Mom is still in the hospital. Her UTI is under control. As predicted, she doesn't remember that she has cancer. She is still pretty weak, and her blood sugars have been a little crazy, but the plan right now is to discharge her to a nursing home for rehabilitation for a bit to get her able to walk on her own before bringing her home.
Visiting her each night has put some other stuff on hold, but it is what it is.
Last night Babygirl went with me to visit her. Mom told us all about how she had mistaken the morning phlebotomist for one of her granddaughters, and refused to let her take her blood. Apparently she was so convinced (and absolutely sure that the rest of the grandkids were there as well) that they had to get the nurses in, and finally get a different phlebotomist since Mom was sure my niece was not competent to draw blood (true that, but she rocks at massage). While we were there she got a call from a friend, and we listened while Mom explained to her that she had fallen, and that she has a "prostrate infection." Um, really? Not only is it actually called a 'prostate,' you don't have one. I thought we'd die laughing, and we could hear her friend gasping for air on the other end of the line.
Tonight I went alone, and was privy to a conversation about how Curlygirl has an alien, and how she is pretty persistent about alien rights (but she's so stubborn about everything, right?). Mom herself saw an alien, a short bald thing. Mom had some trouble with the alien language barrier, and didn't get his name - aliens are private about such things, you know. Then she changed the subject to how the frogs are damaging the doors.
All of this was straight-faced matter-of-fact conversation, held while we admired the sunset out the window. She had a CT of the brain on Friday night, so I know there are no tumors in there, but I'm guessing she's had a small stroke. Her dad had hallucinations regularly as part of his dementia - there was an Indian in his living room pretty regularly, and a small dog. No aliens that I recall, though.
I can hardly think of anything that sucks worse than this.
DeeDee
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
Sunday, May 3, 2015
A Full Moon Kinda Life....
After our failed attempt at a visit with the pacemaker clinic, Mom just had a rough week. She complained the next morning of feeling 'disoriented,' although what that means when one already has dementia I really have no idea. She was acting off, somehow, and was forgetting basic like toileting. I changed bedsheets, nightgowns, socks, and floor mats. I checked in a little more often, was really compliant with daily weights and blood sugars and encouraging healthy diet. I thought maybe the pain in her knees from the near-miss fall on Tuesday was slowing her down so I added Tylenol to her daily medications. Maybe the upcoming full moon was throwing her off.
On the way home from work Friday, while waiting (behind a police car!) at the ATM, my cell rang. I almost didn't answer - POLICE! - but I snuck it onto speaker. It was hubby.
"Em found your Mom on the floor a few minutes ago. She must have fallen. We can't get her up. Should we call 911?"
I love that man, I do. But, seriously, you do not need my permission to call the Boys in Blue. By all means, give 'em a call. (They were rude to him. Apparently the dispatcher didn't think that an old lady on the floor was an emergency. I told him he'd've gotten more respect if he'd thought to mention that she was unconscious when they found her. It's all in the details.)
I arrived home just a few moments ahead of EMS. Mom was incoherent, in pain, and freezing. To the best of her (admittedly poor) recollection she'd fallen shortly after I'd left for work at 8 AM. It was now nearly 6 PM.
Off to the ER we went (it's 0.4 miles according to the ambulance mileage record. We should just build a ramp and coast there). She was diagnosed with a UTI and admitted.
Old ladies. They don't get normal UTI symptoms, like cramping an painful peeing and fever. They get weak and confused and they fall down. Sigh.
The problem with lying on the floor for 8+ hours is that it causes decreased circulation to the muscles, which causes muscle damage. Damaged muscles sort of dissolve into something called myoglobin, which leaves the body via the kidneys. And the kidneys HATE that stuff, so they frequently fail following this kind of event, so it's normal for patients to be admitted and super-hydrated. Of course, if the patient has congestive heart failure, super-hydration is not the best idea on earth either - our typical tightrope walk with Mom.
Because every part of her body hurt, the ER scanned her. Brain - no change, no new strokes. Belly - no injured internal organs. Bones - healed 9th rib fractures on both sides (?!?) but nothing new. Chest x-ray - no pneumonia, mild heart failure, like always. But on the chest CT.....
There's a mass in the lung, well over an inch big. It doesn't show on the last two chest x-rays because it's parked behind the aorta. It's up high, likely not easily reachable for biopsy, but there isn't much doubt that it's lung cancer.
Her kidneys won't tolerate the dye needed for a PET/CT to evaluate for metastatic lesions, I don't think. She's a crappy surgical candidate - anesthesia didn't want to take a lesion off her face last year under mild sedation. No way they are going to want to put her under.
