It's been quite a while since I've updated. Things have just been so hectic and crazy and hard and frustrating and even heartbreaking at times. I guess I'll just give a bit of info from each day since I last posted but I'll try not to go on too long.
Monday, October 23, 2006 – My mom loses it again
I got a call from my dad in the early afternoon. He told me that my mom had called him told him that she wanted to come home. I called the hospital and asked the nurse call me back to have my mom talk to me because my mom was confused as to how to call out (you have to dial 9 first). She was acting pretty stubborn and was crying; I could hear her in the background. If I remember right, she said she didn't want to talk to me. I went to see her in the early afternoon.
When I got there she had her hand over her face and was crying. This was the arm on which she had her IV and other contraptions hooked up to her, so each time she bent her arm, all kinds of beeping alarms went off. I kept trying to keep her arm straight. She said she didn't want to move her hand from her face because everyone would hear what she was saying, so I was trying to get her to move her arm straight and get her to put her other hand over her face. Anything to just calm her down a bit. Ugh.
She told me that the nurses were spying on her…that they were recording her with cameras and listening to everything she said. Then she said she saw the recording on TV. She said she saw them taking her in an ambulance and that everyone in the neighborhood was watching and laughing. I told her yes this was true, she was taken in by ambulance, but no one was laughing; she must have had a bad dream. She said no, that it was not a dream, and that all of us, even me, was working against her and talking behind her back, trying to keep her there and never let her go home. She kept begging me to let her go home. She said I was never going to let her go home and that none of her friends or my dad loved or cared about her anyone. The neighbor who helped take care of her had a really bad back and could not get out of bed, so she had not been over to see my mom. I told my mom that and she didn't believe me. She said her neighbor didn't care about her anymore. I told my mom that if she didn't believe anything I said, I might as well just not say anything anymore.
I went out and talked to the nurse about the things she was saying, like them recording her and such. The nurse said they don't do stuff like that. I told my mom that all of the things she accused the nurses of doing were untrue. She said I was talking about her behind her back and was working them against her. I told her this wasn't true. I told her I went and asked the nurses about what my mom was saying to make sure it wasn't true because I didn't want them doing any of those things to her. The nurse finally came in and gave her some Xanax to relax her and she fell asleep rather quickly so I left.
As I was leaving I told the nurse that this was not my mom AT ALL. The nurse said that this can be a normal behavior in patients, but that it usually happens in patients who have been there much longer. The nurse believed my mom was suffering from hospital psychosis. I also think my mom was confusing this stay with the stay she had in January, during which she was in the hospital for a month. She kept saying she had been in the hospital for three months.
The nurse also told me that my mom had the heart stress tests done that day and we would probably get the tests results back the next day. I was relived to know that she had held up well during the tests (obviously…she was still there).
That night I went back to visit my mom and Jeff came with me. When we got there, we could see that my mom had been crying for quite some time, as her eyes were read and her voice was hoarse. I asked one of her nurses how she had been and she said that she was pretty much agitated, and even took a few swings at them. I really didn't know what to say to my mom, and I was hoping that Jeff could talk some sense into her. He seemed to be able to do that last time my mom was in the hospital and was in this kind of mood. We asked her what was wrong and why she was upset. She said that she wanted to go home and that we were keeping here there because we didn't want her anymore. We told her that wasn't true and kept trying to convince her of that. Jeff asked her if she'd be able to do all of the things at home that she was able to do before her back started hurting and she said she could. We told her how she was unable to even get up and cook for herself, bathe, go to the bathroom, etc., but she was saying that her back didn't even hurt very much and she would be able to do those things, but we were skeptical. I think she was still pretty delusional and confused.
We told her that she would not be staying there forever and we were not trying to just drop her off and leave her. She asked her if she would be going home the next day. Neither one of us answered, we just kind of made confused faces, and she said something like, "See, I knew it." I told her it wasn't up to us; it was up to the doctor to tell us when she was ready to go home. Only he could tell us when she was well. She talked some more about being spied on and about seeing the movie on TV about her being in the ambulance. We really didn't know what to say, but eventually were able to convince her that we were not trying to get rid of her and were doing everything we could to get her better as fast as we could. By the time we left we had her spirits lifted and even had her smiling a little. I told her not to worry and to have a good rest, and that I'd come back the next day. I went home feeling much better.
Tuesday, October 24th, 2006 – I hate that I am always so tired!!!!
That morning I got a call from the doctor who was taking care of my mom. He told me that my mom was having a really hard time staying in the hospital, her tests came back okay and she would not need a pace-maker, so he thought she was ready to come home. I said I was worried about her back and her ability to take care of herself. I said she needed 24-hour care so he said that he'd have a Case Manager help me look into getting into Long-term care. He also said he'd look into getting her a hospital bed once she got home, a back brace, and that he had her on a medication for her thyroid to help lower her calcium levels so that for the time being she would not have to get an operation for the time being at least. He also listed the other meds that he had prescribed to her.
