My big sis is heading home early tomorrow morning. It has been such a help having her here the past several days. She got a lot of housework done. The bathrooms are spotless again, the fridge is all cleaned out, laundry is done for the week and the yard is looking awesome after she, my nephew, my brother and I got done with it. Now I just have to figure out where she put everything while she was cleaning 🙂
Each night when I sit down to write up the day’s blog, I think to myself “I wish there were more positive things to write about.” It seems like the majority of what I write is about the issues of the day. It is just a shame that lately there are more bad moments than good ones. Today was no exception to the rule. Dad has been feeling down and not very well all day. He didn’t even get dressed. I really wish that I could have convinced him to accept some pep-me-up pills from the doctor last week, but he didn’t want more pills. So we get to deal with his mood swings. This morning he asked me to call the doctor and see if they would give him another round of antibiotics because he was feeling much better when he was on them last week. I did what he asked and got an answer from the doctor that I figured we would hear. The doctor basically said no. She didn’t want to prescribe something unless there was a reason for it. I understand where my father is coming from, but he has to understand that just because he think that is what he needs, doesn’t mean that it is actually what he needs. The doctor said that she would order another chest xray and if there was still pneumonia then she would give him more antibiotics. Dad didn’t like that answer so I told him he has two other options. We can go to the ER and get checked out today or he can wait for the chest xray to be done on Wednesday. He didn’t want to do either.
Here’s the problem, I don’t see his current condition being attributed to what they had given him the antibiotics for, the pneumonia. He is not coughing a lot and doesn’t have trouble speaking without being out of breath. The symptoms that he is complaining of now are the chills and he is getting dizzy again when he stands up. Those things were more attributed to his low blood counts. So when I take mom to that same doctor tomorrow for her appointment, I will ask her if she wants to order blood lab as well. Its kinda funny that he wants antibiotic, but doesn’t want more pills. He wants antibiotic for pneumonia, but doesn’t want to be on the oxygen that was prescribed. I don’t get it.
My mother isn’t much better. I have to keep on her about drinking water and elevating her feet. Neither of which she wants to do. Another thing that is making caring for her difficult is that the answer she gives for every question about how she is currently feeling indicates there are no problems, but looking at her you can tell something isn’t right. You ask her if she is in pain and she tells you no that she is just uncomfortable. You ask her if she is feeling alright and the answer is that she is fine. You ask her if she wants something to eat or drink and she says no. She gets really restless and can’t sit still. We took her out on the front porch again today and sat for a short period because she had to go get something, but couldn’t remember what. Then she wanted to go out in the back yard and once I got her out there she wanted to go back in. Dad ends up getting upset and I end up giving her a sedative, which I don’t like doing, but I don’t know how else to help her.
During one of her more lucid moments today I told her that we have to figure out some way of communicating how she is feeling because I have no idea how much pain “uncomfortable” translates into and I don’t know what fine means when clearly there is some distress going on. We didn’t make any headway on that front, but at some point I will figure it out. I think what is going on is that she really is having more pain than we are managing for at the moment and she may need more pain medicine. Currently the prescription is once every 12 hours, but that doesn’t seem to be cutting it. I also want to find something that will help take the edge off without knocking her out so that I don’t feel guilty about her missing out on life.
I don’t recommend having both parents go through serious illness like this. It pretty much sucks. It hurts me when mom makes a statement that she doesn’t like this and doesn’t want to do it anymore. It hurts me when dad gets so upset that there isn’t any onion slices for his burger or that I made up 3 cups of hummingbird food instead of 2 cups. All of these things happened today. Dad couldn’t make it through dinner without crying and mom couldn’t make it through dinner without wandering off to sit down elsewhere. Tough, tough times are these.
Tomorrow mom has an appointment with the oncologists nurse practitioner. I don’t think she is going to make it to many more appointments. It is getting too difficult for her to walk. Dad and I (and my sister) have had a couple conversations over the past few days about where in the house we would put a hospital bed, as it seems like that time will come sooner than later.
Family and friends, if you want to speak with mom and having yet, I encourage you to do so now. Don’t wait until it is too late. We would like to think there is still plenty of time, but you just never know what tomorrow has in store.
Well I think that sums up the day. We shall see what fun stuff tomorrow brings!