Mom’s Status: 2010-10-22
Summary
Mom’s last day of physical therapy is today. The therapists feel that her legs have not strengthened sufficiently to warrant keep it going. She’ll continue with her occupational therapy however for at least the next two weeks. They’re transporting her home late next week for an afternoon, to conduct an in-home functional evaluation, to determine just how independently she can live here. They’ll also educate the family at that time about what we must know in order to adequately care for Mom. So far, no signs of MRSA return, and she’s received no antibiotics for a couple weeks. That’s a great sign! They performed what we thought was a transesophageal echo cardiogram earlier this week on Mom. But this turned out to be a plain echo test and not the more extensive one where they take pictures of the heart from within the throat. So we don’t believe this test will reveal enough data to tell if Mom’s endocarditis has been cured. Thus, we’re requesting the more extensive test with haste. Again, Mom welcomes visitors. She’s getting much better at moving herself from bed to a wheelchair and from wheelchair to bath facilities; not so much due to strength improvements as her learning how to better utilize her remaining strength. Skin color: a bit pale this morning. Fever: none. Mouth: very dry. She was a little cold but that was likely due to the drafts in the seventh floor lounge where we visited with her this time. Her legs are still week and wobbly, and while they’ve improved significantly over the past month, again, the therapists feel that further physical therapy at this point will not help her. But she continues to build her upper body strength to compensate and to better enable her to transfer from surface to surface without the use of her lower body. I’m guardedly optimistic about her returning home, because both she and the rest of us will have to learn some new in orde to make living in her own home a viable possibility for her.
Ongoing Objectives
These objectives are on hold.
- Call Mom’s insurance company and find out what sorts of in-home rehab visits they cover — how many of them over how long of a period. Sister Mary Ann recommends that we spread these out over the entire coverage period, and not use them all immediately.
- Monitor Mom’s overall pain status. IN PROGRESS. Her pain is all but gone, and she no longer takes any pain meds regularly.
- Track the dissipation of Mom’s pelvic hematoma. IN PROGRESS. We have to follow up on this one.
- Locate Mom’s living will. IN PROGRESS. Given that Mom has expressed her wishes to both us and the nursing staff and doctors, I’ve deferred this item. With us nearby to instruct them should a crisis arise, there’s less need for a hard copy of the living will.
Completed Objectives
- Track Mom’s extreme weakness and loss of feeling in legs. DONE. Though the nerve damage she experienced during August appears now to have reversed somewhat given Mom’s accomplishments in therapy throughout the past couple months, it has not improved enough to keep going with the physical therapy. That therapy is done today, and all we can hope for now is that her neurologist can find out why she’s unable to move her legs more, or that her body will heal itself in the months to come.
Log
10:40 AM: Sister Jojo and I arrived and the nursing facility. They had popcorn in the lobby for the residents and a big gathering was in progress in the first floor lounge. It looked like they were preparing for a Halloween party.
- We first went to Mom’s room. Her roommate said that she was down at physical therapy. So, we folded and put away the basket of clean clothes I brought for her, and then headed back downstairs.
- We found Mom in physical therapy, walking across the room. However, she had three people assisting her at all times. So, she won’t be walking much if at all if she comes home, as there would not be that many people to help her around usually.
- We scheduled a home assessment for next week. Mom and her physical therapist will come here and attempt to perform all the necessary personal maintenance tasks, to see if anything must be done to make this place more accessible for Mom. Plus, the therapist will show us how to lift and support Mom, and how to best pick her up from the floor should she ever experience a fall.
- Her PT is finished as of today. However, they’re supplying her a list of restorative exercises for Mom to continue on her own.
- Her legs still appear quite weak and wobbly. So she cannot reliably stand on them. Thus, all her routines, should she come home, must be able to be performed without much help from her legs.
- She can neither kick nor squeeze her knees together very strongly, nor can she lift herself up with her legs without extensive assistance. These weaknesses could be a major barrier to her returning home.
- She can however, strongly spread her legs apart.
- I turned up her earpiece cell phone volume for her. Hopefully now, she’ll be able to hear you better when you call her.
- 11:15 AM: Then, we went up to the seventh floor. I really love that lounge. We talked about everything and nothing, and I gave her $4 in spending money. She says she hasn’t completely spent her last “allowance” yet, but was grateful for the additional green.
- 11:45 AM: She wheeled herself back to her room while we followed.
- 11:50 AM: We said good-bye then, as her lunch arrived, and she seemed to want some time alone at this juncture. Bye Mom. We love you.