I’m not a doctor. I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I’m part of the generation that created the ability for people to Google their health.
More of what I know about my mother in-law’s condition: syncope?
Tag Archives: chapter excerpt
So it’s Halloween, after all – where are our ideas?
Are some phrases ever overused?
You know, “Don’t Give Up . . . Don’t Ever Give Up.” [or the cinema version, “Never give up, never surrender!“]
I’ll quote Jimmy Valvano’s speech a little more (from here):
“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.
“Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you and God bless you all.”
During his speech the teleprompter stated that he had 30 seconds left, to which Valvano responded, “They got that screen up there flashing 30 seconds, like I care about that screen. I got tumors all over my body and I’m worried about some guy in the back going 30 seconds.” He died less than two months later.
In the past three days, the doctors thought my mother in-law had lost the use of her left side. The doctors thought my mother in-law had lost the ability to swallow. The doctors have said that, at 94, my mother in-law’s road to recovery from stroke is probably going to be too long, considering the increased chance of the next major stroke, to be worth the effort.
And yet, here she is, after her second time getting up to use the bedside commode with assistance, urinating about 600 mL, asking to get dressed for the day.
Sure, she’s tired. The only nutrition besides water she’s had since Wednesday evening is 6 ounces of apple juice.
In a little while, I’ll see if she wants something more substantive – apple sauce, yogurt or ice cream.
If she wants to make herself better, I’ll assist her, as will the rest of the family, as we have done in the past four years and three previous “spells” in 2007, 2008, and April of this year.
My mother in-law is a quiet fighter full of fortitude, one of the last members of the Greatest Generation – her two children by birth, a son and a daughter, becoming a physicist and rocket engineer, respectively, and her “adopted” daughter, or charge, marrying and supporting a man who became a gastroenterologist.
Because of the doctors’ recommendation to let my mother in-law go quietly into the night, we held back our hope that she’d recover this time.
Of course, she could have a major stroke or myocardial infarction at any time.
Life is uncertain so keep making your way through life with certainty, no matter whether you’re a member of the Greatest Generation or the Un-Generation.
Time for this caretaker to help his mother in-law gain strength.
Family first, galaxy second.
What if you could request an elevator/lift voice change?
Is self-knowledge overrated? I don’t know.
Better news to report today on the brain front, though.
My mother in-law requested that she sit on the bedside commode instead of soiling her diaper so the nurses helped her out of bed and she urinated as she normally did. Later, she held her first long conversation with her older daughter, reminisced about former neighbours, talked briefly with her granddaughter in-law’s parents, and drank 4 oz. of apple juice, her first “food” in four days. She remembers everything up to the fall/stroke, including that she won a five-dollar prize at bingo, won a bridge game, and that the first assisted living community she was in had been going downhill so that’s why she left it.
She was sleepy/groggy because of the pain medicine and got confused just before she fell asleep, repeating questions she’s repeated the last three times she has gone through these episodes (“I need to talk with my second daughter about finances”).
In other words, if we hadn’t been told she had a stroke, we would assume this is just another one of my mother in-law’s falls that takes her a few weeks/months to recover from physically, relatively normal for a person her age, in my opinion.
Of course, we’ll share all this with the doctor(s) tomorrow.
= = =
Thanks to Zach and Fred Foulks at Chick-fil-A; Kurt at Arby’s; Elizabeth who was having a bad day; Andrea, Peter, Kristyn, and more at Huntsville Hospital.
= = =
Your design challenge, if you choose to accept it: your own set of blinky lights.
Two data points
Second half game plan
There are so many people to thank, I don’t know where to start.
The players? Da’Rick, Simms and the other young guys…
The teams? St. Louis Cardinals, perhaps…
Health care providers? T’ Rona, Amy, Melissa, Lana, Courtney, Zach, Tyler, Dr. Arora, Dr. Man, Dr. Mandge, Jennifer, Christel, Debbie, Tonya, Dr. Kimpel, Laura, Lauren, Julia, Bryan, Shannon, Kimberlee, Sandra, Tana, Katy, Paris, Dr. Jia… [the list to be continued]
My wife plays Angry Birds on iPad, I read/type on the Kindle…and we wait.
