Since I last wrote about my mom, things have gone from bad to worse. In that month or so I have watched my mom's health decrease and her pain increase a little every day. Her back pain became progressively worse. She started having more trouble eating, getting up, going to the bathroom on her own…just doing the "normal" stuff a person does every day. Since she had a hard time eating, she was starting to lose weight.
We yet again got fed up her treatment not working, so we once again took her to the doctor on October 11th. Yeah, the doctor who was giving her the treatment that was not working. He told us that a closer look at the x-ray she had the last time she was in the ER revealed that she had a compression fracture in her lower back, that involved 5 vertebrae. WHAT??? At the ER, the ER doc reported that my mom had one little compressed vertebrae and that nothing could be done about it, basically it was "no big deal" and could only be treated by meds.
Well, her doctor pretty much said the same thing but gave her STRONGER meds. We're talking Morphine and Valium here, with her high dose of Vicodin as needed (I never let her take that as needed). He also took some blood to run another test. I expressed my discontent over the slowness of his staff getting back to us with results. He said that turnaround time could take as long as a week and if we heard nothing after a week, to give the office a call. Well guess what? A week and a day after the test, I called to ask about the results, which I got a call about a day after that.
We explained to the doctor how helpless my mom had become, and how much pain she was in. Basically how she was almost unable to take care of herself and do the things that you and I can do for ourselves. She needed help with these things more often than not, and could do maybe 5% of these things on her own. He told us our only other option besides being there to giving her 'round the clock care was to put her in a long-term care facility. That is something that is very expensive, and also something that I didn't want to do…I didn't want to put my mom "away" in someplace like that. I always picture those movies in which the children drop their parent off at some sort of center such as this and never go see them again, and the parent sits there depressed, looking out the window every day, hoping that their child would come see him or her soon. Of course I would not do that, but I didn't want that to be where my mom lived out the rest of her days.
So back to home we went, to dope mom up even more. Now she was sleeping so much, was even more out of it, and could do even less for herself. However, she was still in a lot of pain. The meds helped some, but I think the pain was still getting worse. However, I didn't want to give her the Vicodin for breakthrough pain. I thought she was on enough narcotics as it was.
I did some research on compression fractures and found out that a typical treatment for this type of fracture was to put the patient in a brace and that the brace often helped the fracture HEAL properly. HEAL? No one told me this could actually heal!!! So I called up my mom's doctor and asked if he would see this as a good treatment for my mom. I got a call from his P.A. who said that he had a prescription for her to get one, ready for me to pick up. Why didn't he present this as an alternative in the first place? I swear, and this is not the first time, that I have called up with additional treatment options that I have found during research that her doctor had approved. Ugh.
So Jeff and I started researching long-term care facilities. We called up a few but they were incredibly expensive. The one I liked the most didn't take my mom's insurance or any room in the near future. We were at a total loss. By this point I was a wreck and could not do anything. I just felt really helpless. I felt so bad about doing this, but I was leaving most of the work in terms of doing this kind of calling around about stuff to Jeff, and some of the caretaking of my mom to a generous next-door neighbor. She would go over and check up on my mom, give my mom her meds, and feed my mom. I couldn't leave the house. I can't tell you all of the thoughts and feelings that went on inside my head. I was grief-stricken, scared, mad, confused, angry at myself, I felt like a child…I didn't know how to take care of myself or my mom…I didn't feel like I could do it. I was in denial. I didn't want to get out of bed or take care of myself. I started losing weight again. I am embarrassed to say that I acted in this way. Every night I told myself that I was going to see my mom and take care of her for the day, like I used to do. For the majority of this time, I spent probably an average of 6 hours at her house taking care of her.
On the 19th of October my mom's neighbor called us around 10pm and told us that my mom was trying to get out of bed and got herself in a position in which she could not get back in the right position in bed. She said my dad was not strong enough to lift my mom by herself, and went over to my neighbor's house, upset that he couldn't get her back in bed. Unfortunately, my neighbor has back problems and her husband was at work. So Jeff went over and helped my mom's neighbor. This was just starting to get really bad.
On the morning of the 20th, my mom's neighbor said that my mom was doing really badly and we needed to get her in somewhere. At such short notice, the only place we could really get her to was the ER. Since my mom could barely sit up by this point, we decided to just go over there and call an ambulance. They were there in like 2 minutes. When I got to the hospital, she still wasn't all checked in so I had to wait about 20 mins. before I could see her.
When I got back to my mom's "room" if you wanna call it that, they had her in a bed and hooked up to all that stuff. Man this room was tiny and uncomfortable. She was hooked up to all the gadgets, mostly heart monitors, but I didn't see any saline. I had to ask one of the ER staff (she was not a nurse) if she was on any saline (it didn't look like it to me, and my mom was severely dehydrated). She said she had to go ask the RN and then I got my mom her saline.
So yeah, we were there for a VERY long time. Me bundled up in the blanket I usually ask for on what has now become my regular trip to the ER. My mom's heart monitor kept making THE most annoying beeping sound. It was this REALLY long constant beep, not just several beeps. Her evening RN came in and kept turning the beep off, and then it would beep again. She told me that if my mom's heart rate dropped below a certain level, it beeped like that to notify the nurses. The RN couldn't even get a temperature reading on my mom.
