Day 304
(continued)
Frisday, March
2`, 2014
Physical:
I still have
no idea what in the world is/was going on with DH, but this morning he seems
back to “normal”. I think. With dementia, it’s hard to tell. Last night (Friday night) was truly
awful. He became so totally unresponsive
that it scared me. He refused to eat or
even drink anything. And he wouldn’t
speak to me .. would just look; and I don’t know if he even saw me or
understood or anything. At 9:00 I put
his pills in his mouth, and the cup to his mouth .. and he drank enough to get
the pills down, and refused anything else.
And he just
kept going back to sleep.
I have a
suspicion what might have been going on, but I still don’t know what started
the whole eisode (beginning Thursday morning when his B/P, for no obvious
reason, plummeted). The nurse had given
me some syringes with a med she said I could give him for the pain from his
hernia when he coughs. So late in the afternoon
(longer than the prescribed time between doses for the morning med given) I
gave him one dose. It did help. It took a short time, butmade him
comfortable. But I can’t help but wonder
if it made him “too” comfortable. I
think I will be very reluctant to use that again, although if he gets into a
lot of pain again I will. The problem
there is not knowing what condition the hernia is in. It *should* have been repaired when his
catheter was surgically inserted.
Instead, it was given a “bandaid”.
Now it’s a problem, but everyone agrees that DH could not survive surgery
at this point. I am glad to know there
is something that will ease him, but as I said, will use it very sparingly.
He woke once
in the middle of the night. He did speak
then, but very slurred (as one would expect in the night). By 5:30 he was awake, and as near “normal” as
he gets. I told him it was too early to
be waking up on a weekend and he went back to sleep. About 8:00 he woke again,. I took him the early pill, and he took it
with no hesitation. He told me he’d been
dreaming about construction. Highly
unusual for him to tell me he dreamed something!
This morning
(Saturday) he took his morning pills with no problem. He remembers nothing of the past 2 days. The fact that he seems “better” reassures me
that the cause of all this is not an infection.
Did he maybe have another stroke?
We’ve never known when they happened anyway; but there’s always been
clear indications later that *something* happened.
He’s
complaining a lot of his right knee hurting.
I have no idea why or where that came from. Possibily it’s because of him slipping so far
down on the bed that he can’t straighten his legs .. but then why only one
knee? Anyway, it was really bothring him
a lot, so I broke down and gave him a dose of what I believe to be the “milder”
pain med. He fairly quickly went back to
sleep, so it must have eased him enough to relax.
People:
TGF stopped
by in the afternoon, briefly
Emotions:
Last night
(Friday night) was totally awful. I felt
afraid, and so alone. I had hoped DSS
would come by sometime today and see his dad.
Since DH has “rallied” a bit, it’s not as important. That’s good, because coming out here is
clearly not a priority. I believe TGF is
trying to “protect” DSS from me asking too much from them. He’s going off with some friends (unclear if
just today or the whole weekend) to a car show.
I know she encourages that .. partly because he’s gotten so grumpy
around her kids, and partly so she can do what she wants to do without having
to work “around” him. This morning I got
an email saying he’s not only gone this weekend, but weekend after next
too. Plus he’s going to Florida for his
best friend’s birthday during spring break.
It just seems they have more and more stuff going on, and doing anything
to help us out has gotten very inconvenient.
I really don’t
know what I’m supposed to do. Apparently
*most* people if they have a patient with DH’s type issues, put them in a
facility. But him being on dialysis is a
major complication and prevents him from being in a place.
And there is the additional fact that if he were put somewhere, I’d have
no way of going to visit, and he’d think he’d been abandoned too. He’s already disoriented and confused, and I
just don’t see it being any sort of benefit to make that worse. I don’t know that he’d necessarily get “better”
care in a facility .. he certainly wouldn’t have someone available at any given
moment. But, no one would have to move
him – even just roll him over for washing – alone. And there would be trained professionals on
hand when needed. No one would be left
trying to guess what they’re supposed to do.
There are no “good” answers. But it sure would help if the only family
close enough to be of real help were actually willing to be available when
needed, instead of making me feel like it’s an imposition to squeeze us into
their busy schedules
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