I went to see my mom early Tuesday afternoon. She seemed pretty tired and so was I. We chatted for a bit, but didn't have much to talk about. I honestly don't remember much about the day. She asked me to get her some things from the store, so I stayed for a bit longer and then ran out for a bit. When I came back, she was pretty much asleep so I went home and thought I'd take a nap myself. I lied on the couch and kept the phone next to me on the coffee table. Sheesh, someone called and I didn't even hear the phone ring. I woke up a little before 5pm and checked the answering machine. Someone from discharge services had called and said that she needed to talk to me. She wasn't in by that time so I had to call her in the morning.
Later on I took my dad to see her and she was pretty much asleep the whole time. We just kinda sat there for a while and she maybe opened her eyes once or twice, so we didn't stay very long. I told him that when I was there she was pretty out of it too, so I didn't think the visit would be very productive.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006 – The call and a new home
I called the discharge coordinator back Wednesday morning. She said my mom had been medically cleared to be discharged to a nursing and rehabilitation facility later that day, so she could start physical therapy. It was around 11am and she said she would like to know my decision as to where I wanted my mom to go by 2pm. She gave me five places from which to choose, and said that 3 places had accepted my mom. My first choice was a place close to her house so that I could take care of things there and take my dad to visit her, and my second choice was based on the fact that it had an internet site while the third one didn't. I know, silly reason on which to base a choice. Anyway, we got our first choice.
I went to see my mom and told her the "good news." She said, "I didn't pass the test?" I asked her, "What test?" and she said, "The test to go home?" I told her that there was no test, that she was just going to a place like she did the last time that would help her walk so she could do things around the house like she used to.
I was constantly asking her questions like where she was, etc. She thought she was at Sears at the mall. How she thought that, I had no idea. I told her she was at the hospital and that she was going to a place to do physical therapy, like she had done last time when she left the hospital. The ambulance came to pick her up at 3pm. It was all very chaotic. I was signing things, answering questions, asking questions, and then we were off.
Once I got there, I immediately didn't like the place. It was a lot like the place she stayed in February of this year, but the nurses were even less attentive, they totally didn't listen to me. I just didn't get a good vibe there, and left not feeling very good about leaving her behind. She had no phone. Not even the stupid cell phones like she did at the last place. It was either: bring in your own cell phone, have a phone company come in and install one and pay for it yourself, or, if the patient was able to (at which case they probably wouldn't be there), walk up to the nurse's station and call from there. The nurse that was there that first night was just not fucking helpful at all. No one was. I just felt really discouraged and pissed off, and bad for choosing this place. I don't know. I feel like this has been and is all a bunch of bullshit.
I went to her house and brought her some clothes. When I got back they had served dinner and my mom told the nurse that she had felt nauseous and that she had been nauseous in the hospital for about three days. The nurse asked my mom what they gave her for it and my mom said nothing, which wasn't true because one of the days I was there they did give her something and it knocked her out (at first she refused it because she thought they were trying to poison her). So the nurse checked the chart and said she didn't see anything in it. Therefore, my mom got Mylanta and Tums. Yeah, I'm sure that would be of great help. I didn't want to leave my mom feeling sick but it was getting late. I didn't want to leave her there at all.
Thursday, October 26, 2006 – Dad's first visit and unexpected happenings
My mom was okay. She didn't seem overly ecstatic to be there. I swear I spent the last two days helping her roommate figure out the TV, nurse assistance, light switch, and bed controls more than I did spending time with my mom. She just wanted to come home. I don't think she would have been happy anywhere else. After a bit we left my mom to rest, that is, after a barrage of the same questions from my dad, "Do you like it here? When do you think you're going to come home? How are you feeling? Are you getting better?" Same types of questions for me. I told him she'd only been there one day and I was not her doctor. I did some work around their house and then went home.
I spoke too soon. Around 8:45pm I got a call from the nursing facility. I was told that my mom was taken to the ER by ambulance because she was having chest pains. I got to the hospital a little after 9pm and went up to the front window. The woman at the front window said that my mom's name wasn't showing on the computer yet and it typically took a while to get the patients checked in, so I waited, and waited, and waited. It wasn't until about 10pm that I was called back. My mom knew that I had been contacted but she didn't know if I'd be coming. She said she didn't want to ruin my night and I told her that I wasn't really doing anything important anyway; SHE was the most important to me than anything else I could have been doing. The nurse told me that her heartbeat was very slow. My mom told me that her cheat hurt, she was nauseous, and her back hurt. She said that she had a hard time breathing and felt like she had something heavy on her chest. To me that signaled "HEART ATTACK" in my head. The doctor came in and asked why my mom had been brought in. All I could tell him was what the nurse from the rehab facility had told me, and of course my mom told him how she felt. She had blood drawn when she first got there and had a saline IV. A bit after that, someone came in to do a chest x-ray. She was also given some morphine for her back pain and some zofran for her nausea. I wasn't too happy about that, but what can you do?
