Update on Mom's Health

A few weeks ago I journaled here that my mother fell in the middle of the night.

Since then, she's had Xrays twice because her pain level has been intense.

Before she fell, she had two broken vertebrae. The Xrays show that she worsened the break in what we members of the medical laity know as her tail bone. Now, rather than calling it broken, we're being told it's crushed.  She's undergoing physical therapy which she doesn't like because it increases her pain to an even higher level.

In addition to her physical pain, she has related physical problems and, as is often the case with people suffering from dementia, the physical trauma has created a rapid decline in her mental state.

Her memory, at least for the moment, is gone to the degree that it is dangerous. When we ask her if she's had physical therapy that day, she always says that she has. She has absolutely no memory of the previous day.

Because she's in so much pain, her appetite is gone and she doesn't want to eat many meals. Dad is so far into his dementia that he has lost awareness of the concept of meal time and doesn't ever seem to be hungry, though he eats if you give him food. And, he's losing weight.

Mom often tells the staff from the home that they don't want a meal and, based on the rules, it appears that she can refuse meals for both of them.

All of this works together to create an unsafe situation.

It's very stressful for the family.

That's the latest from our version of Lake Wobegon.