One year anniversary

This past week marked the anniversary of my mother loosing her mobility. It was January 2019, as I was walking with her to her bed after brushing her teeth and going to the potty that as we were approaching the bed she began to tilt. I immediately came close behind her just in time to catch her as she and I both went to the floor. This is what I have learned is an assisted fall. It wasn’t hard but it was hard for me to get her into her bed. I did eventually.

I thought she was just tired from the day and she would be better the next day which was a Monday. But she was not, not only was my caregiver unable to get her out of bed she had a hard time feeding her. I called the physician he thought she had an infection and prescribed antibiotics. Which did not work.

Two week prior my mother had one of her episodes of being non responsive. Deborah called 911 they took mom to the hospital where they ran test. The hospital neurologist informed me that this was a symptom of her disease and as long as she was still breaking she would have moments like this. I asked if he would run an EEG to ensure she was not having mini brain seizures. He did and the result was that she was not BUT her disease was extremely advanced. So he took my mother off all her memory medications. Her aricept, namenda, and the Lamotrigine.

My questions was “if we take her off of these will I see a dramatic change…because I don’t think I can handle that.” He assured me that the medication weren’t working now so no! Two week later she lost her mobility. I called the phamacist and explain what had occurred three day after she fell. My specific question was whether my putting her back on the three medications would harm her since she had been off of them for two weeks. He stated that it would not and then as an aside stated “her losing her mobility after two weeks of being off the meds does suggest that they were doing something. You can put her back but…” I stopped him “I know I don’t expect her to make a full recovery.” Which she didn’t.

I took her back to the hospital just to ensure she hadn’t had a stroke and she had not. As God would have it the same neurologist came in. I politely conveyed to him that I believed the medications had been working and that we took her off prematurely. That I didn’t expect him to agree with me and we would just agree to disagree. He reluctantly put back on the meds.

So here we are a year later. Myself and Deborah have adjusted to our new normal. I was able to get a Hoyalift, hospice brought in the electric bed. Last year everyone assumed that my mother would be dying soon BUT she has reached a steady state. She will be discharged from hospice sometime this month.

Now is the other headache NO ONE SEEMS TO DO HOUSE APPOINTMENTS!!!! I was extremely frustrated with trying to find an attending physician who would come to the house. After about a month I found two here in Florida. Visiting Doctors and Mobile Physicians Associations. GREAT I thought BUT ,and there is ALWAYS a but,……..they don’t accept MEDICARE through third party insurers such as Humana,Ethan, United Health etc. They accept basic MEDICARE…so I had to make the switch.

We were visited by our new physician, a Nurse Practitioner, last week and she was extremely friendly, thorough and listened….. Whew