8-19-2021 More jumbled talk

 Got there at 9:00.  I brought some food so that when she refused to eat her breakfast I could try to tempt her with a few other things.  Didn't work, she wouldn't eat any of it. She has now lost 5 pounds and that's not good.

She was very restless today and talked a lot but almost all of it didn't make sense.  She said she had her Pontiac out front and she was going to go home.  I reminded her that she hasn't had that Pontiac for about 50 years and she said oh no, you're wrong, it's out front.   She still swears that her friend Sue quit working at the bank and came to work at the nursing facility and she doesn't understand why Sue never comes to her room.  

She says that at night, the nurses and assistants try to kill her.  But Virgil is taking good care of her (LOL).

She says that no one ever comes to see her and I said, "Well, I'm sitting right here!  Don't I count?"  The speech pathologist was there and she made a log-in sheet so that whenever Linda has a visitor, they can sign in and it will jar her memory about her visitors.

We are wondering if weaning Linda off of the Depakote might be causing her jumbled thoughts but we want to wait it out and get her totally off of it to see what happens.  She still has a few more days on the antibiotic for the pneumonia.

We're still not sure when Medicare is going to stop (maybe it already has).


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

12-25-2022 Merry Christmas to all!

Image
(Tricia) Since Linda came home from the hospital in November, it has been much quieter than it was before she went in.  No more physical therapy, very few nursing visits. Hospice started up again two weeks ago, but Linda has turned down most services (such as the bath aide and chaplain). She has been telling us that she wants to rest, so we are giving her that. She does get up in her wheelchair almost every day, which at least gives her a change of scenery. Last Tuesday, we did take Linda to a previously scheduled doctor's appointment with a neurologist specializing in cognitive issues such as brain injury and dementia, at a practice is called the St. Louis Center for Cognitive Health. I almost canceled the appointment, because I didn't think much would come of it. But this was an appointment I had rescheduled after canceling one in July the last time she was in hospice (and I had made that appointment in March-- the joys of American healthcare). When I canceled the July appoin...
Read more

3-24-2023 "Never Roger, always Ed!"

Linda's brain injury has brought with it a host of maddening symptoms, but one of the most prevalent is that it has made her not just unable to remember people's correct names, but at times seemingly unwilling to. This has been especially true for Ed's name.  For some reason, her brain is convinced that there are actually two males living in this house--one named Roger and one named Ed. When we ask her what each one looks like, she points to Ed and says, "They both look like him!"  And, of course, when we ask the obvious follow-up question, "Then why do you think they're two people?" she will respond with some version of "Their hair is different" or "They wear different clothes." We don't know where this comes from. We don't think she's connecting Ed to her neighbor in Mountain View or our cousin in Indianapolis (hello to both of you!).  But the mix-up has been there since she first started talking after coming out of ...
Read more

10-4-22 Quick update

(Tricia) I just wanted to post an update about how things have gone since Linda was discharged from hospice last week. We took Linda in to see Dr. Kevorkian on Saturday, and he decided he wanted to wait to remove the drain in her right side until she was at home and lying down. So, he's actually going to make a home visit this Thursday for the drain removal. He also has now established the start of insurance-covered PT -- they will be coming in to evaluate Linda on Friday. This is bittersweet, because we really like the private pay therapist who has been working with Linda to this point. She has helped Linda improve considerably, and she seemed genuinely sad today when I told her about the switch.  But I am having her come at least one more time (on Thursday). From there, we'll see how St. Luke's Home Health's PT services work for Linda.  Today was a PT day as well, and it went very well. Linda sat up on the side of the bed with some assistance for 10 minutes--a record!...
Read more