I told her about it tonight. I laid it out, kept it as simple as I could, answered the same three questions four times. And in the end she took the Scarlett O'Hara approach and said, "Well, there's no point in being sad about that NOW. I can be sad about that LATER." I'm willing to bet she won't remember it tomorrow, and hey, nothing wrong with that.
Wish I could say the same.
DeeDee
On the way home from work Friday, while waiting (behind a police car!) at the ATM, my cell rang. I almost didn't answer - POLICE! - but I snuck it onto speaker. It was hubby.
"Em found your Mom on the floor a few minutes ago. She must have fallen. We can't get her up. Should we call 911?"
I love that man, I do. But, seriously, you do not need my permission to call the Boys in Blue. By all means, give 'em a call. (They were rude to him. Apparently the dispatcher didn't think that an old lady on the floor was an emergency. I told him he'd've gotten more respect if he'd thought to mention that she was unconscious when they found her. It's all in the details.)
I arrived home just a few moments ahead of EMS. Mom was incoherent, in pain, and freezing. To the best of her (admittedly poor) recollection she'd fallen shortly after I'd left for work at 8 AM. It was now nearly 6 PM.
Off to the ER we went (it's 0.4 miles according to the ambulance mileage record. We should just build a ramp and coast there). She was diagnosed with a UTI and admitted.
Old ladies. They don't get normal UTI symptoms, like cramping an painful peeing and fever. They get weak and confused and they fall down. Sigh.
The problem with lying on the floor for 8+ hours is that it causes decreased circulation to the muscles, which causes muscle damage. Damaged muscles sort of dissolve into something called myoglobin, which leaves the body via the kidneys. And the kidneys HATE that stuff, so they frequently fail following this kind of event, so it's normal for patients to be admitted and super-hydrated. Of course, if the patient has congestive heart failure, super-hydration is not the best idea on earth either - our typical tightrope walk with Mom.
Because every part of her body hurt, the ER scanned her. Brain - no change, no new strokes. Belly - no injured internal organs. Bones - healed 9th rib fractures on both sides (?!?) but nothing new. Chest x-ray - no pneumonia, mild heart failure, like always. But on the chest CT.....
There's a mass in the lung, well over an inch big. It doesn't show on the last two chest x-rays because it's parked behind the aorta. It's up high, likely not easily reachable for biopsy, but there isn't much doubt that it's lung cancer.
Her kidneys won't tolerate the dye needed for a PET/CT to evaluate for metastatic lesions, I don't think. She's a crappy surgical candidate - anesthesia didn't want to take a lesion off her face last year under mild sedation. No way they are going to want to put her under.
I told her about it tonight. I laid it out, kept it as simple as I could, answered the same three questions four times. And in the end she took the Scarlett O'Hara approach and said, "Well, there's no point in being sad about that NOW. I can be sad about that LATER." I'm willing to bet she won't remember it tomorrow, and hey, nothing wrong with that.
Wish I could say the same.
DeeDee
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Defying Gravity....
My Mom hasn't been out of the house since her hospital stay in last month, and she was carried out on a stretcher for that adventure. Prior to that she'd had a doctor's visit before the snow fell. A handsome young physical therapist came and made her walk and gave her exercises to do, which she faithfully did....in his presence, and not once since. Memory loss does that. I confess that I did not add "Making Mom comply with her exercise regimen" to my "taking care of Mom" list along with: Cleaning the cat boxes; getting the cats to the vet; keeping the house stocked with food, water bottles and disposable panties; sorting her pills and changing the doses weekly based on current daily weight history and recent labs; daily insulin adjustments and blood sugar readings; coordinating nursing visits, PT visits and nurses aides....you get the idea.
Yesterday she had a visit scheduled at the pacemaker clinic. She hasn't had the pacemaker checked in months. We no longer pay for a land line and it can't be checked on a cell phone. I know it is still working because while she was in the hospital she had a coughing spell so hard that her heart stopped beating and we saw the pacemaker take over on the monitor. Because she is not usually pacer-dependent the battery will last a long time but...the last time she had it checked she'd broken a wire and had to have it replaced, remember that?
So I got her dressed and started moving her toward the car a solid 40 minutes ahead of the appointment, which is 10 minutes or less away. She had to use the bathroom first. Her memory has gotten so bad that she couldn't quite figure out how to manage both panties and slacks and needed help. It took my sister-in-law and I both to get her down the back stairs. And then....
