More Changes

The nurse was out today, and made more changes to moms medications. They started her on Senna S tablets. These will replace the Colace that she has been taking. Her bowels and bladder continue to lose muscle control. She has to strain to urinate or have a bowel movement. The nurse had noticed decreased bowels sounds during her weekly check of mom's vitals, and had been concerned with the amount of time between BMs. Over the last few weeks the Nurse has made 2 trips to give mom Dulcolax suppositories, after a week without any BM. Hopefully the Senna S will help move things along and mom wont have to go through any more suppositories. As for the bladder side of things, the nurse had orders put though for straight catheters as needed so they will be here if she needs them. I hope they won't be needed for a while.

They also prescribed mom a lidocaine cream for her jaw. She has been having pain in her jaw close to where the plate is from the repairs of her facial fracture. I put some on her tonight and she said it really helped, so that is good.

Enough of the depressing talk. Today was a beautiful day, and mom and I spent a great deal of time just hanging out on the deck and talking. I got her a chocolate milkshake and we drank and just watched the clouds roll by.

Downward slide

Mom continues to decline. The new medication seems to be helping to increase her appetite. She has asked for a number of things to eat that she hasn't tried to eat in a while. The bad part is that she has been choking on almost everything she has asked for. There have been multiple time that I thought she might really choke. I could here the air whistling past whatever was lodged in her throat as she tried to catch her breath. Each time she would finally muster up a good cough and break it loose. So scary. Her speech has also been worse. More times than not she will give up trying to talk to me and say "never mind". The kids have been asking me what they should do, because they can't understand her when she talks to them. All I can say about her balance and gait is that in the last two days she has had four falls. Luckily none were bad enough to cause injury, but still scary. All of them happened because she just won't call for someone to help her get up.

Busy weekend

We tired to get mom out for the weekend. She saw the commercial for the Avengers movie on the TV and said she wanted to see it, so on Saturday we took her. This time it didn't go as well as it has in the past. Mom had one of her spells when she cocks her head back and stairs at the ceiling. She spent most of the movie trying to get her head and eyes down to see the movie. she missed most of it. It's just sad. She just can't do anything. We took her to a friends house to sit on the patio, enjoy the weather, watch the kids swim, and eat dinner. Mom didn't eat, and after a bad choking episode she wouldn't drink anymore either. needless to say we didn't stay long. Just a depressing weekend.

Lots of changes for Mom with Hospice

There have been a lot of changes over the last few weeks. Mom is adjusting to the new Hospice personnel. They have made it easy, as they are all very nice and attentive to Mom. She has a Nurse that visits at least twice a week. The Health Aid comes three times a week and helps Mom with bathing, fixing her hair, painting nails, laundry or whatever she requests. This has been an adjustment for me, and I haven't been leaving much for her to do. There is a Chaplin and a Social worker that visits mom twice a month. The Hospice doctor has taken over Moms care, so no more trips to the Doctors office.

As far as her condition, the swallowing and speech has definitely gotten worse. Most days she will only eat one meal, and it will likely be baby food. Her jaws are just to week to chew. She also says that she has no appetite.

The doctor has prescribed a new medication called Mirtazapine (7.5MG) to add with sleep and to increase her appetite. She also increased her Trazodone to 200MG every night, to help with sleep also. Hopefully tonight she will get some sleep tonight.

Mothers Day

Mom enjoying the deck.

 We didn't do much for Mothers Day, but it was a good day. We got mom some flowers to hang out on the deck. We had a small get together with my wife's family, and grilled out. Mom ate some of the goodies. Like I said it was a good day.

Mothers Day Flowers