December 3, 2008

Mom sure enjoyed the flowers that Rick sent for her 87th!! Eloise is doing about average for her...which is not very pleasant. But it is her life right now. She keeps from going looney by watching movies most of the day. Her favorites are Kindergarten Cop, Overboard, Man from Snowy River, Return of Man from Snowy River (better than the first), It Takes Two (Olsen twins), and a few others that escape me right now.

We have been encouraging her to stop eating through out the day...and to cut back on the pumpkin pie. She is finding that large amounts of pumpkin pie tend to make one look like a pumpkin. Her scales would testify of that fact as she is hovering between 165 and 170 lbs. I have noticed lately, however, that the pumpkin pies are not disappearing nearly as quickly as they had been. Soy milk and ice cream are still in high demand. Of course each of those has lots of calories and tend to create a lot of...um...uh...material, shall we say, for the diaper. I told her if she would scale back on the calories she wouldn't have to beat a path to the commode nearly as often. It is still a work in progress.

Dad is doing so much better than I expected he would do upon returning from Avalon, the skilled nursing facility! He is still weak and has a hard time transferring, but his mind is as keen as ever! The manager of Legacy mentioned to me today that he had a nice discussion with Gordon. It seemed to him that Dad was as bright and quick as he was a few months ago before he started the slow decline I mentioned in previous posts. He is pretty much confined to a wheel chair, even in his room, because of his weakness. When he returned from Avalon to Legacy, he was complaining of fairly constant pain pretty much through his whole body, but especially in his legs and hips. Though he still has some pain, he told me yesterday that it is now activity induced rather than constant. Transfers can still be a little painful.

We have put him on hospice care to get him some more services. After 45 days (I think) of having hospice care he is evaluated again by the hospice doctor to see if he still qualifies for services. The jury is still out at this point, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him work his way off of their list of qualifiers. If he declines chronically or has an acute episode then we have to decide if we should remove him from hospice so he can get attention at the hospital or leave him on hospice and keep him comfortable. We hope and pray if that happens that the proper course will be clear before us.

October 30, 2008

Ok - what a roller coaster dad is on!! I dropped in to see him yesterday at lunch time and what a change from the night before! Wednesday evening he was pretty alert and seemed to be getting stronger. When I saw him yesterday at lunch he grumpy, lethargic and complained of pain. I came back again in the evening and he was doing so much better - almost like a different person...literally! Again I went to see him at lunch time today and he was more groggy than I had ever seen him. Lydia, the head nurse from Legacy, came to visit him and see how he was doing while I was there. We were both puzzled how such a change could happen so rapidly. But before I left I pute 2 and 2 together and have a theory why this is happening.

Two aides came in to take his lunch order. I asked them why they thought he was in such rotten shape and they said he had therapy that morning. My guess is that he is just bushed at lunch time because he gets worked so hard for his therapy session. It has been the pattern each time I have seen him this week. The evenings seem to be a better time of day for him.

Tonight when i went in he was a little grouchy because he wanted to use the bathroom instead of his diaper and the aide hadn't been in yet. Once that got remedied he was more at ease. We enjoyed part of a football game together. I know he was actively watching because he would make comments about good plays or tackles.

The problem that I see looming is that he has no interest in eating. He has lost a lot of weight in the last 10 days. I have talked to the nurse about a supplement to boost his appetite.

October 24, 2008

Today we moved Dad from Lakeview Hospital to Avalon Care Center. He really surprised me with how well he responded the admitting nurses questions. Even as late as when we left the hospital, he was still pretty goofed up...confused, anxious, etc. The night before he was seeing fur balls flying around his room. He was sorting his meds - even there were no meds there to be sorted. He even 'dropped one'.

The admitting nurse asked him questions to determine his time and place orientation.
Nurse "what is the date today?"
Gordon "October 22." It was the 24th.
Nurse "what year is it?"
Gordon "8002." A little transposition error.
Nurse "what city is this?"
Gordon "Boulder...no, Bountiful."
Nurse "do you know where you are, what facility is this?
Gordon "Avalon Care Center."

