Mom’s Status: 2010-08-16
Summary
Mom is about the same overall today as yesterday. Her pain level appears to be identical. She’s about as tolerant of the pain as yesterday, though she still complained about being left alone all night last night. She wanted shifted more today than yesterday.
Pending Objectives
- Get council on results of the 2010-08-17 mid section CT scan.
- Monitor Mom’s overall pain status. We’re looking to get her pain stopped. About the same level of pain as yesterday.
Completed Objectives
- Find out if that “flapping object” was present in Mom’s heart in her 2008 echo cardiograms. DONE. It was not present. This is a new development since 2008.
- Get council on results of the 2010-08-13 mid section CT scan and arterial doppler study. DONE. Mom’s bleeding has lessened. They plan on doing another CT scan tomorrow to check progress.
Log
09:15 AM: Leaving for the hospital. Details of the visit when I get back.
- 10:00 AM: I stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for one of those plain cake donuts that Mom likes, and I also hit a nearby gift shop and picked up a little stuffed dog for Mom It has a little blue bib that says “Pitt.”
- 10:15 AM: I arrived at the hospital. Mom has a sitter now who will reside in her room pretty much all the time; except when the family is present.
- 10:30 AM: She’s asking for pain meds. Unfortunately, she just took some an hour ago, and so is not due to receive anymore for three more hours. Her legs are still quite sensitive, and she is also asking to be moved around.
- She liked the Pitt stuffed dog. I put it on the window sill so she can easily glimpse it when she’s feeling particularly lonely.
- She also says that it’s hard for her to chew food with so many teeth in her mouth now extracted. But there’s no mouth pain when she eats.
- 10:50 AM: We learned that another CT scan of her legs and mid section is scheduled for tomorrow to check the progress on stopping her internal bleeding. The last CT scan this past Friday shows that the bleeding is slowing but not entirely stopped yet, according to the day nurse.
- Mom appears as picky with her bed position the past couple days as she is with her food at restaurants.
- 11:10 AM: Mom’s favorite cardiologist returned to the country last night and visited her just now. He noticed internal bleeding in Mom’s back. He wants to minimize the stronger pain meds to keep Mom from slipping back into delirium. He sees no abscess or infection in Mom’s heart valve. But there is a spot there. Though they’re not sure what it is, the presumption is that this spot is an infection because the type of infection Mom has tends to collect around and on mechanical heart valves. He wants to continue the antibiotic therapy for the next several weeks and examine the heart again. If there’s no improvement, surgery may be necessary, but not until the complete regimen of antibiotics have been administered. Mom may be able to move to a facility closer to home by the end of this week or early next week; depending on her progress. He’s starting Mom on 2 MG of coumadin daily. He’s ordering another CT scan tomorrow.
- 11:35 AM: Mom’s asking to be cleaned up and for more pain meds.
- 11:40 AM: I updated sister Christine via phone on this morning’s occurrences.
- 11:45 AM: I’m leaving while they bathe Mom. I’ll visit again later today. More later.
04:00 PM: Heading in for the evening visit to Mom. Here are the details:
- 04:45 PM: I arrived. Mom was dozing with the television playing a music channel with relaxing tunes and pretty nature images.
- They removed the sitter after I left this morning; saying that they no longer felt that Mom needed one. However, I did request that she have a sitter during the night, as this is when she typically tries to get out of bed.
- 04:55 PM: Nurse geve Mom her 5:00 PM meds and drew blood from her pick line.
- 05:00 PM: Nurse says that Mom ate most of her lunch; a great thing!
- I’m told that they’ll give Mom physical therapy to rebuild her strength, as soon as they get the pain under control and know that the internal bleeding has stopped.
- Helped her reposition herself. She asked again to be allowed to sit in the chair beside her bed. But again, we explained that she can’t sit up on her own, without flopping over. As soon as they can, I’m assured that they’ll start Mom on physical therapy to regain this strength.
- 05:00 PM: Blood pressure: 111 / 64. Good! Oxygen: 95%. Okay.
- 05:20 PM: Blood sugar: 248. They covered with 6 units of insulin. This is not enough for Mom to completely cover this reading. I’d have given her 16 units if I was managing it. But this hospital seems pretty set on this conservative sliding scale. So I’ll keep still for now. There may be other more important battles to wage, and I’d rather save my clout for them.
- Her blood sugar readings have been increasing the past couple days, since she’s been eating more.
- Her blinds are all drawn; like she does them at home. She may have asked for this so that she could see the television better.
- 05:25 PM: She’s drowsy; dreaming and talking in her sleep about her bedroom at home and long lost school mates.
- 06:15 PM: Mom’s supper arrived. But she declined eating right now. So the nurses said that they’d check back later, and help her eat if her hunger awakens.
- 06:15 PM: I’m leaving now.