I haven’t been around here too much in the last few months, but I needed to vent, and, well, you all get to be the recipients.
My mother just had stroke number two.
It wasn’t bad, I guess, as strokes go, but this one really affected her ability to communicate. It’s like she knows what she wants to say, but when she goes to say it, she gets out the first couple of words and then loses her place and she can’t verbalize the rest, e.g., “I need to go to the bathroom” becomes “I need to pah bah na pahpahpahpah.”
I could work with that if the syllables were the same every time, but they’re not.
The nurse asked her if she knew my name, and she said yes. When asked what my name was, she called me by my son’s name.
If you ask her to raise her right hand, she might raise her right hand, or she might make a fist with her left.
Some of the things she can always say are “I don’t know,” “Oh, my goodness,” and “I’m sorry.” She says those a lot.
The day before she had the stroke she went in for a physical. For you medical types,: BP 220/110, creatinine 2.8, Ox Sat 92, (she’s on 2 liters/min 0[sub]2[/sub]), pulse 100/min–and a few other items of concern I can’t remember right now. Oh, yeah…a bruit in her right internal carotid.
They put her on a new BP medication. It seemed to work. At least her pressure was down to 140/60 the next day when we arrived in the ER.
She has COPD and acute renal failure. She had an axi/fem, fem/fem bypass about a year ago. She had a colonoscopy about 6 weeks ago wherein they removed one of those flat tumors (a large one, per the doc), but they had to leave a couple of polyps because they didn’t feet they could do any more surgery safely.
The CT the ER ordered didn’t show a bleed, so I guess that’s a good thing. She was due to have an MRI today, but she kept getting bumped back by ICU and Emergency patients. Maybe they were able to do it after I left. I’ll find out tomorrow.
CVA. Cerebrovascular accident. Sounds almost benign. Even “stroke” seems rather mild.
It’s a brain attack…just like a myocardial infarction is a heart attack. Only worse, because it steals your ability to think, to communicate, to be yourself.
She’s frustrated, and sad, and, I’m sure, scared–only she can’t tell anyone.
I spoke with the Social Worker briefly. If my mother ends up needing 24/hour care, after the Blue Cross/Medicare runs out, there’s enough money for about 7 months’ worth of nursing home care. Then I’m tapped.
I don’t know what happens after that.
I wish I could work up the energy to be really mad and scream and yell about how goddamned unfair strokes are, but I can’t.
My mother comes from a good sized family. Siblings and nieces/nephews from around the country have been calling to check on her. I’ve done my best to put a positive spin on things and tell them she’s a little better today. But I don’t believe it.
I don’t know, either, mom.