I’m not ready to call this a death watch but…
Major minor stroke…all the extremities are working but…
She’ll answer questions about pain, will move fingers/toes/arms/legs, and open eyes on command but…
She seems to be in her own world.
Her hands and feet move around even though she seems to be snoring in her sleep.
A pained look appears on her face. She scratches behind her ear, rubs her eyelid, and searches for her left hand under the covers with her free right hand.
My wife holds her mother’s hand for a few minutes.
Three or four drops of saline drip every fifteen seconds. 80 mL/hr…
We wait…
Comfort care…
What is she thinking? Does she feel like there’s anyone to look at when she opens her eyes for a second or two? Are memories her comfort food now? Does she know where she is? Is she waiting? Is she bored?
She returns to a deep sleep. She dreams, perhaps, of her successful adjustment to a second half game plan.
Pre-hospice care…
Only the mind’s I knows for sure.
Putting the Patient’s Care First
In case you’re interested (and even if you’re not), here’s the detailed info about the stroke. The doctors said that my mother in-law has atrial fibrillation (had it for a long time), which is a type of irregular heartbeat. In this case, when the heart does not beat or pump properly, blood can pool within the heart resulting in the formation of blood clots, which can travel to the brain causing a stroke. The doctors believe the clot formed in the right medial cerebral artery (click here for more details about the artery):
- Supplies most of the temporal lobe, anterolateral frontal lobe, and parietal lobe.
- Perforating branches supply the posterior limb of the internal capsule, part of the head and body of the caudate and globus pallidus.
- Unilateral occlusion of Middle Cerebral Arteries at the stem (proximal M1 segment) results in:
- Contralateral hemiplegia affecting face, arm, and leg (lesser).
- Homonymous hemianopia – Ipsilateral head/eye deviation.
- If on left: global aphasia.
- Usually occlusion is embolic in nature – thrombotic occlusion more common in carotids.
Now for detailed report of MRI (without contrast):
Stroke indication: Fall. Altered mental state. The patient was in atrial fibrillation. Confusion and memory loss.
Technique: Multispin and multiplanar MR images of the brain.
Findings: Abnormal diffusion weighted signal is seen within the right basal ganglia and right MCA distribution extending to the temporal lobe concerning for right MCA infarct.
Prominence of the lateral ventricles, sulci, and basal cisterns is consistent with age related atrophy. Increased signal within the periventricular white matter is consistent with small vessel gliosis of a chronic nature.
No mass, mass effect, nor extraaxial fluid collections are seen. The basal cisterns remain intact and uneffaced. The paranasal sinuses and orbits appear normal.
CONCLUSION: Acute right MCA infarct. Age related atrophy. Chronic small vessel periventricular gliosis is noted as well.
= = =
Now the harder decisions.
Do we pursue any sort of physical therapy for her, knowing that her chance for another stroke, the “big one,” increases by the day?
Do we simply provide her comfort care for the rest of her life, going down the path of hospice-based assistance, assuming she might not live another six months, giving her whatever she wants even if it increases her chance of dying any moment (e.g., letting her drink as much water and eat as much food as she wants although she might choke on the intake)?
As usual, we’ll keep feeding her quiet, gentle sense of humour, which she has nurtured on even the most trying days of her life.
worldwide strike, 14th Nov [eom]
Humour Yourself
I have friends who embrace social media, sharing every intimate detail of their lives, and those who won’t even own a mobile phone or fly, for fear they’re being tracked.
I don’t fear anything. Well, not much…the venomous spider hiding in the woodpile on the evening I’m too cold and careless to look while carrying cellulose fuel into the house on a below-freezing day, for instance.
As far as social media goes, I’m of the opinion that I want social media providers to clearly state how my data is used so I sympathise with this guy.
However, I “mine” my friends’ social media information myself, putting their data into the supercomputer for tests and experiments on potential new formulae to apply universally across subculture manipulation subroutines.
In other words, the more social media data I gather, the more I can monitor how social media providers are influencing the same subcultures I’m experimenting with, including employees of the social media providers.
It’s what the Book of the Future showed me – put ideas in employees of companies/governments you want to control and it doesn’t matter what they think they have hidden from you.
Even of feeding my paranoid readers.
Time to feed myself and then turn to nature for some casual observations and perhaps create a new home “movie”.
= = =
Thanks to Mary Vaughn for the lovely organ/piano music on Sunday – the choir she accompanied performed superbly, too.
UPDATE: In a previous post, a sentence should have begun with “To ensure your future existence,”.
One person – you – can make a difference
Apologies to readers looking for the next chapter from the Book of the Future.
Creating a little me time to remember who I am before I’m completely forgotten…
Ever since about age 5, I’ve seen the world from a sarcastic/cynical/satirical perspective, in total awe of those who take their lives so darn seriously.
When I get bored, I analyse myself for entertainment.
The distribution of resources – raw, processed, assembled, manufactured – is never perfectly smooth.
Would you say Jericho was brought down by an earthquake and local tribes, looking to expand, entered the city, claiming manifest destiny rather than eminent domain?
Is it anyone’s fault if resources are instantly available to those who are willing to take full advantage of the situation?
Imagine building an atomic weapon that’s encased inside a wormlike device.
You’re hired to drill oil wells for the local tribe.
To ensure your future, you drill the wells but send atomic worms to the bottom of the well and let them “eat” their way into strategic locations deep underground.
One day, when the local tribe decides it’s had enough of you, it sends you away and takes over the resources for itself.
You remotely trigger an atomic worm to detonate, poisoning the oil and causing earthquakes throughout the region.
Word spreads.
Local tribes don’t interfere with your desire to “share” their tribal oil with you.
The same for water, the elixir of life.
The list goes on and on.
You toucha my resources, I breaka your fingers.
From thermostat redesign to atomic worms, one person, whose thoughts idle, makes a difference.
Or, when elites have immunity from the law of the land, anarchy is not far behind.
Best be invisible and rule the world, nudging the people ever so slightly in order to accomplish goals that take millennia.
The year 3011 is not that far away.
Next goal: 14072 days to go.
Last thought for the day: If I don’t give protection for my local financial institutes to fund my economy, and they fail, will foreign financial institutes take over? Who’ll be the figurehead leaders, then? Who will really control the global economy? And how will I get the resources I need to send life off this planet? See where this is going, don’t you? Read about it in the next free chapter from the Book of the Future, written by you every day…
Which do you value most?
Do you value:
- the creation of a child?
- the creation of a new breed of cattle/sheep/cat/dog/pig/plant?
- the issuance of a new patent?
I don’t know much about what’s going on today – people eat, live and die, for all I know.
The Vatican is probably providing more details about putting ethics about into global finance/commerce.
And a friend of mine is excited about receiving word his patent application has been approved.
Meanwhile, I sliced the end of my finger while cutting apart a floor fan to install some Hokey Spokes displays for an upcoming party.
Today is a day of small wonders.
International intrigue takes a back seat to my devoting time to the average guy in me who eats at Shogun Restaurant and gets his hair trimmed at Cuts By Us.
Happiness in simplicity – that’s my longterm goal.
All the other stuff – globalising everything we do so we can more efficiently focus on transporting some of us off this planet – is just idling my time until I can forget about the rest of us and focus on writing about the beautiful, forgetful nothingness of animal and plant life in the ecosystem around me.
In the big picture, we’re forgotten. Why waste my time pretending I’ll be remembered?
Time for a nap, cook dinner and spend the evening with my wife.
Another congrats to my friend who’s waited 3-1/2 years to get his U.S. patent. Best wishes to him in creating a profitable market or finding a buyer who’s already staked out potential sales territory and future product enhancements.
treetrunkdings 