Oh geez, I am so very sorry! My mother

Mom has NOT passed away! I wasn't thinking when I posted about going to the funeral home to make her final arrangements. I should have said that, while we were still thinking clearly, we went in to make her final arrangements. We wanted to do it while we still had our wits about us and knew what we were doing. She did NOT pass! I am so sorry and, obviously, I'm not thinking as well as I should be! Please forgive me! I went into the dinner thread and saw the posts and, oh lord, I am sorry.

She was admitted to the hospital on Saturday. I went in to the home to see her on Saturday morning and she started talking about sewing buttons on shirts and the dishes were dirty and she needed me to help her get out of bed so she could wash the dishes. The salt shaker was missing.....oh, all kinds of weird things. I knew right away something had happened. They took her to the ER. She was talking about cutting something and not to cut there.

Mom has been on oxygen now for a couple of weeks. She can no longer expel carbon dioxide from her lungs and the gas was building up inside of her. When it got to a certain level, it started to interfere with her thoughts. They had to give her a special breathing treatment, a by-PAP or something like that. It helps to get rid of the extra carbon dioxide. By Saturday night, she was breathing easier and, while she wasn't very alert, she was better. And last night, for the first time in over two weeks, my mother ate dinner! We had to feed her, but she ate....actually we couldn't get it to her mouth fast enough.  It wasn't much, but she ate. And she was hungry. And she was talking to us. She's still very, very weak, but it's a start. They think that the high carbon level combined with the drugs she's on are what was causing her to lose her appetite and to sleep so much. It was all we could do to awaken her some days. And she was getting nasty bc we kept trying to get her awake, trying to get her to eat, trying to interact with her.

I'm going to the hospital to feed her lunch today and I'll see what's going on. As soon as she goes off the oxygen, her level drops quite a bit. So she'll have to continue to be on oxygen for however much time she has left. But they'll have to continue giving her the by-PAP treatments, too, at night to get rid of the carbon dioxide that she cannot get rid of on her own.

We don't know why the nursing home didn't see this as the ER doctor said she had all the signs of carbon dioxide poisoning....I shouldn't say poisoning, but I don't know what else to call it. Too much carbon dioxide in her body: extreme sleepiness, loss of appetite, lethargy, etc. My mother has lost 37 pounds since she was admitted to the nursing home on Labor Day weekend. 37 pounds! That's a lot, even for a healthy person; for someone like Mom, that's just ridiculous. And had I not gone in there on Saturday morning, we don't when somebody would have noticed that she wasn't lucid anymore.

We had had a long talk with the Nursing Director on Thursday night. She said that all of Mom's vital signs were good, that she was responding to the meds to get rid of the pneumonia and, unfortunately, she didn't know what to tell us about Mom's downhill slide, why she was sleeping so much, why she wouldn't eat, why I could never awaken her. That sometimes the body just starts to shut down.She simply did not know why, but she was very sorry. Well, yeah, the body was shutting down....there was too much carbon dioxide in her body and it didn't know what else to do!

Pam, you are truly a wonderful daughter. I hope your mom appreciates you.

As for making funeral arrangements in advance, although it may seem morbid to some people I think it is a wise thing to do. When my mom was in the hospital and we knew she'd die any day we went ahead and made the arrangements, and it was so hard. I hope your mom gets better and arrangements are not necessary.

Take care and we'll talk soon.

for your mother, and for you! The nursing home really should have picked up on that.

OH PAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are going to give me a heart attack :lol3: (just kidding ) But, seriously, I have been so worried about you thinking your mom passed and no thread about her.

OK, so this clears it all up. THANKS!!!! That makes perfect sense now :doh3: that you and your sister were just making pre-arrangements for her funeral. :nod: I DO hope that your mother will have the strength to recover fully. Mega, enormous, strengthfilled vibes coming to her right now!!!

Sending lots of and prayers your Mom's way. Glad you made them notice something wasn't right!! My MIL is 90 and in a "Senior Village" and is recovering from pneumonia AGAIN. They caught it quick so the meds are helping, but gosh...it gets so worrisome. Bunches of hugs for you!!!
 

Oh boy what a misunderstanding there!

I hope your Mom recovers and the arrangements aren't needed anytime soon.  I know all that fell on my Aunt and Dad's shoulders when my Grandpa passed last year.  Grandpa refused to talk about it before his mind left him fully.  My Aunt is a do-er; so it probably helped her get through it though.  She is a nurse and was doing a lot of the care for my Grandpa even when he was in the nursing home.  (Plus keeping after Gram, who also has dementia)  I mean feeding and things like that.  My father was very disgusted with the level of care available (too few staff especially) and this home was attached to my Aunt's hospital.  I know it took diligence on my Aunt's part to make sure things were done the way we wanted it (as much as could).  

I hope that now she starts to do a lot better. :cross:

I'll be honest, it's tough for me to read your posts about her in the nursing home. The time my father was in the nursing home was such an awful experience for all of us, including them not treating him properly.

