Day by Day...

It's Friday; I can't believe it's been a week since I came home. It feels like the longest week of my life. Mom is resting a bit, though she continues to awaken with the slightest sound, touch, or movement around her. She is still on the 4th floor at UCONN Hospital, in a private room again, with one-to-one supervision at all times. After putting her restraint vest back on after a half-day with it off on Wednesday, it is off again as off 11:30am today. We are hoping that she will continue to be okay without it.

Mom has had lots of visitors this week, including family, friends, a co-worker, and her home health aide, Beth O. She has been so talkative, in fact, she has almost lost her voice entirely and is quite hoarse. Although her speech is still very confusing and very few phrases make much sense, we are becoming somewhat attuned and are getting better at connecting words and thoughts as they come.

This morning we had a family meeting with Mama Marian's doctors, social worker, case manager, and also had a brief visit from the psychiatric team. There are a couple of options for discharge, which will likely not take place until Tuesday at the earliest. Right now, we really would like to bring her home. Because she needs so much supervision and has been restrained so often, an inpatient hospice like Branford would have to keep her sedated. With all of the disastrous attempts at sedating her in the past few weeks, we are VERY wary of this and would also like to have some more time with Mom as Mom if it is possible.

Depending on how things play out this weekend, we would like to bring Mom home with Hospice and some other home health aides in place. The hospital is arranging for a medical bed to be brought into the house and we are scurrying about this weekend getting other odds and ends like pads to go on top of the sheets, a waterproof mattress pad for a twin bed, cups and spoons that might make feeding easier, etc... I am hoping to be able to stay a little while longer to make sure that things are do-able at home, to be sure Mom is safe and comfortable, and to have as much time with her as possible. Dad has already called a friend of our neighbors to knock down a wall in the basement family room that is no longer needed for the old boiler and heating system. This way Mom gets more light and there will be more room for people, furniture, medical devices, and other things. The plumbers are at the house today putting on some finishing touches and Dad plans on spending the weekend getting the room ready for her. She has her bird feeder now hanging from the bottom of the deck and we have been cutting some of the lilies that Mom planted in the yard to put in vases by her bedise.

I continue to stay here most of the time and hang out with Mom. She's had very little pain these past couple of days, which we are very wary about because of how much she has had over the last few months. Dr. Senatus recommended Neurontin or Lyrica for her pain when it does begin to recur, because the narcotics make her so agitated and the pain is centrally located and may respond better to this type of drug.

In the meantime, Mom has apparently been spreading family secrets, like one she told our cousin Pat yesterday. I wasn't aware either, but she had killed a boat builder and Dad had buried him in the backyard. She has also been questioning Dad on a fairly regular basis about him "sleeping with women". Some of it is pretty amusing, though it would be great to have her clear a bit more. I know that we would all love to have some more time with Mama Marian.