This evening when I went in he was dressed and laying in bed watching football. It was active watching, not just staring. He seemed a little more alert. He did have some confusion during the day. He said he 'put an a.p.b. out for Eloise'. He became a little disoriented believing she was in the same place as him. I reminded him of the circumstance and he seemed to recall and be satisfied.

The end of this video is a cute greeting from mom to dad.

October 20, 2008

We checked him into the hospital last night to have some diagnostic work done on him. They did a CT scan, took blood, urine, etc. CT scan showed no damage from bleeding or stroke, just atrophy from old age. The blood showed no infection but the count was down, The urine showed no infection.

The conclusion is that the combination of lower blood count, elevated anemia, atrophy, lower than usual oxygen saturation, fatigue, poor eating and drinking habits all combined to make the perfect storm. We had him admitted to the hospital for blood transfusion and to get some more fluid into him. Our thinking is that his response to this jump start will be a telling factor in what life prolonging measures would be appropriate in the near future. There doesn’t appear to be any one life threatening weakness looming, but more general aging that is slowly taking its toll.

In conjunction with this hospital visit we will be visiting with hospice to see what services they can provide that will be beneficial. We have learned that hospice is not necessarily a time to die exercise. A person can be on hospice for a time and then be removed if they improve. They are there to provide additional support to the person and to the family. The support can be in the form of physical therapy, emotional and spiritual support, medical equipment, medication that provides comfort (as opposed to healing)…all covered by Medicaid.

His humor and wit persists even being in these dire circumstances. Fortunately he was not in any severe pain, though he did complain about his legs hurting. Though he wont be able to remember any of this, he was entertained all day by various non-existent occurrences. While I was there in the morning I opened his window so he could see outside. He enjoyed watching the airport across the street from his room, the men dressed in white marching around, planes coming and going, seagulls feasting on crickets, turkey’s that were on fire, the large mine on the side of the mountain. And then there was the entertainment inside the room – the floating blanket in the closet, Ryker playing in the closet and the like. In fact, Marie said he spent a good part of the day playing with Ryker. At least he was having fun…it was just the real people in his room that were stressed!

The previous few posts show somewhat of a timeline of this gradual decline that we have noticed in Gordon over the past couple of months. Kind of interesting.

September 27, 2008

Speaking of taking it to the next level, (refer to previous post) Gordon has gone to new heights on the confusion scale. I feel really bad for him because, in his own mind, he is completely rational. As has been discussed previously, he has been having hard time keeping up with his email and doctor appointments. I introduced him to the 'medical calendar' Bette and I have put on the internet. This seems to have helped him know when he is going to the doctor. Now he is having a hard time keeping track of the days...for a very interesting reason.

He has a digital wrist watch that he has bragged about because it is updated by some nuclear clock and is amazingly accurate. The problem is that he thinks its a certain day of the week, but what he thinks is different than the day of the week according to his watch. For example he has been complaining for the past month or so that his weekly visit to get his kidney shot gets moved and then the van provided by Legacy doesn't take him there. He said last week on Friday he sat on the porch for 2 hours waiting for the van to take him to his appointment. His appointments are on Wednesdays. He thought it was Wednesday when it was actually Friday. Today I was there and he was ticked again because it was Wednesday and the van hadn't taken him to his appointment. I reassured him that today was Saturday and not Wednesday.

Here's the kicker. He told me that 'someone' in charge of the nuclear clock is purposely switching Wednesday and Saturday!! "Why would they do that!!" Deep sigh. Wow, it finally occurred to me why he's always thinking that he missed his kidney appointment. I sat down beside him and put my hand on his leg and, as gently and light-heartedly as I could, explained to him that he was very, very confused. I assured him that no one was purposely switching days on him. He disagreed. He still believed it was Wednesday. I got him to look me in the eyes and I told him again that his belief and reasoning was completely false. I told him that the trend of his confusion may even increase and that he is going to have to trust those that are caring for him. "That's what Vicki (the van driver) always says...Trust me, Gordon.", he said. I assured him that he could. We will see what the future holds for his reasoning. Keep him in your prayers.

