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Glad you are correct the pain of a bowel obstruction is unbearable. Terminal colon cancer patients when they obstruct if they are not sugical candidates have to be given large doses of morphine and a sedative to get them through. Hope mom is more comfortable at home.
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One interesting thing I learned through the bowel obstruction is that that are extremely painful! Worse than childbirth. So, there are some blessings with an Alzheimer's brain. In my mom's case her brain is not processing the pain sensation at least when associated with a bowel obstruction. Even with the many URI she has had, no pain. Add pain to three very tough night's in the hospital, it would have been completely unbearable!
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Norest~This has been long time coming in getting my sister respect my life. Thank you for your support♥!!
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Good for you Sharyn!
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This is my rant of anger toward my sister who once again volunteered me to take care of things for my brother this time. I sent my sister an email telling her, "While I understand and have compassion for your and our brother's health issue, I would appreciate it if you did not volunteer me to be the family gopher. Just because I live locally, I do have a life of my own and I know that mom set me up to be the family gopher, I do not appreciate my time and family life being constantly uprooted because you or our brother cannot tend to things that you want to get from mom's house."
I am very tired of running around doing all the errands on my days off while my sister relaxes and rests on her days off. Not going to do it anymore!
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Hello everyone, thank you for all your words of encouragement! Once I decided to take my laptop to the hospital instead of my tablet I was able to access this site. You are all so kind and I appreciate hearing your experiences and thoughts on what may be down the road for my mom and me too.

They released her from the hospital today, we just got home about a half an hour ago. She is doing much, much better, but obviously very tired and drained. Hopefully she will go to bed early tonight and easier in her own environment. The stay was very disorienting for her! No help from sibs, naturally, and found help from a couple of home care agencies so I was able to leave the hospital early last night. And help from them to get mom's hubby to a doctor appointment today, that thankfully was right next door to the hospital. All ok with him as well, though I have seen a definite cognitive decline in the last couple of months. I suspect a series of TIA's, and the CT will be sometime this week.

Again, thank you for your support, kind words and encouragement.
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Hi Everybody,

Yes, I've been on hiatus.....Feb.-now got very hectic and busy for me.
I was out of the country, and had hard time logging in. We had a rough Mercury Retrograde this time around, which affected communication on different levels for people. Thank you Emjo, and Alison for asking about me.

I'm slowly catching up reading, and still not quite awake, but w/respond and really have missed all of you.

Much Love & Light! Margeaux
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Glad have they thought about the fact that maybe the drugs are actually making her worse. The tendancy is to think that nothing is working and keep increasing the dose and adding other meds. The elderly are very sensitive to drugs because the kidneys and liver are no longer as efficient at eliminating meds and and they tend to remain in the system and the effecst tends to build up. If Mom is in an acute bed chances are the staff have little or no experience with dealing with the geriatric population. It is worth asking a few questions anyway.
Norest mentioned the full moon. I do believe that often has an effect
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Sharyn, I don't think you will ever forget the loss of your childhood home. When I was born and raised until age 5 or 6, we used to live right on the beach. We walk out of our stilted house, go down the stairs, and just right on our back yard is the pure white sand and the ocean. Our parents were very strict so we never went into the water unless an adult was with us. But we had great fun looking for sand crabs, coconut crabs (dig holes in the sand) and little sand critters in their shells. I also loved to collect these "crystal" rocks. They were so very pretty. It fascinated me. We moved away to our new home that was inland. I still think fondly of our old home as I drive by the area. My parents are both local natives (brown-skinned). Their ancestors can go back to the Spanish when they invaded our island over a century ago. Anyway, my siblings looked Asian/Brown skinned children. When we were playing in the front yard where the main road is, my older siblings said that the white Americans would honk, wave and call greetings to me (age up 5). I was the only child among the kids who was white skinned with red hair. (Parents' relatives all thought that my mom must have fooled around with a white American. Wonder if that was one reason my mom hated me?)

Glad, I hope your mom's new behavior is not going to be her New Norm. Hopefully we can hope that it's only because she's in a New environment, and seeing new people constantly, and the noises surrounding her. {{Hugs!!}}
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My kindle changed norest ...sorry.
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Thank you modest...it is harder than I expected.
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Sharyn... it is so hard ..... all the losses for you. Its ok to be upset.... cry if you want... tears are very healing.
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Hang in there Glad......
Full moon tonight?
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I drove past my mom's house today...the cars parked on the street was unbelievable. My first thought was...all these people walking through my family home looking for bargains...the tears flowed even as I know we have to do this.

