One Journey After Diabetic Coma

(Tricia) Sorry for the two-weeks-long silence! It has been a bit stressful trying to get used to this "new normal." Linda's C.diff is now fully controlled with the once-daily dose of 125 mg of vancomycin. We hate the fact that she now has to be on two antibiotics indefinitely, but if it's ongoing antibiotics or infection, we will obviously choose the antibiotics! We did have a bit of a scare a week ago, where it seemed like the C.diff might be breaking through, but the doctor called in the order for a test through Quest--the first results came back "inconclusive." That meant the test was positive for an antigen that is present when C.diff bacteria are also present, but it came back negative for the C.diff toxins themselves. The second results came back more conclusively: No active C.diff detected.  Finally. Her new primary care doctor also ordered an in-home blood panel, and when those results came back, the doctor called to say he was pleased to see that al...

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash (Tricia) Things have been relatively quiet for the past week. We have been trying to play a "memory game" with Linda in which we ask her to try to remember three words that I chose at random: hummingbird, bus, and chocolate. But, unfortunately, her memory has not improved very much from where it was after her second hip surgery. She can remember that we presented her with three words to remember (which is an improvement itself, I suppose!), but she rarely can remember the words themselves. Sometimes she remembers "hummingbird," likely because we're often pointing to the hummingbirds at the feeder that's just outside her window. We also love hummingbirds because when we see one, it reminds us of Mother.  But the other two words are rare. What's funny is that for "bus" she usually comes up with related words like carpool or limousine. which indicates her brain is registering it as a vehicle. A few times, s...

(Tricia) Yesterday, we went to the appointment for Linda, the one that magically materialized earlier this week with the infectious disease doctor, Dr. Erik Dubberke. Everything went very well. We woke her up around 6:00 a.m. so we could gradually get her ready for the 8:00 a.m. pickup. And her mood was much better than it was on Saturday when she went to the primary care doctor. We had quite the contingent for the trip: Linda and the caregiver traveled in the medical transport van, while Ed, Marilyn, and I met them there in my car. Not quite the festive family outing we would choose, but it was still good to be out of the house! Once we got to the doctor's office (in St. Louis' Central West End, which is about 25 minutes away--the farthest we've had to go for an appointment for her), we waited a long time to see Dr. Dubberke. Her appointment was at 9:20, but he didn't actually arrive in the exam room until about an hour past that. But he explained why--he spends a lot ...

 (Tricia) Things were not looking good last week--after Linda aspirated as she was eating her soup, the nurses seemed to think that aspiration pneumonia was inevitable. They were, once again, preparing me for the worst. But by now, I should know that I can't jump to conclusions too quickly--Linda has a habit of surprising people. We gave her an ongoing course of Mucinex, at one of the private duty nurse's suggestions, and by the weekend, the gurgle in her breathing had quieted considerably.  So much so that we were actually able to get her to her Saturday morning appointment with the new primary care physician--so, that, at least, was some good news! Making that appointment wasn't without challenge, however--when we tried to get her up for her 11:30 appointment, she absolutely did not want to be woken up. She was yelling out a continuous "No, no, no, no!" as we used the lift to get her into the Broda chair. She begged not to be moved. It was hard to ignore that, b...

(Tricia) I should know by now that Linda's condition rarely stays good for long. As Marilyn mentioned, Linda's C.diff returned yet again Monday morning. We jumped on it with antibiotics (vancomycin), along with antidiarrheal and electrolyte drinks, as soon as we knew it had returned, but she was weakened almost immediately by dehydration. And just as the meds started pushing the C.diff back, we had a seemingly small incident with chicken noodle soup that has turned out to be not-so-small at all. When Linda was in the hospital, the nurses and doctors were incredibly concerned about Linda's ability to swallow. They were afraid that she would accidentally get food or drink down the wrong pipe and into the lungs: aspiration. If you recall, they put her on "no food, no drink" protocols when they were concerned that she was having trouble swallowing. At the time, I thought they were being overly cautious, and Linda wanted to something to drink so badly.  Well, that dang...

(Marilyn) Tricia just called to tell me that Linda has developed C.Diff again.  Tricia is trying to get the antibiotic renewed.  Linda is miserable. Tricia will follow up at some point with ongoing details.

(Tricia) I should know by now that whenever we make a little progress, something else will happen to set us back! The bad news: As noted above, one of our nighttime caregivers now has COVID!  Sigh...we had just started getting back to normal in the house, but now we're back to wearing masks and waiting to see if Linda comes down with it. Ed and I have been negative for more than week, so it is more likely that the caregiver was exposed at her family reunion, which she attended this past weekend.  I suspect that Linda will turn up positive because she spent two full nights in a row in the same room with the caregiver. Our only hope is that she remains asymptomatic. And, of course, there is the chance that Ed and I could catch it again--please, no. The good news: In the past week, I've made an appointment for Linda with a highly recommended primary care physician with a geriatric specialty--he is even seeing her on July 23, a Saturday morning, in order to spend more tim...