More Chalk and Cheese Days

More Chalk and Cheese Days

Wednesday, 4 March, was rather difficult.

Since being on diuretics since Friday, and as Mum is passing less urine than she used to, I rang the surgery this morning, to ask for Mum's doctor's advice. The doctor rang us back and understood how worried we are, with Mum being so swollen up; she suggested we increase the dose, from 20mg to 40mg - so we will do that, and hope it will work. If Mum starts to get rid of all that water, the ladies will be able to hoist her again, and Mum will be happy to be able to sit in the chair again.

Apart from being so worried about Mum's swollen arms, back and torso - and the fact that since she has been on the diuretic tablets, she is passing less water than she was before! - she was really very unresponsive today.

Both her right and left arms can be very stiff; usually it's her left arm that is the worse, and we have to raise it up ourselves to get it resting on a pillow, but usually she can manage to lift her right arm up by herself reasonably well, but today both arms were like lead weights.

Still, we managed to sit Mum up and wash her hands (using bowls of water on the table over the bed), and brush her teeth. She could not hold the toothbrush herself; we did it for her. I sang the toothbrush song ("We brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, brush, we brush the whole day long...!") but that didn't elicit a response either.

When I think that just a couple of weeks ago, when she could still be hoisted into the chair, it is so sad to have her bed bound - it's tough for Mum (she did say she wanted to get up) and hard for us, too, trying to get everything positioned close enough to her without being in danger of spilling water/tea/corn flakes on the bed.

She had hardly any breakfast - just a few corn flakes, but at least I managed to put her pills on the spoon, so they went down alright - and about 1/4 of a cup of tea. She was very dozy, and it was not fair to force anything on her; when the ladies came at lunch time, they made her nice and comfy, and she slept on until 4.30.

She was awake again then, and at least she managed to eat all her dinner, which was reasonably "wet" with extra water,. She complained about her leg hurting her, so Bob prepared a couple of "Fizzy Pop"  tablets - two soluble paracetamols. She managed to drink all that medicine down, and also had a little tea, but then she was dozing again. She was really not "with it" today, and didn't talk to Wendy on the phone either.

At about 8.30 p.m. I made her another cup of tea, and she had some cake, but not much tea; we left it at that, and hoped for better things on the morrow.

Thursday, 5 March

And so it was, very much better! A totally different day. Mum was bright and chatty, knew who we were - apart from wanting to go back to South Africa, and marry a South African chap - and she was moving her arms so much more easily - even her left arm came back into play!

It was almost a doddle washing her hands this morning, and Mum even had a go at brushing her teeth herself. Then followed breakfast, and she really enjoyed her cornflakes, had all her pills and the tea cup was drained of tea.

Towards lunch time, we also spoke to Wendy, and Mum was quite lucid and knew what she had had for breakfast.

She had a good kip until about 3.00 p.m., when the District Nurse called to see how Mum's legs are; in fact Mum's lower legs are doing rather well! and we decided not to bandage them up again just now. If Mum is not moving quite so much, she might not kick herself as she has done in the past, so she won't need protection to prevent bruising. Her lower legs are also slimmer; but it does not explain when being on diuretics doesn't seem to have encouraged Mum to pass more water.

We shall have to persevere for a few more days with the diuretics, and it we're still worried, we'll ring the surgery on Monday, and ask Mum's GP for further advice.

The rest of the evening has been really nice; Mum had all her dinner and another cup of tea; for supper I made Mum a slice of cake and more tea, but she didn't fancy much cake. After the big dinner she put away, I wasn't too worried about that, and at least she had a little more tea.

Al rang, and had a nice sensible exchange with Mum. It was so lovely when I heard her say, "Hello Al!"

Al said, "Hello, and how are you?!"

Mum responded with "I'm fine! - How are you?"

"I'm alright!" said Al, "and what have you been getting up to?"

"I've had my dinner!" said Mum.

Simple things like this really make my day!

After that, I played piano and we all sang; Mum joined in, and it rounded off a good day.  Wednesday and Thursday - definitely "Chalk and Cheese" experiences!