Surgery Update and Neurologist Visit

2/10/2010

Thank you again for your kind thoughts and prayers. Mom will have her stitches out today. She is doing terrific. She has been on solid food since the day I brought her home from the hospital. She speaks with a slight lisp, but I think that will be gone once the stitches are removed from her upper lip. Once she realized that she was not losing half her tongue and was able to talk she has been relieved. Her fears of not being able to talk were just that, fear. Dr. Weiner did an excellent job and I’m sure his hands were guided by the big guy.

Mom got a shorter hair style yesterday and is in a much better mood. (Thank God) We are almost back to normal, whatever that is. One of her worries now is Laura, seems she has the flu and laryngitis, which is not a good thing. Also, during the cold snap in El Paso one of the pipes underground got a leak and is leaking into the small bath and in the front yard so that must be addressed. With Laura ill I haven’t decided how active I have to get to take care of that. I will make that decision tomorrow. One big decision a day keeps the hee bi gibees away. Aggh!!!

2/23/2010

Mom got through her cancer surgery with little pain and full ability to eat and speak. It has been about 16 days since her surgery and now we only have her blood pressure to control and her intermittent confused time and location issues. She gets upset with herself (after the fact) over her impulsive anger at things that she normally would not be upset about. We have an appointment with a neurologist tomorrow for an assessment of her mental state(s). This should be the last doctor we add to her crew of specialists. She is an almost perfectly healthy 89 soon to be 90 woman who does have physical degenerations due to her age. After having her with me 24/7 since before Thanksgiving I experience her mood swings and angry outbursts regularly and know how to diffuse them. Her inability to recall simple tasks and function on her own are severely impaired. Is it normal age related dementia or is she on track for Alzheimer’s? One is inevitable and the other treatable. I will continue to keep you informed of her condition. She thoroughly enjoys talking with you and is very interested in your lives; she doesn’t like me to initiate the calls, but loves to receive calls.

We received a call yesterday from Leticia (the woman who helped mom with granny Cosme) whose son and daughter in law are interested in buying mom’s house, either through a full bank loan or rent to own. This made mom very happy. She likes that the house will be going to some sort of connection. Now comes the task of emptying the house. She has always had the illusion that her belongings and furniture would go to her grandchildren. I have a list of what she wanted each of you to have. Assuming I can get myself together and the buyers are ready I will be in El Paso toward the end of March. My plans are to distribute the furniture and mementoes you want to each of you and have you take it away. I will pack and bring back to Phoenix whatever mom can’t bear to part with. This is going to be a difficult time for her, yet it must be done.

2/25/2010

We went to see a neurologist yesterday. Mom had asked her cardiologist why she was so forgetful and angry sometimes and he didn’t have an answer other than a suggestion to have her evaluated. Well, dang! I had not realized how little mom could function outside of the safe little world we created for her. She could not correctly answer even the simplest questions. She did not know the day, date, month, season or what city she was in. She could write a sentence. Even though she almost beat everyone at dominos in Marfa she could not add or subtract numbers in her head. She could not tell him what medications she was taking or why she was taking them. It hurts too much to list the other things she could not do.

He wants to rule out that her road down Alzheimer’s is not chemically caused, so here goes another specific blood test.  He also wants to see if this memory loss is due to mini-strokes, so she is going to have an MRI. Watching mom struggle through this exam was very difficult. She is so “on it” sometimes that I did not realize (or maybe want to accept) that her indecision about most things was not in an effort to please, but a sign that she couldn’t remember what she likes. Her blood test is Friday and her MRI on Monday with a follow up with Dr. Reese in two weeks. He did give us a trial month of Aricept. We had tried that before, but this time it is in a step process. She will start with ½ dose for 4 weeks then move up to the regular dose on the 5^th week. He feels that this gradual intake will give her body a chance to accept it more readily than just taking it full strength from the beginning. This is the most successful drug for Alzheimer’s, but if it doesn’t help or she can’t tolerate it there are 3 more to try. These drugs don’t stop Alzheimer’s, but they slow down the disease and delay its full impact.

I’m now undecided about the trip to ElPaso in late March. I will speak with Leticia and find out how quickly her son needs to move and decide from there. Finding out more about Mom’s condition is again first priority. Her blood pressure is still fluctuating and rises even under medication. More medication isn’t the answer since that would only make her sleepy and less able to get around. Her bp medication has been adjusted slightly and I hope that is enough to get it lowered. At the cardiologist her bp was 120/63 and at the neurologist it was 160/95! These readings are two days apart. Here at home she is in the 140 range.

On the upside I am very glad that all of the specialists recommended by Dr. Sullivan have been outstanding in understanding her and in making every effort to get her well. Too bad I can’t line up her El Paso so called doctors and specialists and shoot them at dawn.