She missed the car seat when she sat down and landed on the car's door frame. Her knees no longer bend beyond 90 degrees, so this was NOT a comfortable position. Some quick thinking got a plastic crate stuffed under her before she could slide to the ground, and we pulled her feet out from under her got her more comfortable, but nothing we could do could get her up the extra 8 inches into the car, let alone up onto her feet. We didn't have a lot of room to work in - the open car door was just a few inches from her left elbow.
My SIL has an excellent sense of the absurd, and despite the obvious what-the-heck-ness of the situation we were laughing a LOT over the next 45 minutes as we worked on what to do next. Finally she thought of the obvious: Forget about lifting the old lady - lift the CRATE.
Hubby got some sturdy rope from the camping supplies. I got down and threaded it into one side of the crate while SIL got it through from the door side (she's WAY younger than we are, and still flexible, thank God). With a well-coordinated heave from three sides we got her up, and took her back up the stairs into the house (with her mystified, "But weren't we GOING somewhere?" at every other step).
I called the pacemaker clinic 27 minutes after our scheduled arrival time to let them know why we hadn't come.
"Would you like to reschedule?"
The question nearly brought me to tears. How in the name of all that is holy am I going to GET her there? Even if we had a ramp she might have failed the transfer to the car, and what if she had fallen at the other end when I had no help? I nearly needed the 911 boys as it was. Getting her transported home from the hospital in a medivan cost $54, and they did not really assist her into the house. If my brother hadn't been there she wouldn't have made it in.
Gravity is not our friend here.
DeeDee
Yesterday she had a visit scheduled at the pacemaker clinic. She hasn't had the pacemaker checked in months. We no longer pay for a land line and it can't be checked on a cell phone. I know it is still working because while she was in the hospital she had a coughing spell so hard that her heart stopped beating and we saw the pacemaker take over on the monitor. Because she is not usually pacer-dependent the battery will last a long time but...the last time she had it checked she'd broken a wire and had to have it replaced, remember that?
So I got her dressed and started moving her toward the car a solid 40 minutes ahead of the appointment, which is 10 minutes or less away. She had to use the bathroom first. Her memory has gotten so bad that she couldn't quite figure out how to manage both panties and slacks and needed help. It took my sister-in-law and I both to get her down the back stairs. And then....
She missed the car seat when she sat down and landed on the car's door frame. Her knees no longer bend beyond 90 degrees, so this was NOT a comfortable position. Some quick thinking got a plastic crate stuffed under her before she could slide to the ground, and we pulled her feet out from under her got her more comfortable, but nothing we could do could get her up the extra 8 inches into the car, let alone up onto her feet. We didn't have a lot of room to work in - the open car door was just a few inches from her left elbow.
My SIL has an excellent sense of the absurd, and despite the obvious what-the-heck-ness of the situation we were laughing a LOT over the next 45 minutes as we worked on what to do next. Finally she thought of the obvious: Forget about lifting the old lady - lift the CRATE.
Hubby got some sturdy rope from the camping supplies. I got down and threaded it into one side of the crate while SIL got it through from the door side (she's WAY younger than we are, and still flexible, thank God). With a well-coordinated heave from three sides we got her up, and took her back up the stairs into the house (with her mystified, "But weren't we GOING somewhere?" at every other step).
I called the pacemaker clinic 27 minutes after our scheduled arrival time to let them know why we hadn't come.
"Would you like to reschedule?"
The question nearly brought me to tears. How in the name of all that is holy am I going to GET her there? Even if we had a ramp she might have failed the transfer to the car, and what if she had fallen at the other end when I had no help? I nearly needed the 911 boys as it was. Getting her transported home from the hospital in a medivan cost $54, and they did not really assist her into the house. If my brother hadn't been there she wouldn't have made it in.
Gravity is not our friend here.
DeeDee
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Do Not Go Gentle....
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Dylan Thomas
My father has been fading for some time. Parkinson's disease, smoker's lung, diabetes and arthritis slowed him to a crawl. Increasing deafness added some loss of interest. Throw in diminishing vision due to macular degeneration, add one minor infection, and voila! You have a fragile old man in a nursing home where once you had a vibrant raconteur at your dinner table, complaining about bumping elbows with the 'righties' at his side.
My brother and I went to visit him, taking his wife and one daughter each along. He was alert at lunchtime, but when we came back with a pizza party at 5 o'clock for dinner he was asleep, and nothing we did could awaken him. He slept in his wheelchair while we shared stories and wings, memories and soda. And after a couple of hours, the aides came and lifted him into his bed.
I couldn't help thinking as I kissed his forehead that it might be the last time. The nursing home was supposed to be for rehabilitation, but it looks like he might be choosing gentle over rage this time.
DeeDee
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Dylan Thomas
My father has been fading for some time. Parkinson's disease, smoker's lung, diabetes and arthritis slowed him to a crawl. Increasing deafness added some loss of interest. Throw in diminishing vision due to macular degeneration, add one minor infection, and voila! You have a fragile old man in a nursing home where once you had a vibrant raconteur at your dinner table, complaining about bumping elbows with the 'righties' at his side.
My brother and I went to visit him, taking his wife and one daughter each along. He was alert at lunchtime, but when we came back with a pizza party at 5 o'clock for dinner he was asleep, and nothing we did could awaken him. He slept in his wheelchair while we shared stories and wings, memories and soda. And after a couple of hours, the aides came and lifted him into his bed.
I couldn't help thinking as I kissed his forehead that it might be the last time. The nursing home was supposed to be for rehabilitation, but it looks like he might be choosing gentle over rage this time.
DeeDee
Thursday, April 23, 2015
And Snow in April.....
Babygirl's Saturday lab results came in on Monday. Her creatinine continues to creep downward and is now at 0.98. Her potassium was also low, a brand-new issue, so we're pushing broccoli and fruit. Her headaches have been remarkably good, until a pretty bad one this morning. Her head simply must not like snow.
People are acting like snow in April was just invented, but to me it seem pretty normal. I recall a Mother's Day a few years back where I snapped a picture of about six inches of snow on my blooming yellow forsythia. Pretty, but kind of depressing for May. April snow I can handle, even if it means having to glove up to walk the dogs.
I managed to walk them both together this morning and I didn't die and both of my arms are still in their sockets. Maybelle is doing pretty well!
DeeDee
People are acting like snow in April was just invented, but to me it seem pretty normal. I recall a Mother's Day a few years back where I snapped a picture of about six inches of snow on my blooming yellow forsythia. Pretty, but kind of depressing for May. April snow I can handle, even if it means having to glove up to walk the dogs.
I managed to walk them both together this morning and I didn't die and both of my arms are still in their sockets. Maybelle is doing pretty well!
DeeDee
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Days of Sunshine.....
Two sunny, warm days together on a weekend after a long, frigid winter seemed a blessing too big to be imagined. And to have nothing outside of home planned, nothing at all? Even more unbelievable! (Well, we did have to do Friday's forgotten blood work Saturday morning before we went to the gym, but that was a minor setback. And it had the advantage of staying any possible bad news until after the weekend.)
Babygirl and I went to the gym as soon as it opened, worked out and came home to wake up Squeaker. Since his Mom and Dad have had a lot of overtime lately, we enjoyed his company overnight. I slipped out and ran to Sally Ann's Boutique to see if I could find a couple of pairs of pants that wouldn't fall off when I stand up. I have succeeded in getting back to my pre-KidNeedsAKidney weight, which is delightful except that nothing in my closet fits except a couple of pairs of jeans that I kept hoping against hope would fit again 'someday.' I got my hair cut and arrived back home in time to make it to a very important appointment.
We went to meet Maybelle.
My old dog, Simon, is 11 years old. He's an awesome, big little dog, and even though his brother Garfunkel died years ago (we named them right, didn't we?) he's done well as an only dog. But he's gotten some arthritis, and he won't walk more than a block with me. I feel a little uncomfortable walking alone in a city at 5 in the morning in the dark.
So I've been cheating on him. For weeks now I've been checking local rescue sites, looking at available dogs, visiting on visitation days and putting in applications. (My firstborn is paid for and about to get married, so I was unwilling to sign her away, but it seems like one must do something like this to get a rescue dog.) I refuse to take a puppy or a very young dog - frankly, I'm too old to deal with that kind of crazy energy. But this six-year-old looked like she might, maybe, just be slow enough:
It is difficult to tell by looking, of course, because hound dogs always look slow and pathetic. According to the website she'd been in the shelter a year ago, placed and returned due to 'owner circumstances.' When I enquired, they euphemistically told me that the owner had to spend some time in a kennel himself, and returned the dog to be re-homed.
Squeaker came along with us, and we put him up on a chair for safekeeping. When Maybelle came into the little room to meet us, she walked up to him, eyeball-to-eyeball, and slurped him right in the nose. Did I mention she's 60 pounds and over three feet tall? She needs to add another 10 to hide her ribs. And she drools like Hooch.
