Tue. update on Mom

I made it over to St. Anthony Hospital Tuesday morning by around 11:30 am.  Snickers was already there since about 10:15 am.  It had been a bad morning so far for Mom.  Her blood work showed that she was back in a dehydrated condition and they had her hooked up again to an IV with saline solution.  She was also on Oxygen.  Snickers was trying to feed her some Jello.  Mom was having a hard time swallowing and chocked on it.  The nurse was able to suction everything out OK and things settled down but the coughing caused a lot of pain for Mom with her three broken ribs.  The nurse also gave Mom a half dose of pain medication about a half hour earlier than scheduled.  Things got better after that.   

The Dr. finally showed up around 1pm and said he was keeping her in the hospital for another night and was setting up an interview for us with the Hospice administrator.  Depending on the assessment of the Hospice people, his goal was to re-hydrate Mom again to a good level, keep her comfortable with proper pain medication and release her back to OAR with help from Hospice. He said he was not on hospital duty on Wednesday and there will be a different Dr. on call tomorrow to make the decision on if Mom is well enough to be discharged with Hospice care back to OAR. 

The Hospice person didn’t get to see us until about 4pm and told us that Mom was qualified for Hospice care and working with the Dr. – their plan was to get her re-hydrated so she can go home to OAR.  They will maintain her comfort level with pain medication, prescribe a hospital bed for her room at OAR, and a good wheelchair, Oxygen as needed in the room, a Hospice worker assigned to Mom working in conjunction with the OAR staff, one on one care at mealtime while remaining on the soft food diet for now.  I left Snickers there after this meeting and got back home around 5pm.