It Happened Again

yesterday.  I got a phone call from "the home."  Oh, I've gotten many, many calls in the 11+ years from the various "homes."  And it's always the same.....my heart always stops.  It seems like forever before they tell me why they are calling, when in reality it's a few seconds.  Laraine?  pause.  This is so and so from wherever.  pause.  I'm calling about your mother.  pause.  Yesterday was no exception.  It was the middle of the afternoon, and I was in a dressing room with Granddaughter Kate.  You know it's not a routine call when it's on the weekend.  Let's see....over the years it's been:

• In her first "home" (the Kingsley House), I got a call in the middle of the night from the Group Home around the corner that Mom had walked to their house. 
• When she lived at Our House, I got numerous calls over the years....usually that she was unsettled and wanted to leave and was trying to.  One time it was that they gave her someone else's meds and were going to have to keep an eye on her and check her blood pressure all night.  Lots of calls about UTI's....when they were going to test her and then with the results.
• I mostly got letters from "the home" in Blooming Prairie....lots of letters.  I think every day!  I did get a call the day/night she fell out of bed.  She broke vertebrae in her back that time.
• And now living at Comforcare, I have gotten lots of calls too.  One morning, it was that she had fallen out of bed in the middle of the night and they were sending her to the ER.  She ended up in Roch with another broken hip.  I have gotten calls that she has fallen out of bed since, but no more broken bones.  Lots of calls from there about UTI's too.  I got a call a few months ago from the nurse, saying that they were going to change Mom's diet as a result of our discussion at a Care Conference.  No, no!  I then explained what we really said, and I thought it was all settled.  Found out two months later (when Brother Roger was there & they wouldn't give Mom chicken legs that she loves) that they went ahead with what the nurse said to me.  So I got it straightened out.

The call yesterday was the she had picked at the tear on her arm and the nurse told me all that they had done to it.   Okay, thanks for calling.  whew.....

Mom has been out of it for two days now.  I went yesterday at noon, and she was in bed with her hospital gown on.  When I touched her, she bit her blanket.  I left.....just in time not to get caught in the rain storm.  I went today at noon.  She was dressed and at the dining room table, but sleeping.  I put a bite to her mouth.  She refused and bit her coverup.  I left.

January - May, 2012

Some things that happened during those months when I didn't post anything:

• Emily's Great-granddaughter, Elsie, was born on January 29.  I showed mom some pictures, but it didn't register.  Mom's baby sister's name was Elsie.
• I don't know when it happened, but Mom could no longer read what we wrote on the white board.
• There was not much talking in those months.
• At our last Care Conference, they said she weighed 96 lbs., up from her low of 91 lbs.  Those nutrition drinks must have done their job.
• We were asked recently...again....to discontinue her Aricept that she has been on for almost 12 years.  After praying, googling (finding conflicting information) and running it by a few people, we decided to dc it.  Roger and I talked to her doctor this last Tuesday.  She will be decreased from 10 mg to 5 mg for 30 days and then it will be discontinued.  Is this the right decision?  I don't know.  I JUST saw this article right now (when I googled to find out if it was mg) dated March 9, 2012:
  
  For the first time, we have robust and compelling evidence that treatment with these drugs can continue to help patients at the later, more severe stages of the disease. We observed that patients who continued taking donepezil were better able to remember, understand, communicate and perform daily tasks for at least a year longer than those who stopped taking the drugs. 
  -- Professor Robert Howard
• When we told the doctor that she has really declined in the last month or so, she took her off of seroquel, which she has been on for years also.  So...I just found this article:
  Elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis (having lost touch with reality due to confusion and memory loss) treated with this type of medicine are at an increased risk of death, compared to placebo (sugar pill). Seroquel XR and Seroquel are not approved for treating these patients.
  
  Really.........seriously.  Do the doctors know anything????
  I have read that hormone replacement therapy was proven to cause dementia.  She took those for years...30+ years.  When I mentioned that to her dr. a few years ago, he dismissed me --- ahhh, that's not proven.  I have also read that statins taken for high cholesterol can cause dementia.  She was on those for years.  Then after she got dementia, she was put on the above medicine!  I read the side effects of Aricept.....could that have caused some of her problems the last few years?  Now they're saying that it's good for later stages (where she is now)....but yet her doctor doesn't know anything about that. 
  It's all so very, very frustrating.  But you know what....God knows.  God is sovereign. 
  And you know what:
  

  Psalm 139:16

  English Standard Version (ESV)
  ¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
  in your book were written, every one of them,
      the days that were formed for me,
      when as yet there was none of them.

  
  

  How awesome is that?    How awesome our God is!
  
  
  
  
  
  

You Just Never Know

I have been thinking about what I can write about the last four months....since my last blog post. I was going to say: Mom has really declined. She can't read the white board. She can't say sentences. I can't remember the last time she smiled at me. Guess what....I went at noon today, bent down, looked into her eyes and smiled at her....AND she smiled back! She said: What's your name? I told her, even though she can't hear. She nodded. She ate (with a fork, by herself)....and she gave me the little shrug....and she smiled some more. Before I left, she took my hand and kissed it. So....you just never know.

A New Look

Same blog, but new look and new name. I decided to change things up after realizing that I haven't posted anything since January! I will post later about what has been going on with Mom since January. I will also post about when she started on her dementia road.....12 years ago!