It took a couple of days of back-and-forth paperwork, but she's home, snoring on the couch. She has beautiful indoor manners, and someday (SOON) she'll learn how to walk on a leash without dislocating my shoulder. She ignores cats and wants to be friends with every dog she meets. She looks sad and slow, but she LOVES walks. I'm thinking she'd LOVE runs.
But what she loves most is love. She is the sweetest, happiest-hearted dog I've met in a long time. Each dog has it's own voice - hers is a Brittish-accented nanny sort, a nice contrast to Simon's "I dunno, Davey...." goofiness. (Okay, you dog owners know exactly what I am talking about, so stop snickering.)
Welcome home, Maybelle.
DeeDee
Babygirl and I went to the gym as soon as it opened, worked out and came home to wake up Squeaker. Since his Mom and Dad have had a lot of overtime lately, we enjoyed his company overnight. I slipped out and ran to Sally Ann's Boutique to see if I could find a couple of pairs of pants that wouldn't fall off when I stand up. I have succeeded in getting back to my pre-KidNeedsAKidney weight, which is delightful except that nothing in my closet fits except a couple of pairs of jeans that I kept hoping against hope would fit again 'someday.' I got my hair cut and arrived back home in time to make it to a very important appointment.
We went to meet Maybelle.
My old dog, Simon, is 11 years old. He's an awesome, big little dog, and even though his brother Garfunkel died years ago (we named them right, didn't we?) he's done well as an only dog. But he's gotten some arthritis, and he won't walk more than a block with me. I feel a little uncomfortable walking alone in a city at 5 in the morning in the dark.
So I've been cheating on him. For weeks now I've been checking local rescue sites, looking at available dogs, visiting on visitation days and putting in applications. (My firstborn is paid for and about to get married, so I was unwilling to sign her away, but it seems like one must do something like this to get a rescue dog.) I refuse to take a puppy or a very young dog - frankly, I'm too old to deal with that kind of crazy energy. But this six-year-old looked like she might, maybe, just be slow enough:
It is difficult to tell by looking, of course, because hound dogs always look slow and pathetic. According to the website she'd been in the shelter a year ago, placed and returned due to 'owner circumstances.' When I enquired, they euphemistically told me that the owner had to spend some time in a kennel himself, and returned the dog to be re-homed.
Squeaker came along with us, and we put him up on a chair for safekeeping. When Maybelle came into the little room to meet us, she walked up to him, eyeball-to-eyeball, and slurped him right in the nose. Did I mention she's 60 pounds and over three feet tall? She needs to add another 10 to hide her ribs. And she drools like Hooch.
It took a couple of days of back-and-forth paperwork, but she's home, snoring on the couch. She has beautiful indoor manners, and someday (SOON) she'll learn how to walk on a leash without dislocating my shoulder. She ignores cats and wants to be friends with every dog she meets. She looks sad and slow, but she LOVES walks. I'm thinking she'd LOVE runs.
But what she loves most is love. She is the sweetest, happiest-hearted dog I've met in a long time. Each dog has it's own voice - hers is a Brittish-accented nanny sort, a nice contrast to Simon's "I dunno, Davey...." goofiness. (Okay, you dog owners know exactly what I am talking about, so stop snickering.)
Welcome home, Maybelle.
DeeDee
Friday, April 17, 2015
Things We Shouldn't Forget.....
While we were getting ready to have Babygirl's most recent biopsy Dr L mentioned that it was her third.
"No. It's her second. She had one shortly after the transplant, and that was it."
Odd, he said. There appeared to be two previous biopsy reports on file. But I was SURE she'd had only one.
Until I stumbled across this post: A Change of Pace....
How. Did. I. Forget. This?
It beggars my imagination to realize that my kid went under general anesthesia for a procedure and I didn't have the slightest recollection of the event. It frightens me more than a little to consider that our lives have become so absurdly abnormal that I could just blank this out, like a bad first date or something.
That is just.....wrong.
DeeDee
"No. It's her second. She had one shortly after the transplant, and that was it."
Odd, he said. There appeared to be two previous biopsy reports on file. But I was SURE she'd had only one.
Until I stumbled across this post: A Change of Pace....
How. Did. I. Forget. This?
It beggars my imagination to realize that my kid went under general anesthesia for a procedure and I didn't have the slightest recollection of the event. It frightens me more than a little to consider that our lives have become so absurdly abnormal that I could just blank this out, like a bad first date or something.
That is just.....wrong.
DeeDee
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