Mom & Me Two Archive

    I distinctly remember looking at the clock before retiring and noticing it was 0234. My memory tells me that I went to bed soon after finishing this post, but apparently I didn't. I have no memory of what I did after I posted, but whatever I did, it kept me up for almost an hour and a half. I thought, perhaps the time posting was off on this blog, but it's only off by 6 minutes, earlier rather than later. I know what I didn't do after signing off, but I can't remember what I did do. That, I think, is the definition of exhaustion.
    Then, again, as I think of it, the way I kept Mom up was to play two DVDs I'd checked out. I remember looking at the clock after the first, a retrospective of David Copperfield's illusions: It was 23-and some few minutes. Mom wanted to go to bed but I insisted we stay up and watch a second movie: Monster. The reason I remember the time is because she wanted to go to bed after the first video, but I was conducting her through foot rolling, which I thought of during the David Copperfield video, and wanted her to continue for another few hours. I told her this. Upon her being unconvinced I launched an argument that involved the premise that "bedtime", to her, isn't a body time, it's a clock time and over the last few days that clock time has afforded her so much sleep that we are now negotiating couple critical physical problems. I pointed out the time to her, reminded her that, throughout the day, she'd barely been awake for 8 hours (she awoke around 1300 and insisted on taking a nap in the late afternoon). She needed to remain awake for awhile longer just to allow her body to operate in "awake" mode. Viewing the second video involved at least a couple of hours and included two bathroom breaks and several skip backs for my mother's benefit. She often asks for skip backs as, even with the closed captioning, she doesn't always get the gist of a scene the first time around unless she's seen a movie a couple of times. So I know that we didn't start Monster until some time after 2300 and that the viewing lasted for somewhat more than two hours. That would have put us a bit past 0100. I am almost positive that I went to bed soon after I finished writing. But, who knows. I am so tired most of the time now that I may be completely mistaken about time, even though I don't think I'm mistaken about what we did to fill that time.
    At any rate, I'll be waking her up around 11:00. If her feet are still a bit pudgy she'll get another quarter of a furosemide. I warned her last night that today I need her to move. On her feet. Even if it's only up and down our driveway for a half hour or so a couple of times today. I'll check her blood pressure this morning. If it's, again, alarmingly low, she'll also get a dose of ginseng and I'll check her blood pressure several more times throughout the day. Observation will be intense, as will my direction of how she spends her time and what she puts into her body. I have no idea how much of this she'll resist nor how successful I'll be at keeping her out of bed. I do know we'll probably start her morning with a continuation of the lecture I delivered last night, mostly for my benefit, as these lectures do a great deal more to strengthen my resolve than they do to inspire her to movement and alertness.
    Time to finish setting up the house for the beginning of my mother's day. Time. What a crazy idea.
    Later.

that both of us retired late last night. To a purpose. I kept my mother up in order to "work" on her feet. I kept myself up later in order to do the laundry I'd forgotten during the day and write here. I awoke a bit before 0700 and checked my mother's feet. The swelling has gone down considerably although there's still a bit of pudginess about the ankle and upper foot. I'll be awakening her in a bit.