Nursing homes are just terrible places. Terrible. There are not enough people for all the patients and some of the aides simply don't care. They're overworked and underpaid for the amount of work they have to do. The nursing homes don't hire enough people, so there's always a shortage. And the aides get to the point where they just don't care anymore. The homes are depressing. We go in and the patients are scattered about in the hallway; one woman cries and hugs her teddy bear all the time. There's another woman who is constantly crying out for her father (she breaks my heart every time I go in...she reaches out for me and it's heartbreaking. I hold her hand, but she doesn't really see me; I think she sees her father.). Every single time I go in there, I leave in tears. I can't help it. Too many elderly people and there's no time to take care of them the way they need to be taken care of. It scares me, too, bc of my mom. They didn't catch the carbon dioxide poisoning and god knows when they would have noticed that she wasn't lucid anymore.

Mom is doing so much better in the hospital; it's like she's a different person. She's still weak, but she eats more every day. I go in over lunch and sometimes for dinner, too, when my sister can't make it in. We feed her, although I'm starting to make her pull her bread apart instead of slicing it for her, just to get her to move her arms a little bit. I make her eat some things with her fingers, again to make her move her arms and fingers. She can eat green beans, her bread, angel food cake, pieces of potato, things like that, with her fingers. And then I clean her up after we're done. My sister does the same thing.

She's able to hold a nice conversation again, as long as she has her hearing aids in, that is. She asked me about Muffin yesterday, how she was doing, was she happy with us, was she eating, etc. My niece is pregnant and she says she hopes to be alive in May when the baby comes. She wants to be able to see my kitchen (I'll probably have to show her pictures; she'll never get back to my house, I don't think, not with our steps). Every once in a while she'll say something a little funky. The other day, she was talking about them lighting the bonfire outside of her room....maybe she has the beginning of dementia, I don't know. They were able to finally do a cat scan on her head, along with an EKG (I think it is) and they showed no sign of any stroke, so that's good. Her eyes are open and she's really alert again. She still needs the by-pap treatments, though, to keep the carbon dioxide at low levels. She probably always will. They do that during the night. When the by-pap treatments no longer work, then we'll have to consider internal ventilation.....and that's not a good thought (Mom has a living will, thank goodness).

I dread her having to go back to the nursing home....it's simply not a good place.

Thank you for keeping us in your thoughts. I do appreciate everything.

I couldn't agree more about the nursing home. . Are you taking days off from seeing her? Unfortunately this sounds like you are in it for the long haul and you are going to need some breaks from the visits to maintain your sanity. We used to coordinate so we weren't taking the same day off. We used to try to get there around mealtime as we didn't trust them to feed him, even though they said they would.

Not really, no. I go in every day over my lunch break to make sure she has lunch and has something to eat. My sister goes in every night for dinner, even on weekends. It's the only way we know she's eaten. When she goes back into the nursing home, we're going to have to really keep an eye on her; we don't trust the aides to take care of her. And that's sad, when you stop to think about it. Sometimes when I can't get in over lunch (I have meetings that may carry over), I'll call my cousin and she'll go in for me. But we try not to miss a day at all. Maybe if she can start in again with physical therapy and if she starts to do really well, we can back off a bit. But for now, we are there.

I mentioned in another post that we're going apple-picking tomorrow (Saturday). Not sure exactly how long we'll be gone, so my sister said she'll do lunch and dinner on Saturday and I'll do lunch and dinner on Sunday (and that's in addition to making some applesauce on Sunday, while Rick is trying to paint the ceilings). And then on Monday, we're back to me doing lunch and my sister doing dinner again.

Yesterday for the first time in a long time, she fed herself.  As they put the tray down, she reached for her fork and started eating. That's the first time in about three weeks, I think (my days are getting jumbled together). I still had to cut her food for her and that's fine. But at least she's trying to eat by herself now. I think that's great.

And if I could whine.....lord, it is exhausting sometimes. (It's actually a little more difficult for my sister as I get an hour for lunch, although I'm coming into work early now, so that if I go over an hour with Mom, it's not a huge problem....I'm still getting in all my time at work. But my sister gets off work around 4:30 on a good day, goes home to change her clothes, then comes in to feed Mom dinner. Then she runs whatever errands Mom has for her....sometimes Mom needs something from the apartment or the nursing home and my sister has to go there, too. She might not actually get home to stay home until 8:00! I try to run errands for Mom, too, when I can and I'll run into the hospital at night, just to see what Mom may need and so that my sister can get home fairly early. She prefers her own nightgowns instead of the hospital gowns, so they need to be washed....I do that for her.) And our mother, who is not a very easy-going person on a good day, thinks that there's nothing wrong with us doing all this stuff for her. It's our job, I guess. But here are days when, between what's going on at work, what's going on at home with the construction and everything, still trying to keep the peace between Mollipop and Muffin, and then my mother.....well, I wouldn't mind a Calgon day!

OH Pam.... :lol3: Whining allowed here :nod: I am just picturing the Calgon commercial. OH CALGON TAKE ME AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Man, I just get so worn out reading everything you have to do lately. AW hun, I do hope you can get some good rest and maybe a nice back massage from Rick :dk: :cross: Glad to hear that your mother is making progress and eating on her own with only a little help. for your mom..... AND for Mollipop and Muffin. Who knows, they might surprise you someday and become BFFs. :cross: :lovegrin: