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Mom is home from the hospital.
She had a stroke on Monday. We were fortunate to catch it as it was happening and get her to the hospital quite quickly.
Because I'm in the benighted state of Georgia (vaccination rate went up to 41% having had at least their first shot), we're back, as of yesterday, under COVID rules at hospitals -- only one family member and that person can't return after leaving. I got her for most of the first day. I was asked to talk to her as the nurses didn't know what her usual speech patterns and vocabulary are like. I asked her some random questions and from left field said, "What are the names of our dogs?" The look she shot me could have melted titanium.
There was a little bit of evasion and stammering, plus complaints about people putting things on her being a distraction (ECG leads) before she said, "N-n-nick and ... No-ra," which was correct. If I asked her things that followed in a logical order, she was mostly okay by that point, but anything that came out of left field, like the sudden question about the dogs, was too confusing.
It was still better than when we left the house. I had to help her dress. For once we were able to convince her to use her walker, but she couldn't fasten her own seat belt (and still couldn't today). Since we'd forgotten her list of medications, I went home and got it (then revised it when three months proved to be too out of date) while Sis was with her. Had it happened a day later, that couldn't have been done.
Sis got to see the neurologist who showed her the imaging of Mom's brain. There was a bright spot on the left side of her brain showing the current stroke and another slightly fainter bright spot showing an earlier stroke. Whether it was concurrent with her heart attack in December or came a bit later, the doctor seems relatively certain that it was a year or less since that first one happened. There were also some tiny -- Sis described them as a pattern of holes -- indicating a history of transient ischemic attacks. All of them were where the neurologist expected her stroke to be based on her symptoms, especially the loss of language.
Mom is stubborn. She no longer terrifies me, but she still scares me a bit. I do my best to treat her like the adult she is. This is to preface that I didn't just pick her up and throw her into the car on Saturday night. She hates going to the ER (and with COVID again, I worry about having to take her), so she refused to go when her evening blood pressure on Saturday was 235/119. No, there are no typos in those numbers. Her current cardiologist, who may soon be dropped from a great height into a deep river, berated her for going to the emergency room earlier this year when her blood pressure was 205/105. The hospital cardiologist flat out stated that we should bring her to the ER (or at least Urgent care) if the top number is over 160 or if the bottom one breaks 100.
Could I have prevented this by out stubborning her on Saturday? I don't know.
Her right thumb doesn't work right and her right hand grip is weaker than her left hand grip. She has balance issues and kept listing left. She couldn't remember the word "doctor" yesterday, but I worked out what she meant when she asked about "white coats." We're trying to find out if we can get her into PT and OT. The hospital didn't think she needed speech therapy. She's also under the impression that she doesn't have to use a cane around the house. Sis and I will gang up on her tomorrow and explain that, yes, she does.
She had a stroke on Monday. We were fortunate to catch it as it was happening and get her to the hospital quite quickly.
Because I'm in the benighted state of Georgia (vaccination rate went up to 41% having had at least their first shot), we're back, as of yesterday, under COVID rules at hospitals -- only one family member and that person can't return after leaving. I got her for most of the first day. I was asked to talk to her as the nurses didn't know what her usual speech patterns and vocabulary are like. I asked her some random questions and from left field said, "What are the names of our dogs?" The look she shot me could have melted titanium.
There was a little bit of evasion and stammering, plus complaints about people putting things on her being a distraction (ECG leads) before she said, "N-n-nick and ... No-ra," which was correct. If I asked her things that followed in a logical order, she was mostly okay by that point, but anything that came out of left field, like the sudden question about the dogs, was too confusing.
It was still better than when we left the house. I had to help her dress. For once we were able to convince her to use her walker, but she couldn't fasten her own seat belt (and still couldn't today). Since we'd forgotten her list of medications, I went home and got it (then revised it when three months proved to be too out of date) while Sis was with her. Had it happened a day later, that couldn't have been done.
Sis got to see the neurologist who showed her the imaging of Mom's brain. There was a bright spot on the left side of her brain showing the current stroke and another slightly fainter bright spot showing an earlier stroke. Whether it was concurrent with her heart attack in December or came a bit later, the doctor seems relatively certain that it was a year or less since that first one happened. There were also some tiny -- Sis described them as a pattern of holes -- indicating a history of transient ischemic attacks. All of them were where the neurologist expected her stroke to be based on her symptoms, especially the loss of language.
Mom is stubborn. She no longer terrifies me, but she still scares me a bit. I do my best to treat her like the adult she is. This is to preface that I didn't just pick her up and throw her into the car on Saturday night. She hates going to the ER (and with COVID again, I worry about having to take her), so she refused to go when her evening blood pressure on Saturday was 235/119. No, there are no typos in those numbers. Her current cardiologist, who may soon be dropped from a great height into a deep river, berated her for going to the emergency room earlier this year when her blood pressure was 205/105. The hospital cardiologist flat out stated that we should bring her to the ER (or at least Urgent care) if the top number is over 160 or if the bottom one breaks 100.
Could I have prevented this by out stubborning her on Saturday? I don't know.
Her right thumb doesn't work right and her right hand grip is weaker than her left hand grip. She has balance issues and kept listing left. She couldn't remember the word "doctor" yesterday, but I worked out what she meant when she asked about "white coats." We're trying to find out if we can get her into PT and OT. The hospital didn't think she needed speech therapy. She's also under the impression that she doesn't have to use a cane around the house. Sis and I will gang up on her tomorrow and explain that, yes, she does.
