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News & Efforts

It has been a whilrwind of activity here. I am bushed beyond belief and so I shall try to outline the important information with details by using a list:

1. My elderly mother was RELEASED from the hospital yesterday. She has lost roughly 25 pounds during her roughly 6 week stay (this is roughly 20% of her body weight.

2. In the end they did not believe she needed rehabilitation even though now she is unable to walk unassisted (without a walker), feels very weak and unsteady, cannot stand from a seated position on a toilet without a 6 inch assist seat, and needs a chair in the shower.

3. In their "test" to assess if my mother needed home oxygen, the hospital staff too my mother off of the 3 liter/minute (minimum) of oxygen she has been on NONSTOP for 6 weeks.... they took her off the oxygen and within 30 seconds had her walk for a minute in the hallway. Her oxygen saturation dropped to 90% and so she did not "qualify" for home oxygen (the home oxygen percentage is 89% or 88% depending upon whom you talk to). My answer is... what the hell happens after she is OFF the oxygen for 8 or 9 hours?!?!?

4. Instead of listening to all the b*llsh*t about the home oxygen, I have decided to purchase our own oxygen concentrator (this is roughly $1000.00). It annoys me to hell and back that this sort of ass*n*ne b*llsh*t happens. It is just another of the many, numerous instances of ineptitude in our medical community... not actually ineptitude... but unthinking, uncaring, unwilling behavior.

5. Overall, my mother is currently receiving nearly 24 hour care from me. I even have a monitor (the style used for newborns) in her room, so if she has difficulty, she can call out.

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6. My elderly father-in-law is doing very, very well. He went into the hospital with atrial fibrilation (just like my mother started with), but has responded very, very well to chemical treatment. He actually feels so good right now that he is bored out of his mind just sitting around. They expect to release him on Monday after they discern the coumadin levels he will be taking. I am very happy for him and hope and believe he will be able to get back to normal everyday life immediately.

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So, life has been a whilrwind. My emotional range during the last 24 hours has been stretched enormously from having some very happy moments to great moments of fear and even greater moments of saddness. Overall, everything looks wonderful for my father-in-law. My mood changes more erratically about my mother. Some of the time I feel hopeful that she will be able to get stronger and get well, others I am shocked and dismayed at how frail she has become, at others I have anger well up in me at all the things that have happened to her in the last 6 weeks, and then I also feel guilty about feeling very stressed about all the care she needs.

But overall, things seem a bit more positive than they have been. I am thankful for that.

PipeTobacco