    In a nutshell: My mother's blood pressure has been running alarmingly low for several days even before she took to bed and I threw up my hands and let her sleep almost as much as she wanted for a few days. I've been meticulous about feeding her foods high in sodium. I've been making sure she gets enough oxygen (as much as she'll take, anyway, and the only time she'll use it is when she's sleeping or out and about) and enough fluids. I've probably been overdosing her with fluids, in fact, although standard practice medical science says that there's no such thing as too much fluid; trust me, there is, and not as a result of renal failure. Yesterday her feet began swelling. I managed to control it throughout the part of the day she was up. This morning they looked much better but by this afternoon they were swelling again. So I've been taking her blood pressure under all kinds of circumstances: When she awakens; after a breathing treatment; after she eats; after she smokes. It has remained very low throughout the day. She has also been quite bleary when awake (for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is her desire to sleep a lot and me letting her) and forgetting to smoke. It seemed like a relief that she was forgetting to smoke except that, while scouring my brain for ways to raise her blood pressure to normal levels I realized that smoking might do the trick. So this afternoon I encouraged her to smoke. Transported her cigarettes for her when she traveled from one place to another and forgot them. Normally I count on her forgetting to smoke to decrease her fouled air intake. Today I became her Cigarette Girl.
    It didn't work. The only treatment that seemed to work to raise her blood pressure was giving her Siberian Ginseng, which I haven't been administering for awhile because, under normal circumstances, it raises her blood pressure too high. I gave her one dose and within a few hours her diastolic shot from the high forties to the low 70's, perfect. Her systolic went from the low 80's to the mid 150's. That, of course, is a bit high. Since her feet were still swollen, although not continuing to swell, I decided to give her a quarter of a furosemide, 10 mg. I'm hoping it will pull the water off her feet and pull her systolic back down without provoking a blood pressure crash. I warned her that if she thinks she sheds "too much" on a regular basis, wait until tonight. I expect she'll be sleeping in a puddle in the morning. But, that's okay. The amount of watershed makes no difference to our morning routine, anymore.
    When and how did this particular health dip start? Two weeks ago yesterday, when MCS was visiting, she changed the position of the pillows in my mother's rocking chair. Having had back trouble herself, she was concerned that Mom wasn't sitting correctly. An honest observation and an honest correction, but a mistake, nonetheless. Saturday, Mom began experiencing sharp, debilitating pain in her upper back. Sunday I realized that the changed position of the cushions in her rocking chair had caused her upper back to misalign. I did what I could to relieve the pain: Strong doses of acetaminophen. I discovered on Monday that I wasn't going to be able to procure hands-on professional help until she saw her therapist the following Friday so, under expert guidance, I attempted to gently realign her back. The three separate adjustments I made did help but didn't completely relieve the condition. In addition, she was in so much discomfort that she vomited three times in the middle of the night that week. Luckily, I am so attuned to her now that even though the vomiting happened when we were both was asleep I heard her and immediately came to her aid.
    On Friday her therapist was able to completely realign her back. This week, though, she's been recovering from the muscle soreness caused by the misalignment episode so I've cut her some slack. It seems I may have cut her a bit too much slack and now we're having problems with extremely low blood pressure and feet swelling. Her blood sugar is remaining fairly well under control. In order to get her to eat (which is difficult when she's sleeping a lot), I've been making her favorite foods. I've only been able to get in two meals a day and she's been foregoing snacks in favor of naps so there have been days when administering her blood sugar medication has been iffy and her numbers have shot up, here and there, but that's been easy negotiate.
    I've been terminally exhausted throughout this entire period. I've had some rather disturbing revelations, as well, regarding:

• The unfortunate and unintentional treachery of well-intentioned visits;
• Despite the fact that we need a physician for test orders and prescription medicines, I am now my mother's Primary Care Physician and have been operating more successfully as such than any degreed physician she's had in the last several years;
• "Medicine" can be almost anything, including cigarettes.

    I have no idea how I'm continuing to do this. It is harrowing, it is frustrating, and, the further I go into the world of taking care of an Ancient One, the more I realize how utterly alone I am in this. Over the last few years I've met and talked with scores of people who are in similar situations with relatives or friends and I have yet to meet someone who has taken on the medical establishment the way I have or who wonders if the medical establishment is more responsible for sickening rather than healing their charge. In most cases people simply don't believe that I have learned everything I know about health care by finding myself, over and over and over, in the position of having to discover and correct the mistakes physicians have made with my mother.
    Now I am finding myself in the position of correcting the mistakes that well-intentioned loved ones make with my mother. I can blame the medical establishment, I can call them to account for their mistakes. I can't do this with loved ones. I make mistakes, too. The difference in the mistakes I make versus those made by loved ones who know my mother through occasional visits and phone calls is that at least I have several years of intense observation of, research on and thought about my mother. When I make a mistake I do it with close consideration not only of my own experience but of my mother's experience. Thus I am usually able to discover the mistake almost immediately and begin the correction before any damage is done or any long term suffering occurs. No one else who loves my mother has this luxury. Of course, this time, with this incident, I also made a mistake: The mistake of trusting someone else's experience over my mother's. The circumstances evolved out of genuine love and concern for my mother's welfare and are completely understandable and forgivable. And, I will not make that mistake again.
    There's more I've considered over the last two weeks, much more, but I'm tired and need some sleep before arising early to see if we've managed to allay the swelling in my mother's feet.
    Later.

...I've been allowing my mother to sleep as much as she wants. It troubles my soul to do this but it seems I can no longer come up with appropriate activities and entertainments to keep her awake.
    She seems fine. She's just sleeping a lot. She's always wanted this, to sleep as much as she wants. So, finally, I gave up and decided to give this to her. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out and just let her sleep...already, last night, I refused to allow her to go to bed a mere three hours after she awoke. Her mood sunk while she was awake so a few hours later I gave in.
    Later. Maybe later.