Re: Mom falling....

[Guest guest]

Mom is 74, has non alcoholic cirrhosis. She is stage C on the child pugh sore

thingie and about a 16 on the meld.

She fell in July, had surgery to repair the burst vertebra 30 days after the

break (due to misdiagnosis). She lost 30lbs in rehab, during surgery she went

into DIC (lose your clotting factors and bleed out) and ATN (Acute tubular

necrosis basically renal failure). The DIC and Renal failure resolved, but by

September we were battling edema and another two weeks later CT showed end stage

liver disease. Apparently she has had a fatty liver 30yrs ago, then mild

cirrhosis for yrs, then she took rhumetoid arthritis drugs for 5yrs that

continued to damage the liver, then the surgery for the broken back and trauma

of DIC/ATN which was the final straw, now her liver is kaput.

We have home health nursing coming 2x a week. I wash and care for her skin

tears. Using Tegaderm to cover and protect. The hospital is no place for

getting rest and healing, at least in my opinion. We take labs as necessary and

keep her rolling to get rid of the bed sores that have come on since being in

the hospital. She was in last week when she had chest pain, which turned out to

not be cardiac, but most likely gastro. They thought maybe having paracentesis

would be helpful, but she isn't ready for it yet...her choice. She isn't having

shortness of breath and still has " room " according to the nurse who checks her

belly.

We have been approved for Hospice...meaning, the doc said yes she is in the last

6 months of life. When I asked the nurses at homehealth what Hospice could

offer us that we didn't have or weren't doing now, they couldn't come up with a

thing. If and when she starts having pain that we can't manage we will switch

to hospice. For now we keep her comfortable, clean, warm, fed, loved on, and

pampered! We tease she is at the spa, getting facials, pedicures and manicures,

and massage. It is a hard job!

The tailbone area has a thin slit, about 1/2 " long, above the crack (sorry for

the details) and it is being watched by the home health nurse. I put laniseptic

on it, and other barrier creams.

The falls are terrible and I hope we don't have another. We have put the

commode right next to her bed so we are only doing the roll to side, sit, stand,

pivot, sit. I let her sit for as long as she needs before actually standing and

then hold her the whole time. It was a real dead weight feel when she went

over...and I felt helpless and terrible. I've tegadermed all her skin tears and

they are doing great. She has little to no pain so she is a very lucky lady!

The fall was on Thursday and she has been getting up as usual since...but I know

it is just a matter of time before we are into the diaper phase and just rolling

in bed. ....sigh....sure seems like a cruel disease.

Pamela

Re: Mom falling....

Pamela,

Can you rehash for me why she's not in hospice or a hospital? I'm sure you

posted something way earlier...

Paracentisis is usually done in a hospital in a inpatient setting. Although my

wife had one done as an outpatient. It took me almost two hours to get Tricare

to approve it since their system showed it as inpatient. Anyway...The person

that did my wifes worked in radiology, I think. He used ultrasound, tapped the

belly, and removed the fluid. Samples were sent to the Lab to check for sepsis

or infenction. But I am pretty sure it was Radiology. It wasn't a specialist.

But, I'm concerned that maybe you need more help. Are there opportunities for

someone like hospice to come into your home and help?

In a hospital setting a catheter would be in place.

Can you remind me how old she is?

There may be a time, that regardless of her wishes to stay at home, that you

may need to go to the ER. I am worried about infection from the skin breaks and

that you said " tailbone breakthrough " Can you explain that? Is bone actually

protruding from the skin?

MaC

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