I talked with sis, she said she had the same reaction...I was happy to hear she felt the same way and it just wasn't me.
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And thank you everyone.
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Finally, brought my laptop to the hospital. My tablet is too slow to access this site on the hospital WiFi. She is so freaking disoriented tonight, driving me nutty! Keeps asking if her little girls are ok home alone, Now she thinks she is in a fancy hotel. They have given her Xanax twice, Seroquel, and Haldol, and her darn brain still keeps going and going, and going! It is a very intense version of sundowning. What I would give for a small glass of wine for her. And a fifth of something to knock me out! Maybe a sledge hammer!
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Glad don't be too fast to write Mom off. Any kind of serious illness like your mom has just endured can make the dementia far worse at least to the short term.
You know what a toll this has taken on you so imagine what poor Mom had to endure with all the pain and the proceedures she did not understand.
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Book-we can stipulate that the house is not sold to someone looking for an investment property....meaning they would use it for a rental. If a family buys the house and runs it down we can't control that.

Gla- my mom was in the hospital overnight once because she pulled all the packing and gauze out of her nose after a sinus procedure. Causing it to hemmorrage. To keep her pulling the packing out again, they put what looked like white boxing gloves on her hands. It worked. Glad to hear your mom doing better as far as the obstruction goes.
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Book,
Interesting that you ask about restraints, probably has something to do with the right to refuse medical care. In fact hospital staff did not raise all four rails, two on each side of bed, while making the statement that raising all four is considered restraint. What are we supposed to do without restraining people with dementia? My mother may end up needing a psychiatric hospital rather than a nursing home after what I saw tonight. Memory care is completely out of the question because of the level of drugs that would need to be administered to keep her calm. Then she just becomes a vegetable in a wheel chair or bed.
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Sharyn, I didn't know you can put that kind of a stipulation when selling a house. I thought by buying the house, you can do whatever you want with it. Run it down, and get penalized by the county, etc... but ...

Glad, thanks for the update. I guess the hospital here is different from there. When mom tried to pull her stomach tube and IV out, the nurses gently restrained her hands with strips of blanket. Mom can still move her hands but she couldn't reach the tube and the IV. I guess that would be wrong?
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The night from he double hockey sticks at the hospital with mom. It seems the obstruction has cleared, lesson learned as soon as you think there is an obstruction get to the ER. Do not waste time with laxatives. The doc told me if I had let it go, it could have become much more serious. Well she is feeling so much better she could talk of nothing but coming home tonight, how I should not be home alone with her husband, and her becoming very angry with me for not taking her home. I am pooped:-). The nurses were going to wait until 9 to give her 75 mg seroquel but I told them they best do it at 5, they did, she was still wound up an hour and a half later, so gave her another 25mg. Still wound up an hour later gave her xanax. She finally went to sleep about 8:45. Told them to call me if they needed, but try the Haldol first.
it was a rough one for her last night as well. They had to pump her stomach to relieve the pressure on the intestine. Sometime during the night she pulled it out. So, she got to go through the reinsertion of the tube. She screamed bloody murder with the first one in the ER. She then pulled out the second one as well. At that point they decided to leave it out. And things seem to be moving down there, will try her on solid food tomorrow. I left the room for 15-20 minutes early this afternoon for some air, told nurses I was going out for a bit. During that time mom pulled out her IV and started roaming the halls trying to figure out where she was. Got her back to bed easily enough. Left again to come home for some dinner, to check on her hubby and walk the dog. Again she pulled out the IV and was extremely despondent when I got back with two nurses trying to coax her back to bed. Phew I am freaking exhausted!
Hospital just called to ask me if mom is still DNR, brilliant POA sis was life saving measures administered on one form she filled out today, but on the MOST form, let things happen with comfort measures only. Can anybody believe it?! It is absolutely par for the course around here. I wonder about competency of sis, quite frankly.
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I could see their point they wanted a house that was right for their family but the house had such a long history and was unquiet but it was hard to go into the house.
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Austin it will be hard to see another family change it especially if they let lit get run down. We have stipulated that no one can buy the house to use as a rental. It must have been hard for you to go inside your mom's house. Good memories are what I hold onto.
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Shary the blanket sounds beautiful. I know the memories of living in the home are flooding into your mind-I hope the good memories out number the bad ones. When my mom sold our house the new people changed it so much-it now looks like a big box- avoided going into it-they are friends of our-but last summer had to go into the home because they had a party for their daughter and the food was inside-I just tried to shut my mind down-it was very hard..
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Thank you Book and CM. My brother's family has been through so much pain with losing one son to colon cancer and now the daughter having rectal cancer. Keep praying, sending out positive vibes.

