Okay

Mom is doing better again and I think we are back to "normal." On Friday she had a bad evening where she refused to eat, spit out her pain med even though she was crying out with pain, and pushed a staff person. We will be watching her pain level more closely because I think that was the main problem. My brother went in and stayed with her and she calmed down and ate enough food so she could have her insulin. The staff member that Mom pushed had her fingers in Mom's mouth because she thought she might be choking and had seemed to kind of pass out. When Mom came to there was someone with their fingers in her mouth. I'm just glad it was a push rather than a severe bite which it could have been.

I don't think that the front line workers at nursing homes get enough praise or recognition. Yes, some are better at it than others, but it's still never easy and the rewards fairly fleeting.

So this is me saying thank you and I'll say it again loud and clear next week at the family meeting at her home!

Mother's Day

From a memory jogging calender my sister brought Mom a few years ago.

Love you!

Mom's hanging in there. She didn't end up having to go to the hospital and we're hoping the increased pain and mood problems will be resolved as the pain of the bladder infection decrease. Pain on top of everything else just doesn't seem fair but Mom would be the last person to complain about anything like that.

Worry

Yesterday the place where Mom lives called to say that she has a bladder infection again and they've started her on medication for it. Mom is often up during the night so maybe that's why just now when I went to see her she had crawled into bed and wouldn't get up or talk much. I happened to get there right when a Mother's day tea party was starting but between 3 of us trying we couldn't get her to get out of bed for it and she's not usually one to miss activities unless she's sick. I didn't get quite as gruff a "get lost" as the staff did.

But who knows in an hour or two she could be up and about again. I asked her if she was in pain and she said yes and when I asked what hurt she said "all over." And it's a wet damp cold day so that could be it too.

I'm just really hoping this isn't a precursor to the problem with her electrolytes that landed her in the hospital 3 times in the last year.

I let the nurses know about what she said about the pain and they thanked me and told me that Mom has a blood test every week to check her electrolytes, and the last test was just today so that's good so we can stay on top of the sodium level in her blood and hopefully unlike last year we can keep her out of the hospital this Mother's Day!