Sunday, July 25, 2010

Waiting and Hoping

Still waiting to hear from the neurologist for an appointment and Mom's evaluation/interview. She is doing well with taking the new pill every morning with her BP meds and Spiriva. She seemed to enjoy attending prayer meeting with us Wednesday night. I went over once last week to help her balance her check book and double checked to see if the right number of pills were missing from the starter packet. It looked OK. I helped her write a couple of checks to pay a couple of bills. She had great difficulty getting the stamps out of her wallet so I removed one for her and when I gave it to her she said, "Where does this go?" I told her on the envelope so we can mail it. She called Saturday night to say that she had a bad head ache and would not be able to go to church. I suggested that she take some Tylenol and go to bed. When I called Sunday morning she sounded OK and her head ache was gone but she was too tired and winded to get ready for church. My contact at "A Place For Mom" finished her research and found that there is nothing available for Mom in the area we desire and within the price range affordable to us. She sent me an email with a link to DSHS that might have some other options. Hope so.

Monday, July 19, 2010

A ton of bricks.

OK. Pressing on. Mom continues to go down hill health wise. At her last Dr. appointment she had been sick more than well for quite some time and the complaint at that time was "sick to the stomach". Snickers was the one that took her into the Dr. office while I stayed out in the waiting room and straightened out a billing error on her last "Lab Work". The Dr. told Mom to stop taking her aspirin every day and gave her a Rx for an anti-acid type of medicine with instructions to take it once a day in the morning. He also ordered a cat scan, an X-ray and a consultation for an endoscopy. He scheduled a follow up appointment for today. I got her X-ray taken care of that day scheduled her cat scan and consultation appointments and took her to both of them. The cat scan showed some diverticulitis near the colon area and the PA at the Digestion Clinic said that since Mom was feeling better the day we were there, that the endoscopy might be postponed for later if problems persist.

In the mean time, I continue to get calls from Mom where she seems stressed out about something but cannot remember why she called me (sometimes as many as three calls in a matter of minutes) and I had to reset all her clocks as they had all somehow gotten out of whack. She has called me several times to ask what day of the week it is even though she has a clock there that actually tells her this information. I saved one of the voice mails from her and played it for the Dr. today. Mom was having a fairly good day today except for a coughing attack at the front desk of the Dr. office where she panicked due to not being able to get enough air. She was not carrying her inhaler with her. She did not complain about her tummy or her dizziness or lack of energy or any of the usual things. Then the Dr. opened up the "Ton of Bricks" discussion.

Mom is very close to the place where she needs to rethink things regarding her living conditions. Her memory is failing her to the place that it is time to take medication for it and set an appointment with a neurologist for an evaluation. Paperwork will be sent to a neurologist and I will get her started on this new medication (Namenda). Snickers is doing some research on places available for assisted living at times like this. The problem with this new medication is that it is for her memory and there is concern that she won't remember to take it as instructed in addition to other possible health and safety concerns. For now, I will be calling her every morning and evening about the medication and pop in once or twice a week to double check that all is well. I will take her in to see the neurologist when that appointment is set and go back to the Dr. for a followup before the four weeks of the new medication are used up.