My mom has pneumonia.
My mom has an intestinal bacteria infection.
My mom has thrush.
Things are not going well. She's taking meds, which are messing up her taste buds, so she's not hungry (and if Mom isn't hungry, believe me, there's a problem). I've been going to see her over my lunch break at work, partly to see her, but also just to see how much she's eating. My sister and I met with the doctor Friday night and she's doing as well as can be expected with the stuff that's going on. She was doing occupational therapy, but she can't meet even the most minimal of goals (she can't even brush her hair), so now she's just doing PT to help with some problems. And despite what she says, we doubt she will ever leave the nursing home. She simply can't. The doctor said that on Friday night.
(We're going to continue to pay the rent on her apartment until the end of November, just to be on the safe side. But I think that, over our Thanksgiving break, we'll all get together and move her stuff out of the the apartment, although we're not sure where we're going to put anything. But at that point, I think we'll know a lot more about how she's doing and it will be time to actually make a decision. We can't afford to continue paying rent; we simply don't have that kind of money.)
She told me the other day not to get too attached to Muffin because "when I get home, I want her back". I don't argue; I just say "OK, Mom" and let it go. But I think Muffin is pretty much ours. (And no, I've not really tried much to find her a new home....I did ask several people who I thought would be good, but well, I'm a little too picky, I think.)
Mom is right-handed and she has trouble with dexterity in that hand (I think I mentioned before that she had fallen in the kitchen back in August and we made a midnight dash to the ER....I couldn't get her off the floor and the paramedics came, followed by the ambulance. When she fell, she fell on that hand and, despite PT, she's not getting her hand to work well at all). She's using a spoon in her left hand to eat. But when I started going in to see her at lunch, the aides were bringing her food trays and they weren't cutting her food, not even her meat. It stands to reason, or at least it does to me, that if a woman isn't using her normal hand and can no longer use a fork, well, then she is no longer able to use a knife and fork to cut her food, right? So she's wasn't eating much at all; she couldn't. When I brought that to the aide's attention, you could almost see the light bulb going off....it was like, oh crap! we didn't catch it! Now that they've realized it, her food is cut and she does eat more than she did, although the food is tasting "off" to her bc of the meds. And I get that. But she has to eat. So I go in over lunch, just to get her to eat more than she would normally.
She also complains that the food isn't the right food for a diabetic. But I finally told her to stop complaining and eat. She never worried about her diabetes before; I'd go to the apartment and she and her caregiver were eating KFC. There were cupcakes on the counter and cookies and such. Now that she's in the nursing home, she complains about the food? No, that's not going over well with me. I actually told her on Thursday to stop it. Just stop it. The food looks good and it smells good and by damned, she's eating her cherry pie! And she ate every bite. Hasn't said anything else about the food either.
She's not sleeping at night (actually I think she cries most of the night, from what she told us...thanks for the guilt, Mom), so she falls asleep during the day. She almost acts like she's drugged. She'll be awake and then suddenly, poof! she's gone. And we did ask the doctor about that. She is on a small dosage of anti-anxiety meds and he said that they will reduce the dosage if I'm that concerned. And I am. So we'll see what happens there. He did say, though, that since she's not sleeping at night, she will sleep more during the day. And it could also be from the other meds she's on, too.
Honestly, and this is probably TMI and I apologize. But if I don't write it out, I'm going to flip, so bear with me. What is it about older people and their bowels? I'm totally serious here. Most of the older people I know seem to be fixated on bowel movements.....maybe I just don't know the right older people.
Mom is constipated, Mom has loose bowels, Mom is constipated and she needs her Miralax. Mom has loose bowels to the point where they couldn't take a stoll sample. *sigh* We discussed that with the doctor, too. They were using suppositories and they weren't working. And Mom was fixating on not being able to take the Miralax (which, yes, she was prescribed to take a wee bit daily to avoid constipation). We finally got that taken care of and the nursing home doctor changed her chart to read "Miralax every 48 hours if no bowel movement". Mom is happy now. Mom has had bowel issues for years, so this is nothing new. But it's frustrating for us, that she "needs" Miralax. The doctor really didn't want to allow her the Miralax, but it's better than the suppositories or at least I think so. And really, she's going to be 83 years old. At this point, what does it hurt?
I think I mentioned that my sister and I are taking turns doing her laundry and that's working out well. At least Mom hasn't complained about that...yet, although my sister just says to give her time. Mom has always been very fastidious about her laundry and we could never do it well enough to suit her. Everything always had to be washed in Tide and she hated her clothes dried in a dryer. She needs a hair appt and I told her I'd take care of that and make one for her; I'll pay for it for her. But she wants her own beautician and the home only allows their people to come in. So there's another battle we're dealing with. My sister has Mom on her cell phone plan, but that's not working out very well now bc Mom doesn't have a phone in her room. My sister said she'd take care of that for her and we could split the bill. That's fine.