Cm~I agree with assandache, stay out of it and let your sister hash it out with your brother.
Norest~I know it is hard to let go, but it sounds like you are taking this in stride by letting sil handle it, good for you!
Glad~I am sorry your mom is in hospital. Hopefully they will not have to do surgery at her age and condition. Sending prayers and positive thoughts your way. I have not heard of anyone with dementia not knowing how to go to have a bm...just incontinence..but who knows.
Margeaux~Where are you, we miss you and hope everything is ok. Let us know when you can.


It has been a long week for me as I do not get a day off until Sunday which means I am working 6 days this week with a total of 9 days straights. We have a co-worker out because her 1 year was very sick and taken to Oakland's Children's Hospital. He is home now but is under observation.

Sis and I met with the real estate agent to sign papers to put mom's house on the market March 26th. The estate sale is this week end.

I have been grieving all these losses with family members having cancer, selling my childhood home which is the biggest loss for me. There are a lot of bad memories in this house...but I also have some good memories and just of loss of family of origin is what makes this so hard for me. The memories I treasure the most as a family are the camping trips we took every summer. This was one of the few times that we were a normal family without my mom's control issues preventing us from being "kids".

My mom is doing well...she has acquired toys such as a white long haired cat, the black stuffed poodle we gave her for Christmas, and a stuffed bear. We don't know where the bear or cat came from, but she keeps them in a closet in her apartment during the day. She brings them out at night so they can sleep with her. She told my sister they sleep all the time and do not eat...the perfect pets, LOL!!

We are planning a genders reveal family co-ed baby shower in May. A cake with the appropriate color of M & M's will be in the bottom layer and I plan to have my mom make the cuts in the cake and then have my fil lift out the first slice to reveal the genders. We will pins for people wear for the team they choose...boys, girls, or a boy and a girl. Who ever thought there would be 3 choices with a pregancy, LOL!! Even though my daugther's babe's have their own sacs and it appears they have their own placentas...they can still be identical twins under these conditions. I am learning new info about twins. All we care about is that the our daughter and the babies are healthy throughout.

I am almost done with the first baby blanket, working on the border now and have ordered the yarn for the next. I prefer a stitch that is not open or lacy for babies so their toes and fingers do not get stuck in open spaces.

Stay strong everyone, relax when you can, and do something good for yourself.
Hugs to everyone,
Sharyn
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No, Glad. Father has problem with his bowels. Says it's stuck or too painful. So, he drinks milk to help him "go." I know that mom used to have bowel obstruction. Father said that the nurse would reach in and pull it out for mom.
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Mom admitted to hospital tonight with bowel obstruction. Doc said it is coincident with gluten free diet and probably scar tissue from previous intestinal surgery. Just what I was afraid of though. She has had chronic diarrhea for 50-60 years. Now we go gluten free and she can't go? Or she doesn't know how to?:-( anybody else deal with something like this?
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It is daughter dearest's weekend to relieve the caregiver. Historically, my sister in law refuses to follow a simple schedule for her mother. After the weekend with her my mother in law is exhausted and fluid overloaded. Even the caregiver doesnot rest easy knowing the poor care. I have discussed this with her other healthcare professionals and they seem to think it is only 1- 2 weekends/month she will be ok. So hard to let go........ However the caregiver texted me to say my MIL has severe diarrhea (incontinent)............ such a shame! Not my problem this weekend! {GRIN}!!!!!!!
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My friend Maria had a tumor on her thyroid. She prayed and chanted healing affirmations several times a day. By the time of the operation, the doctors didn't bother checking if the tumor was there or not. They remove her thyroid and found no tumors!
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CM I would leave well enough alone. He knows she looking for him and chooses to ignore her. I would stay out of it..
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