I owe you all an update. Still tired, but did sleep last night. Enough about me though 🙂
Mom is doing okay right now. She is very annoyed with her current caretakers and with her own traitorous body, but otherwise chipper. She has been more alert today than yesterday. That is a mixed blessing. Her mind is working and wants desperately to do something.. anything.. but her body isn’t cooperating and momma’s little helpers keep telling her to sit down.
Got the results of her lab work and her ammonia level is high, which we figured would be the case. It is the ammonia and other toxins that the liver is no longer filtering out that is causing her weakness, lethargy and confusion. We have medicine to help clear out those toxins, but in order to do that she has to crap them out. So the medicine is a heavy duty laxative called Lactulose (which is a by product of milk production). It basically forces the intestines and colon to do some of the work that the liver wont do anymore.
Hopefully we will see some improvement in her symptoms soon, but make no mistake.. this is not curative in that it will not stop the liver failure or the dying process. That will happen. It was just make it a little easier to deal with hopefully. Poor thing is pretty miserable at the moment, but does not want any sedation. So it is a never ending chore of ups and downs literally. Shrink her and use the words uppy and that is what it is like. I can’t blame her though.
My sister got here last night and I was so relieved that she came. I was a mess yesterday. I was full of anxiety and when I wasn’t making sure mom wasn’t falling, I was bawling my eyes out. Today has been less emotional and less stressful and I am thankful for that. Mom has also had visitors over the past two days and that has been nice. She is happy to see them, but at the same time it reminds her that she cannot be any sort of a hostess and that pisses her off. So, please so visit, but realize that if she tries to get up and walk out of the room, it’s nothing personal.
She has very little tactile strength at the moment, so talking on the phone is difficult. Not to mention that she doesn’t have much strength to talk so her voice is low and weak. Visiting rather than calling if you have the option is better for her right now I think.
So, the big question…. how long is this going to go on? (drum roll please…) I DON’T KNOW. No one does. It will last as long as she wants it to I reckon. I do not know how long my sister or my nephew will be here. I don’t know how long we will have to deal with these little challenges. My guess right at this moment is that she will be around for weeks vs days. Two hours from now my opinion might change again. Yesterday I would have said she isn’t going to make it through the night.
That is about all I can fit in for now. I have to convince her to take a little sliver of diazepam to help her relax a bit because she is wound up tighter than a… whatever gets wound up tight and my siblings are getting tired of taking her for walks around the house 🙂