On the other hand, mom doesn't cease to amaze me at how much she has changed since coming to Legacy! She now has a stereo, a small boombox, 2 tv's and a dvd player...and is requesting another dvd player! The challenge now is to keep her stocked with enough movies....and music. She is finally reaching outside of herself to external sources for entertainment/diversion. Don't get me wrong, she is still plagued by all the physical ailments of the recent years but she is less obsesive...no, she still obsesses but it is tempered somewhat by her renewed interest in cards, movies and such. However, the toilet and her diaper remain her most time consuming form of entertainment - which is very discouraging to her.

Gordon goes to next level in shopping...

Bette took this on her phone tonight at Smiths. She had lots of shopping to do and convinced dad he should ride in one of those happenin' motorized grocery carts. Shopping has never been so fun.

September 4, 2008

Bette and I happened to be at the folk's place last night at the same time. Among others, one of the topics of discussion between us was mom has been calling Bette to complain to her that dad comes into mom's room and complains to her that the information Bette emails to dad regarding dr. appointments is months old. "Those appointments have alread happened", he complains.

Problem discovered. Dad never erases anything from his email inbox. Plus, they are sorted alphabetically. So when he does scan his inbox, which is rare, he comes upon an email from Bette, prints it out for reference, sees that the appointments are months old and concludes Bette doesn't know what she is doing.

We pointed this fact out to him and showed him how to sort his inbox to have the most recent emails on top. We talked about how the unread emails are in bold letters. Further, we reviewed the unread email from the day before which told what the appointments were for the following day. Bette also told him there were no appointments scheduled in the near future...nothing to worry about or write on his calendar.

I received this text just now from Bette: "Dad called at 7am wondering about doctor appointments".

Deep sigh!

August 30, 2008

Today mom said "I am starting to feel old". This was in sharp contrast to the position she has held until now that everybody else in Legacy is old but she was not. She is complaining more lately that her 'insides' hurt. She is really uncomfortable. I feel so bad for her...very miserable. Somehow she manages to still be kind and patient with those around her. Very amazing woman!

I ordered a small tv at her request. I reminder her that when she had a tv she didn't like to watch it. She agreed but said football season is approaching and she wanted to watch football. She decided she wanted to have the tv set up by her bed so she could watch laying down. So I set it up by the bed. As she was sitting at her table, unable to see the tv from there, she decided she would like to have another tv over by her table. So...I ordered another tv. Funny lady!!

Gordon's activity level seems to have decreased gradually but steadily over the past few months. At times he won't even go to the dining room for meals but will opt for eating in his room. He is still cordial to and funny with the aides and other guests there. Jared, one of the med techs, was in taking Gordon's vitals yesterday. While Jared was monitoring his vitals he was also perusing some of the pictures Dad has on his wall. He noticed and commented on the picture of the Denver Temple. Dad said, " that was the temple I worked in for 7 years". Jared acknowledged the comment and then his attention went to the picture of the earth on the wall. Dad said, "that's the earth I have lived on for 87 years". Shaking his head and giggling Jared replied "Gordon, you always make me laugh"!
He tends to do very unusual things at times these days. More than once (perhaps this is not so unusual for older folks) I have gone in to his room on a 95+ degree day to find him in his flannel long sleeved shirt...with the heater on! Perhaps a veiled attempt at suicide??? Talk about a cooker! On Thursday he asked me how to write the words portion of a check when there are cents in the amount...hm!

Eloise's pendulum is in constant motion! Just to bring you up to speed on the many changes she has made over the past 18 months, she came to Bountiful from Denver as a 135 lb hypoglycemic who wouldn't think of biting a banana that was too sweet because the sugar level would send her into shock, to a 153 lb hypoglycemic whose main food sources are, pumpkin pie with whip cream...actually that should be whip cream with a little pumpkin pie...orange sherbet (used to be lime), snicker doodle cookies garnished with cheese slices, vanilla pudding...and for desert some soy ice cream. She will actually try to eat the meals furnished by Legacy most of the time. I can't say that I blame her diet after seeing pureed Salisbury Steak for the first time. That made the cheese laden snicker doodles look pretty good.