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Nov. 15th, 2005 08:35 pmI'm home again for a couple of days... literally. Aunt Susan died this morning; the funeral is to be Sat AM, with visitation Fri night, so I'll be driving back to KY Fri AM.
Over the weekend we held a council and decided that she should be moved from ICU to palliative care. She wasn't improving, but was instead showing more and more distress. She was 91, had two major surgeries, had gotten a drug-resistant staph infection in her lungs plus other secondary infections, and was malnourished when she went into surgery, so the incisions weren't healing well. In ICU they seemed reluctant to give her as much pain medicine as she needed, and were constantly doing PT, respiritory therapy, taking blood, taking vital signs, etc, etc. They also had her hands tied down to keep her from pulling out the feeding tube from her nose. We found out later that she pulled it out five times one day, which meant that they shoved it back down her nose that many times. She screamed and yelled every time they did it, too; I was there a couple of times when they did.
We were pleased to be able to work with a doctor who specialized in pain relief. She was moved late Sat night upstairs to the palliative care unit, and the new doc ordered a morphine drip plus supplemental morphine, Haldol, and Atavan for her. They discontinued all the tests and therapy that were so distressing to her and instead focused on keeping her comfortable. Mother had bad migraines and had to stay home, and Daddy was too polite to ask many questions or be insistent when he needed to be, so I got to be the muscle. Oh, yeah, that's me. Bad to the bone.
I've been so busy that I haven't had time to think much, nor allowed myself to feel much. I did realize that much of my macho, don't-talk-about-it attitude is inherited/learned from my Dad. I thought it was supremely ironic: listening to the mix CD I made to cheer me up on the trip was the one time that I started to get all teary eyed. No idea why; I wondered if just feeling anything opened the door to feeling sad. Very weird.
I'm all in. Going to bed now, I think, so I can get up and get busy here tomorrow. I have several things that must be accomplished here before I go back. I have no idea how long I'll be up there this time, either, since Daddy wants me to help him sort through stuff at Aunt Susan's house. Whee. Apparently saving stuff is a family trait.
Over the weekend we held a council and decided that she should be moved from ICU to palliative care. She wasn't improving, but was instead showing more and more distress. She was 91, had two major surgeries, had gotten a drug-resistant staph infection in her lungs plus other secondary infections, and was malnourished when she went into surgery, so the incisions weren't healing well. In ICU they seemed reluctant to give her as much pain medicine as she needed, and were constantly doing PT, respiritory therapy, taking blood, taking vital signs, etc, etc. They also had her hands tied down to keep her from pulling out the feeding tube from her nose. We found out later that she pulled it out five times one day, which meant that they shoved it back down her nose that many times. She screamed and yelled every time they did it, too; I was there a couple of times when they did.
We were pleased to be able to work with a doctor who specialized in pain relief. She was moved late Sat night upstairs to the palliative care unit, and the new doc ordered a morphine drip plus supplemental morphine, Haldol, and Atavan for her. They discontinued all the tests and therapy that were so distressing to her and instead focused on keeping her comfortable. Mother had bad migraines and had to stay home, and Daddy was too polite to ask many questions or be insistent when he needed to be, so I got to be the muscle. Oh, yeah, that's me. Bad to the bone.
I've been so busy that I haven't had time to think much, nor allowed myself to feel much. I did realize that much of my macho, don't-talk-about-it attitude is inherited/learned from my Dad. I thought it was supremely ironic: listening to the mix CD I made to cheer me up on the trip was the one time that I started to get all teary eyed. No idea why; I wondered if just feeling anything opened the door to feeling sad. Very weird.
I'm all in. Going to bed now, I think, so I can get up and get busy here tomorrow. I have several things that must be accomplished here before I go back. I have no idea how long I'll be up there this time, either, since Daddy wants me to help him sort through stuff at Aunt Susan's house. Whee. Apparently saving stuff is a family trait.
