It has been one week since my mom entered the hospital - wow! In her 77 years she has only been the hospital to give birth to Christian and myself but this time she is there for the fight of her life...I was interested to see how she would be as a patient...pretty good I must say although she doesn't always want to do what they tell her but she does. She always asks them if she really has to do it...."I don't want to" she says. The nurses just say "too bad do it anyways". She has to do this breathing thing...where she has take a deep breath it is funny because she has a hard time doing it mostly because she blows instead.
It is hard to believe that 8 days have passed....it feels like so long ago and yet it also feels like yesterday. Her surgeon came in today and told her that she would be moving out of ICU and into a "normal" room...she told him that she did want to, that she liked it in there, did she really have to leave "paradise" (her words) and he told her that he learned in medical school that more you stay in the hospital...the more you stay in the hospital. It turned out that because she had to get a new IV and there was only 1 nurse who could do a PIC line...she will be staying in ICU one more night. Tomorrow at sometime she will move to a regular room.
Today the nurse and I got her up and into a chair, not that easy, so that she could eat real food...she wasn't that hungry but she tried it and she ate a little bit of a sandwich (saying how boring the food was) but she drank a lot of water and juice. Deborah (my friend and the mother of the girls I nannied years ago) has been very helpful. Today she came in and talked to me about making sure I don't let the nurses get lazy with my mom when she gets to the next room...make sure that she moves a lot - transferring herself from the bed to a chair and walking whenever she can...she told me to make sure the nurses get her out of bed for all her meals and that she not sit in bed and eat but instead sit in a regular chair. Right now she is still really weak and as Deborah told us both for every 1 day in bed it take 3 days to recover. So my mom asked Deb for her opinion on where to go when she is discharged....and Deb said a rehab hospital for 7-10 days so that she could get even stronger before she goes back to living alone. I could see that this was hard for my mom but Deborah kept assuring her that it is temporary just until she is stronger...this place would be used to insure she receive physical therapy and 3 meals a day. We will cross that bridge when we get there.
I have been there everyday...I am grateful that my job encouraged me to take this week to figure it all out. I can not imagine juggling my kids, my life, my moms' situation and a job...thank goodness I didn't have to add my job. So I am off to bed....thank you again for all the well wishes - we are certainly headed in a positive direction.
ps my brother has really stepped up and it is a relief for me that he is there to help. And I am grateful for Shirley, Leif and Sonia, and Ann and Ray-helping me so I can get to pick up my troops.
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