieces of each item…so for example, there are 12 white baseballs, 12 bats, 12 black baseball caps, 12 white caps, and 12 catcher’s mitts. I put them into a huge pile all mixed together on the table. Mom had to sort them into the various compartments. She did well with this activity…80% accuracy independently. Next, we used the letter cubes. These are cubes that have various letters on them either in isolation or in combinations. Mom set about spelling some words. She was being silly about it though!
Speech therapy/feeding therapy came next. The therapist said that mom should be back on a full meal plan by Monday at the latest. Tomorrow she will have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Friday is the angiogram so mom won’t eat anything that day and the therapist wants to be sure someone is with mom to eat besides just the aides at first. Mom ate noodles with sauce and chicken parmesan with string beans and juice. Mom ate the noodles and did so really well and independently. Any time she would drop some food on her bib, mom would say, “Oh God! Look at the mess I am making!” She had a great system for eating. Her chair is far from her table so she needs to balance the food on the utensil for a long period of time—but she does it. Mom completes this task by holding the food on the utensil with her right hand and then following underneath with a napkin in her left hand to catch the spills!!! Mom ate the meal quickly and efficiently. I teased and asked her for something to eat and mom said, “Go get a plate.” Mom also was self-conscious about spills and said, “I don’t want people to think ‘Oh look, she doesn’t know how to eat.” Another time, mom looked like she was done eating so the therapist asked her if she was done and dad answered, “Yes, she’s finished.” Mom replied, “Oh I guess so Jean says I’m done!” Too funny!!!!Then the speech therapist said that yesterday mom said “I don’t like oatmeal” and the therapist said, “Your daughter told me you do” and mom said, “Yeah, well, she lied!”
OT (Occupational Therapy) came in next. We showed the OT what mom did with the paper clips and the sorting activity. The OT worked on dressing skills with mom next. We used a shirt that was mom’s own shirt today. mom was able to grab the shirt from the bottom (the OT gathered it for her) and to put it over her head independently!! The OT taught mom the next few steps---find the hole and then push her hands/arms through. Mom did most of the task independently though she did need some help. Mom was able to pull the shirt down pretty well! At one point, dad asked mom to take the shirt off and mom said, “___said I’m not up that step yet!” and made a face at dad! Then the OT asked her to take her shirt off and mom stuck her tongue out at the OT and laughed. Then the OT said to hurry so they could go to PT next and mom said, “OK well you go and I’ll meet you there!!” Too funny!
In PT, the therapists said that mom did very well so they kept her longer to really work her. Mom stood up very straight and very well…holding her own weight once. Mom’s old CNAs came to see her again today. They kissed her and hugged her and asked how she was. They asked her how she was and what was new. I told mom to tell them what she did last night and mom said, “I was bad” and I told them mom climbed out of bed. The CNA said mom is good. And mom said, “Yeah but when I’m bad I’m really bad.” We all laughed.
Dad and mom did the calendar today. Dad asked, “Yesterday was Tuesday so today is what day?” Mom said,”Wednesday.” Dad said, “Yesterday was the 26th so today is the…” Mom said, “27th” Then mom and dad looked at the “All About Me Book.” We included a letter from the choir in the book and mom saw it and said, “Ohhh…this is from my choir” and read the whole thing. Mom read the “Love Notes to Dotty” book next. She read all the notes we all wrote to her over the last year. We started the “Love Notes to Dotty” book last summer…everyone who visited mom wrote a note to her for her to read when she woke up. When mom finished reading some of it, she said she couldn’t believe what everybody wrote about her. Then, out of no where, mom said, “I’m very disappointed today that I didn’t do well in that room before.” She was referring to PT and she said, “I just don’t feel secure.”
The doctor came in to see mom and said that the catheter comes out tomorrow and that mom will go on a 14 day trial of flowmax to strengthen the bladder muscles. The doctor said that mom looks great and is doing really well. I asked about the sodium and potassium but to be honest…mom is doing much better today! She is done with the antibiotic as of last night. So far, she is also remaining awake and alert and lucid all day. The doctor said he’d write a script for bladder training and bed pan use. The doctor said that we don’t really know what caused the urine retention but the doctor wants to try this route first and observe and then go the urologist route if need be. The doctor is also ordering a scan of her bladder tomorrow. I asked her what she wanted to do now…kidding with her and she said NOTHING!
Dad, mom and I went to sit outside for about 2 hours late in the afternoon. Mom said she wanted to just sit and watch people. We talked to people going in and out of the facility who recognized mom and we also made some social phone calls (Aunt Carol, JoAnn, Angelo and Madeline, Lucy, Anthony Michael, Clauida, Terry). Mom enjoyed chatting on the phone with everyone and being outside. She said she doesn’t know why her “left hand is frozen.” We explained that she needs to exercise her hand. Then mom asked to come inside and just sit and watch TV with dad. Mom had a lengthy conversation with Claudia on the phone. She made Claudia cry. Later she told me everything Claudia told her (a few seconds later). When we came back into the room, mom was trying to put the TV on but couldn’t do it…so I did a hand-over-hand prompt. Mom yelled at me and said, “Stop it. Give ME a chance!” Mom asked me to cut her nails when we were outside. When we came in, I began to type my notes of her day and stopped to clip her nails and mom said, “No, no…you do what you have to do. You’re doing something for school now aren’t you?” Mom also asked me if I had to teach today and what class! She also overheard me telling dad that Con would iron mom’s outfit for Friday and mom yelled at me and told me, “Oh Con doesn’t have to do my ironing STOP!”
Claudia came to be with mom tonight. Claudia showed mom a picture of herself crying over buying things for Ava to bring to college and mom laughed and said that’s just what my mother would do! Before I left, they took the catheter out!! Yippeee!!!Mom began to get a bit anxious once she was in bed and in her pjs....I feel so badly for her. She had a wonderful day otherwise. Pray she stays in bed and sleeps through the night....
"Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. " 2 Thessalonians 3:16
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