The nursing home has a kitty, a great big black boy named Inky. He's a sweetie and he'll go from room to room to the people. He knows which rooms to avoid; not everybody likes cats. But Mom likes him and I took some bags (well a big container) of cat treats to her, so she can given them to Inky when he comes to visit. It's easier for her to open a container than it is to try to open and close those bags.
So.....Miss Muffin. She and Mollipop will never be best buddies and they're still hissing it out with each other. The computer room is still Muffin's sanctuary and even though she has the run of the house (except when we're at work...I just don't trust Molli and Muffin together yet unsupervised, although I know I'm going to have bite the bullet soon), she sleeps in my grandmother's rocking chair in the computer room at night. Muffin and Tabby are now the best of friends and they'll spend an hour playing with each other and chasing each other around the house. Muffin has a vet appt this Friday night for her 3-year rabies shot and an exam. We're also going to visit Mom while we're out and about.
Despite Mom's complaining that Muffin occassionally made a mess in her bathroom, we have yet to see anything like that. *knock on wood* In fact, Muffin has pretty much given up her litter box and is using one of the kids' boxes in the bathoom. Evidently she likes Tidy Cats more so than Yesterday News.
She's still being free fed as much as I can....I can't keep the food out all the time, but I do offer her her food several times a day and she's always willing to eat. I don't think she's hungry and I don't think she's lost any weight. And she always has fresh water, too. She gets fed a different dry food than what my kids have and I can always tell her poop in the litterbox, so I know things are doing OK there.
We all play with Da Bird at night for about an hour or so. It's usually Amber, Tabby, Molli, and Muffin. BooBoo plays, too, when he can't help himself.
Sometimes that Mr. Bird will get the best of Boo's curiousity and he'll start chasing it, too. They take turns, although they do have to deal with Muffin's hissy fits (she's simply having trouble sometimes, dealing with the other cats). But it works out, I think, and they get their chances with Mr. Bird.
I have taken Muffin and her stroller over to our local vo-tech school at night and we walk around the parking lot a few times; that way, she still gets her stroller rides. As the weather cools down though, we'll have to stop that. And I know she's going to miss her rides. There's simply way too much traffic on our road in front of the house; I tried to take her once and it didn't go over well....she was upset with the traffic and she wasn't used to a lot of traffic. And it's just not safe either....people fly up and down our road. She's not happy about being put into her carrier and she's not happy about the car ride back and forth from the vo-tech school, but she does enjoy her stroller rides. So I guess it evens out.
Thanks for listening/reading. I think it will be OK with Mom eventually (once she gets over her illnesses) and I'm sure Muffin will fit in with the gang. It just takes awhile. I'm still keeping her in the computer room while we're at work, largely bc of the other M. They're my M & M girls. (And I do love M & Ms, you know!)
My mom has an intestinal bacteria infection.
My mom has thrush.
Things are not going well. She's taking meds, which are messing up her taste buds, so she's not hungry (and if Mom isn't hungry, believe me, there's a problem). I've been going to see her over my lunch break at work, partly to see her, but also just to see how much she's eating. My sister and I met with the doctor Friday night and she's doing as well as can be expected with the stuff that's going on. She was doing occupational therapy, but she can't meet even the most minimal of goals (she can't even brush her hair), so now she's just doing PT to help with some problems. And despite what she says, we doubt she will ever leave the nursing home. She simply can't. The doctor said that on Friday night.
(We're going to continue to pay the rent on her apartment until the end of November, just to be on the safe side. But I think that, over our Thanksgiving break, we'll all get together and move her stuff out of the the apartment, although we're not sure where we're going to put anything. But at that point, I think we'll know a lot more about how she's doing and it will be time to actually make a decision. We can't afford to continue paying rent; we simply don't have that kind of money.)
She told me the other day not to get too attached to Muffin because "when I get home, I want her back". I don't argue; I just say "OK, Mom" and let it go. But I think Muffin is pretty much ours. (And no, I've not really tried much to find her a new home....I did ask several people who I thought would be good, but well, I'm a little too picky, I think.)