A doctor finally came in and we talked about why my mom was brought in…because my mom's health was deteriorating due to her back and since she was getting so sick, we didn't know where else to take her since she seemed like she was in an emergency status and couldn't wait until we found a facility for her.
Later on the doctor came back and told me that my mom was having irregular heart beats and that her heart rate was WAY too low, sometimes going under 30, which was NOT good. I noticed that she went into asystole a few times, which is very scary. It only happened for a few seconds and I guess was not that much of an emergency because no one came running…I just heard her heart monitor make I a sound I hadn't heard before and it said in big letters ASYSTOLE. It was possible that the pain meds the doctor had given her had made this happen, or it could have been something that had gone undetected in the past. This makes me curious because she's been in the hospital this year and it wasn't detected then. One of the ER staff performed an EKG on my mom…she looked like she was hooked up like someone from The Matrix. I heard the ER staff mention that she was "brady" (has bradycardia). The doctor said it was very possible that she would have to get a pacemaker. I was freaked out by this. A PACEMAKER??? I thought this was open-heart surgery or something, but the doctor assured me it wasn't.
The ER had been pretty loud all day and it finally quieted down for about 10 minutes. I rested my head on my knees and closed my eyes. All of a sudden my mom woke up and was very confused. She didn't know where she was and TOTALLY did not remember the entire day. It was SO WEIRD. I mean that was one hell of a day, it was probably around 10pm, and she did not remember anything…not that beep, not this hilarious thing that happened…my mom could not stop laughing about it. But now she was so confused. After a while she calmed down and I decided to go find Jeff and get some hot cocoa (he had been there all day at his office). That was a bad idea. When I got back, she became very agitated at the nurses, was very confused, crying, and told me that they were telling her that she was not who she said she was. I had to calm her down and tell her that she was okay, she was who she said she was, I was who she said I was, so was my dad, all of her friends were at home, etc. She said she wanted to go home and I explained to her that she couldn't until she was better. She kept thinking I put her in there because I didn't want her anymore or because she did something bad. It was so heard hearing that. She kept begging me to take her home. She kept asking me, "If I do (x), can I go home?" "When can I go home?" Around 11:30pm, I finally decided to leave. The doctor decided to admit her but still hadn't put her in a room. I was told the room number and went back to see her on the 21st.
Seeing her on the 21st. was really hard. Geez her room was almost smaller than her ER "room," and she has a roommate who is British, so she has a British accent and is always getting phone calls. So okay, a British accent is cool to hear at first, but not THAT much. My mom was even worse in terms of being upset and confused. All of the things she'd said that previous night, she was saying again, but she was much more agitated, forceful and upset, she was mad at me for making her stay there, she called the place a dump, she said she wanted to go home and kept saying, "Please Jessica, take me home." Again I explained to her why she couldn't go home. She wouldn't eat, but I finally got her to drink some chocolate milk. I called my dad and let her talk to him. That helped a little. She said she trusted me and would do whatever I wanted. She was upset for a while longer and then calmed down. She was in and out of sleep. When she seemed okay, I came home and went back that evening. She pretty much was asleep when I went back the second time, so I didn't stay very long.
Today (the 22nd) I brought my dad along with me to see my mom. This was the most asleep she'd been since I saw her. We didn't stay very long because she obviously was not going to wake up. Her RN for the day shift told me that she had a bit of physical therapy…she walked up and down the hallway a few times with a walker, and sat up for a few hours. They must have really worn her out. Why didn't she do that while we were there? She was only on saline because they were trying to get all of the pain meds out of her (I guess it must take a long time!), but was given Xanax and Ativan to help her relax. Honestly I don't think she needs to be on both! She was still not eating very well. For the few minutes that she did realize we were there, she recognized me and said, "Hi baby." That made me happy. And one time she said, "let me rest and then I'll be okay." Otherwise, that's all we got out of her.
I was going to go back and visit her again this evening but I didn't have it in me. I was (and am) SO TIRED. I didn't sleep very well last night. I didn't go to bed too late if you compare that to how late I got up (I went to bed around 1am and got up around 11am), but I have restless sleep and have been talking in my sleep again. I used to do that a lot but I think going through this has caused me such stress that it's made me talk in my sleep. I hate that. It's so embarrassing. And I felt just heartbroken that she wasn't awake this afternoon. I couldn't take it if she was like that again.
So the next thing that is going to happen is that tomorrow, my mom is going to undergo two tests on her heart. One is called a Persantine-Thallium Stress Test and the other is called an Echocardiogram. These are both tests used to measure the strength and blood flow in her heart. Oh, and one more. It's called the Carotid Duplex Imaging Test Of course I am nervous about these. It sounds like they are going to put so much stress on her heart, and I just hope it can handle all of that stress! Technically, she is not very coherent or lucid, so I would expect that a family member would be called to sign a consent form. I better get a call! The RN told me she didn't know when the test would take place, which is not uncommon or unexpected to me. I think this will determine whether or not she gets the pacemaker.
So once again, like in the beginning of 2006 (January) when we took my mom in for a HUGE leg bruise that turned out to be a leg abscess and ended up also finding out that she had to have a kidney and her gall bladder removed, this time, at the end of 2006 (October), we took her in for a compression fracture in her back and ended up finding out that she is having heart irregularities. 2006 has been one of the WORST years of my life, and seeing how it is almost 2007, I don't see it being any better than 2006 was for my family.
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