Not too long after the morphine kicked in my mom asked me when she was going to get to go back "home" (to the nursing facility). I told her that blood tests and x-rays took about 2 hours to finish. She asked me if she was ever going to walk again. I told her that I thought she would, at least with a walker. I told her that I couldn't tell her for sure because I'm not a doctor, but from what I'd seen so far, that's what it looked like. She said she would do whatever it took to get better…have her thyroid out or any other operation it took to get better. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life just sitting in a chair. She started crying again and became very upset. I told her that I was so sorry that she was so sick. She said it wasn't my fault and I told her that I was still sorry because I wished she wasn't this way and I wished I could make her all better. I know that sounds childish.
FINALLY the doctor came in and said the results were back. He said that everything looked okay, there was no need for surgery, her heart looked fine, and she could be discharged. They thought I was taking her home, so they had to sort out the whole thing that the ambulance would be taking her back to the nursing facility. We were told it would be about half an hour before the ambulance would arrive. I had my knees up to my chin and my head resting on them, and was about 75% asleep by the time they came. Luckily, I live close to the hospital. My mom seemed much better when they came, and I said I'd see her later on in the day, since it was almost 2am by the time the ambulance arrived.
Friday, October 27, 2006 – Just another ordinary visit
Am I boring you yet? My dad and I went to see my mom in the evening. The staff was just bringing her food when we arrived. She said it was very cold and yucky and had been sitting around all day, and that they would be bringing food again in a few hours. I asked her if she was sure, because it was already around 6:30pm. She didn't realize it was so late. I hope they did bring her something else. My dad kept trying to get her to eat it and we kept telling him it was cold and he kept saying the same thing and we kept telling him the same thing…ugh.
She said she felt much better than when she was in the ER but her hip was hurting. She said her doctor came to see her…the one that told her that she had all these problems with her thyroid and everything. She named a doctor I had never heard of. So I said, do you mean (and I named her primary care physician) and she said no, and named the doctor I'd never heard of again. I said I'd never heard of that doctor and gave her a strange look. I named her endocrinologist because that was the one who monitored her thyroid and she said no, and again said it was the doctor I'd never heard of. Finally her nurse came in and asked the name of the doctor that came in and she named her primary care physician. I told my mom that I'd named him and she said she didn't know what was wrong with her brain. Anyway, he came and saw her and my mom told him that she was having back pains again. This I still do not understand because at the hospital she was fine, and they weren't giving her any pain meds there. So he increased her Vicodin. I am worried that they are going to start increasing her pain meds until she ends up with heart problems and has to go to the ER again. I also asked her if the doctor knew if she had gone to the ER the previous night and she said no. I have no idea if that is true or not. And she also said he stayed for about 5 minutes. So I guess I have another call to make on Monday.
Saturday, October 28, 2006 – Time to rest, at least for my body
Today I decided to stay home and relax with Jeff. I swear I slept more than I was awake. I have been doing laundry all day. Jeff has not been to see my mom yet and I really wanted to go just him and me tomorrow, and not take my dad. So of course my dad didn't get to go today. I think it would be too crowded and my dad really doesn't say much and can be annoying. So I called their neighbor a few hours ago (around 8pm-ish) to ask her if she was going to go visit my mom tomorrow (Sunday the 29th) and if she would mind taking my dad with her. She wasn't home, and her husband told me that she was actually still visiting my mom, so I figured she was on her way home because it was about 15 minutes after visiting hours. She called me from her cell phone and told me that she was still with my mom because my mom had practically screaming in pain since my neighbor had been there. I was wondering why no one had called me. She said that my mom's nurse declared she had no idea that my mom was in so much pain. The nurse called the doctor and was given the o.k. to give her morphine. That damn morphine again. I feel so helpless. I should have been there. I would hope that after her neighbor got home, she would have called me. She usually gave me updates every day after she visited my mom at her house, so I'm sure she would have.
Why is this happening again? I'm sitting here waiting for another call from the facility, waiting for a call telling me that my mom is being taken to the ER. Really, what can they do for her at the ER other than give her more morphine? And what can she do for the rest of her life other than be on morphine in order to not be in pain…to basically sleep so she won't be in pain? So I guess I'll just sit here by the phone and wait now and try to sleep tonight. I'm guessing I'll either have trouble sleeping or sleep well just to get away from all of this.
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