Mom is right-handed and she has trouble with dexterity in that hand (I think I mentioned before that she had fallen in the kitchen back in August and we made a midnight dash to the ER....I couldn't get her off the floor and the paramedics came, followed by the ambulance. When she fell, she fell on that hand and, despite PT, she's not getting her hand to work well at all). She's using a spoon in her left hand to eat. But when I started going in to see her at lunch, the aides were bringing her food trays and they weren't cutting her food, not even her meat. It stands to reason, or at least it does to me, that if a woman isn't using her normal hand and can no longer use a fork, well, then she is no longer able to use a knife and fork to cut her food, right? So she's wasn't eating much at all; she couldn't. When I brought that to the aide's attention, you could almost see the light bulb going off....it was like, oh crap! we didn't catch it! Now that they've realized it, her food is cut and she does eat more than she did, although the food is tasting "off" to her bc of the meds. And I get that. But she has to eat. So I go in over lunch, just to get her to eat more than she would normally.
She also complains that the food isn't the right food for a diabetic. But I finally told her to stop complaining and eat. She never worried about her diabetes before; I'd go to the apartment and she and her caregiver were eating KFC. There were cupcakes on the counter and cookies and such. Now that she's in the nursing home, she complains about the food? No, that's not going over well with me. I actually told her on Thursday to stop it. Just stop it. The food looks good and it smells good and by damned, she's eating her cherry pie! And she ate every bite. Hasn't said anything else about the food either.
She's not sleeping at night (actually I think she cries most of the night, from what she told us...thanks for the guilt, Mom), so she falls asleep during the day. She almost acts like she's drugged. She'll be awake and then suddenly, poof! she's gone. And we did ask the doctor about that. She is on a small dosage of anti-anxiety meds and he said that they will reduce the dosage if I'm that concerned. And I am. So we'll see what happens there. He did say, though, that since she's not sleeping at night, she will sleep more during the day. And it could also be from the other meds she's on, too.
Honestly, and this is probably TMI and I apologize. But if I don't write it out, I'm going to flip, so bear with me. What is it about older people and their bowels? I'm totally serious here. Most of the older people I know seem to be fixated on bowel movements.....maybe I just don't know the right older people.
I think I mentioned that my sister and I are taking turns doing her laundry and that's working out well. At least Mom hasn't complained about that...yet, although my sister just says to give her time. Mom has always been very fastidious about her laundry and we could never do it well enough to suit her. Everything always had to be washed in Tide and she hated her clothes dried in a dryer. She needs a hair appt and I told her I'd take care of that and make one for her; I'll pay for it for her. But she wants her own beautician and the home only allows their people to come in. So there's another battle we're dealing with. My sister has Mom on her cell phone plan, but that's not working out very well now bc Mom doesn't have a phone in her room. My sister said she'd take care of that for her and we could split the bill. That's fine.
The nursing home has a kitty, a great big black boy named Inky. He's a sweetie and he'll go from room to room to the people. He knows which rooms to avoid; not everybody likes cats. But Mom likes him and I took some bags (well a big container) of cat treats to her, so she can given them to Inky when he comes to visit. It's easier for her to open a container than it is to try to open and close those bags.
So.....Miss Muffin. She and Mollipop will never be best buddies and they're still hissing it out with each other. The computer room is still Muffin's sanctuary and even though she has the run of the house (except when we're at work...I just don't trust Molli and Muffin together yet unsupervised, although I know I'm going to have bite the bullet soon), she sleeps in my grandmother's rocking chair in the computer room at night. Muffin and Tabby are now the best of friends and they'll spend an hour playing with each other and chasing each other around the house. Muffin has a vet appt this Friday night for her 3-year rabies shot and an exam. We're also going to visit Mom while we're out and about.
Despite Mom's complaining that Muffin occassionally made a mess in her bathroom, we have yet to see anything like that. *knock on wood* In fact, Muffin has pretty much given up her litter box and is using one of the kids' boxes in the bathoom. Evidently she likes Tidy Cats more so than Yesterday News.
We all play with Da Bird at night for about an hour or so. It's usually Amber, Tabby, Molli, and Muffin. BooBoo plays, too, when he can't help himself.
I have taken Muffin and her stroller over to our local vo-tech school at night and we walk around the parking lot a few times; that way, she still gets her stroller rides. As the weather cools down though, we'll have to stop that. And I know she's going to miss her rides. There's simply way too much traffic on our road in front of the house; I tried to take her once and it didn't go over well....she was upset with the traffic and she wasn't used to a lot of traffic. And it's just not safe either....people fly up and down our road. She's not happy about being put into her carrier and she's not happy about the car ride back and forth from the vo-tech school, but she does enjoy her stroller rides. So I guess it evens out.
Thanks for listening/reading. I think it will be OK with Mom eventually (once she gets over her illnesses) and I'm sure Muffin will fit in with the gang. It just takes awhile. I'm still keeping her in the computer room while we're at work, largely bc of the other M. They're my M & M girls. (And I do love M & Ms, you know!)
Last edited: