Coming out of lurkdom here @veruca – My mother is 86 now. Four years ago she lived in her single-story ranch, taking care of all the housework and yard work (neighbors snow-blowed driveway and shoveled her walk). One fine hot and humid August day she mowed her lawn, got a call from her urologist that she had a UTI, and drove to pick up her antibiotic. We spoke on the phone that evening and she said she was confused about dosage. Since she was sometimes overwhelmed about scheduled meds she already was taking, and I was ignorant about the danger signals, I put this confusion off to personality rather than alarming symptom. When I called her the next morning and couldn’t reach her, I went to her house and found her unconscious on the bathroom floor. Cue 911.
She had a lump on the back of her head, the UTI, and was having seizures from dangerously low sodium levels. Stabilized and placed in ICU. Unconscious, unconscious, unconscious. Medical staff having conversations about what-ifs, including what does her living will say. Her eyes blinked open briefly 36 hours after she was admitted. She followed twitch-your-toes command maybe a day later. About a week afterwards, she got out of bed and told the nurse she wanted to go home. (On a CC note, we got the call with this happy news the morning newly graduated DS1 was heading to an interview for the job he landed.) She was still very weak and confused. Worried about her lawn – had she finished it? Was the mower put away? – but cooperative. After about twelve days in the hospital, she went to rehab.
Rehab was amazing. OT/PT several times a week, conscientious care, encouragement, fantastic support in making short- and long-term decisions. A month after her hospital admission, my mother made my sons’ favorite chocolate chip cookies for her OT session. A few days after that, she had a four-hour pass to come over my house for some lunch. Two weeks after that, she moved into our house. (DH and myself; DS1 living and working in a nearby city, DS2 away at school.) She was able to manage her own self-care, hygiene, dressing. Cooking her own food was a bit too much for the first couple of weeks. She asked me to handle bill paying for another month or so, then to proofread. She started taking walks in the yard, then down our sloped 1/4-mile driveway, then down our country road, a little over a half-hour a day. Did all her own self-care, menu planning, cooking, prescription organization, finances. She stopped driving for good the moment she realized she didn’t remember the drive to get abx the day before being hospitalized.
My mother lived with us for 2 1/2 years. She qualified for a subsidized apartment fifteen minutes away from us and is very, very happy there. The only thing she doesn’t do on her own is drive, and I’m a stay-at-home with the luxury of time and flexibility to run errands for and with her.
She’s five-foot-nothing, 110 pounds, has had TB and years of malnutrition (childhood and young adulthood in WWII-era Europe), has celiac, and is prone to UTIs. The UTI made her very confused. The knock on her head didn’t help. The anti-seizure medication impaired her balance so badly they discontinued it. Initially the physicians couldn’t tell us if she’d survive, or whether she’d have any cognitive ability if she did. They kept saying it’s a marathon and not a sprint, and I guess it still is, but she’s back cognitively and sounds happier than before she got sick. I have to add that the experience just rocked her, and the emotional impact jarred her confidence. The fear of a near-miss seemed immobilizing at times.
It’s terrifying to watch and not know – you’re in limbo with her. Think marathon, but the slow plodding kind. Very best wishes to you.