The Road Ahead

With luck, mom may be transferred to a regular room tomorrow. We are still awaiting her infection test results. We are also hoping to speak to the doctor about getting her a psych consult so that she could resume her bipolar medication. She was removed from any medications that would lower her already unstable blood pressure. Now that she is stable, we hope that she could resume her meds. The past two days have shown her to be meek and childlike. Today she was trusting of no one, though she did not want Jennifer nor I to leave and was startled whenever we moved about the room. I think she feared us leaving. She also feared pain in anticipation of an act, like cleaning her wound or turning over. We arrived when her nurse was getting ready to clean her wound. She cried. She cried mostly in anticipation of pain. It became a task just to provide her distraction. She lamented, "Why is this happening to me?", and "When is this going to be over?", and "I'm so tired". How could we disagree. We just gave her words of encouragement, telling her that she was doing well, that she was strong. For those bigger questions, we have no answers. Why does one have to suffer so much? When will the pain release? We don't know. The 'not knowing' is where most of the fear resides. When asked where her pain level was on a score of 1-10, she said 10. We suspect its much lower as she could move her hands, turn over herself, and was not sensitive to our touch as much. However, her psychological pain might very well be a 20. And, psychological pain can greatly enhance the physical. I often think of her recovery process as having some level of post traumatic disorder. How could it not? In most things, the more you go through something- the easier it becomes. I don't believe this applies to chronic illness and pain.

Also disheartening was to see her bedsore. Its surrounded by black. That eventually HAS to undergo debridement (the process of removing dead skin and tissue). It was inferred that this could have been preventable. More on that later.

But, because there will be more on that later, it poses the question of "How much?". How much does one take? How much doses the caregiver take? Its utterly exhausting and seems a never ending uphill climb. We are doing our best to live in the moment, but that doesn't make the present moment less exhausting if the present moment presents utter feeling of exhaustion.
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