Hi Everyone,
Don’t underestimate the importance of a healthy urinary tract when it comes to older people having clear presence of mind. I need to find the research proof on this. But, I’ve seen it several times with Mom and people who run homes for older people seem to know about the problem. Not every doctor, however, is on top of this potentially frightening, but simple to take care of condition. You have to be very proactive, yourself. Mom is much better, today.
Mom just got up and is an entirely different person than the person I picked up from Heidi’s yesterday. She’s had a rough couple of days. Everytime I spoke with her, I knew something wasn’t right. I thought she was just still getting over the exhaustion of the Kansas City trip. She called Bill late on Friday night, fearing her ultimate death during the night and thinking that something had been tied across her tummy. Mom hasn’t had problems with her thinking for several months. I felt a sick knot in the pit of MY stomach when Bill called and told me about his call.
I have been very sick with an absolutely terrible cold and so wasn’t planning to see her until maybe Sunday, if I was feeling better. But, when I spoke with her many times on the phone, Saturday, I knew something was wrong. I called the assisted living facility. They hadn’t kept good records for the night before. NOT sleeping, we know can cause Mom to have crazy thoughts. They didn’t know how many times she was up. They didn’t think that the PRN sedative had been used. THEY COULDN’T FIND ANY! Luckily, I still had her night-time medication left over from our trip last week and I went down and picked her up.
She was not herself and looked absolutely terrible. I brought her home and did a urinalysis test which revealed blood in her urine. If I had waited for the “powers that be” to take care of doing testing, we’d have been lucky to have answers by Tuesday or Wednesday. I started her on loads of cranberry and was sure that she had plenty of sedative at bedtime to be sure that her urinary urgency didn’t get in the way of a really good night’s sleep. She slept for nearly 11 hours!
When she woke up, her eyes were clear and she was my mother, again. I can’t believe how many times I’ve faced losing Mom in one respect or another this past 16 months. I’m very happy to have her back to her old self, again, this morning.
Love to all,
Mary