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.

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.

No ride?

Maybe it is time to have another in home evaluation for Mom. The latest news regarding the Domestic Help is that there are no volunteers available for her and Cope doesn't view her as qualified for the services that they offer. The suggestion from Cope is that we look into hiring one of the employees that work at the Shag Apartments where she lives to come in at an hourly rate periodically to help with some of the household chores.

Mom's TV picture was getting to be very BAD so I went to Best Buys and replaced her old unit with a new flat screen model and she seems to like it. I used the same remote that she was used to using.

We had another stressful event regarding her perscription medications where she did not get them called in properly for renewal.

Mom still complains of being "sick" almost every time I call her in the morning. Sometimes she seems to feel a little better later on in the day. We had a good time taking her out for lunch to the Country Buffet for her birthday (87th) and Snickers and Popcorn were there with us along with a dear friend from church. One of the things she got for her birthday was a clock that not only tells the day, month and year but also the "day of the week".

She called tonight to tell about the Bible Study she attended in the community room there at the apartments. It went well. But then she said that she canceled her appointment with the Dr. this Thursday. I asked why and she said that she didn't have a ride.

Ladybug and I always take her to all her Dr. appointments and do her shopping for her and everything and if for some reason there is a schedule conflict we always make other arrangements for her but she said that she thought Ladybug told her we were not going to be available. This is either a total fabrication or she is imagining things to be real that are not. I asked when she cancelled the appointment and she said today.

I told her to call the Dr. first thing in the morning and see if she can get the appointment back again if nobody has already snatched the time slot up and then call me and let me know if they can do it. She said she would.

What day is this?

I suppose all of us at one time or another have lost track of our days, right? How often has this happened to YOU? I'm just wondering. Where is the line drawn when we should start being concerned about the mental cognizance of someone? How many times a week is a person allowed to ask, "What day is this?" What if they have a calendar on their table and a tablet next to it that tells todays date and when they took their medication this morning and they ask the question anyway on more than one occasion in the same day? This is happening more and more with Mom.

Mom had a savings CD at the bank that matured and they changed the interest rate for it to less than 1% so I cashed it and put the funds in her checking account. It pays interest too and at least the funds would be available to her if she wanted them. Her TV was going out. The picture was all distorted on the lower part of the screen. She is quite the penny pincher but I talked her into letting me go buy her a new flat screen TV with some of her savings so she could see the Mariners better when their games are aired. I found a good deal at Best Buys and got her all rigged up with the new set and removed her old set to the dump. Fortunately, the new set came through the ComCast Box and she can use the same remote control that she used with the old set. Life is good.

Pre-Planning

Last month I received a card in the mail from a local Funeral Home regarding a free Seminal and Lunch that they were offering to inform folks about some of the reasons why Pre-Planning is a wise choice regarding Funerals and Memorials. I returned the card and they called me back in a couple of days and gave me the time of the Seminar. I told Mom that I signed me and her up for the free Lunch and Seminar. She wasn't that thrilled about it. Well, the day of the Seminar came and when I called Mom she said she just wasn't up to it and hadn't even gotten dressed yet. So, I attended the seminar alone.

There was some good information given out in the seminar and for attending I was awarded a certificate for a free burial space which I put Mom's name on since my wife and I can both be buried at no cost at the National Cemetery here in town with my Veterans Benefits. I made arrangements for the counselor to meet me at a later date at my house to work out the details of some pre-arrangements for Mom and explained that I would do my best to encourage her to be there. Well, wonder of wonders, Mom came over for the meeting and we were able to get a real good price on everything .

The total price was just under $2000.00 for the plot (free), memorial endowment, burial internment and recording fee, outer burial container, concrete grave liner, container setting, granite marker, memorial setting charge, and taxes. Mom has a savings CD at her bank and when it matures next time, she wants to use it to pay off these arrangements. In the mean time, starting in January, the monthly payments are about $80.00 dollars.

Later that week Mom came over and had Thanksgiving Supper with us and our daughters and their families. It was a grand time. We've started a tradition of doing it all over again the next day on Friday after Thanksgiving and the food and fellowship is just as good if not better on Friday. Mom thoroughly enjoyed herself both days.

Call the Dr. for me.

Yesterday Mom called and said she needed me to call her Doctor and set up an appointment with him some time after the first of the year. It was Saturday and the Doctor office was closed, we were swamped with four grandchildren of our own that we were babysitting for the weekend and not only that, we were on the way to the funeral service of my brother-in-law who passed away suddenly a week ago Friday while clam digging at the ocean. So, I asked Mom if there was any reason why she could not call in for the appointment herself.... Well, I guess not. OK, good, let me know when you get it scheduled. When I called her this morning about picking her up for church, she said she was not even able to get herself dressed. This is another line that she uses frequently when she doesn't feel up to getting out or going somewhere.

FIRE

On Tuesday December 8th, 2009 I got a call from the Apartment Manager over where Mom lives expressing concern about Mom. It was not an ultimatum that she cannot live there but an incident that needed to be documented. Mom set off the Fire Alarms in her apartment due to catching a roll of paper towels on fire on her stove. This was another mark against Mom in regard to the need to be in assisted living. I told the manager that I would follow up and see how much longer it is before the volunteer "Chores" people will be able to assist Mom. She has been on their waiting list for quite some time. The manager also suggested that I look into an organization called "Cope". On Wednesday, the following day, my wife, ladybug, went grocery shopping for Mom and when she brought the things into the apartment, Mom sat one of the bags on the stove right next to a hot burner that she was boiling tea water on. Ladybug scolded her and said that was the very kind of thing that set off the Fire Alarms and cautioned her to think and be more careful about things like that. Mom just tried to play it off by saying that there was not enough room on her table. So, Ladybug immediatly began to clean off the table for her. Mom seemed to be irritated about it but the table had stuff on it that needed to be tossed long ago, stuff like two old calendars from years before and old junk mail.