When your caree doesn’t act like your caree

      “STOP, Please read this before continuing” Pain medications and their side effects vary from person to person, so please if your reading this and you’ve never had to take any of    the medications mentioned here in “Do Not” think just because my mom had these side effects that you will also have them.  You’re not currently on all the other medications she’s  on, you do not have the condition(s) she does, everyone is affected differently, this is mom’s story.  Mom so far this hospital stay, which includes the initial emergency room (ER)  visit, the Sutter, Roseville (SR) surgical stay and now the Rehabilitation Facility (RF) visit, mom has had the following hallucinations, these are just some of the people, places and  things that she has seen and remembers,

Hallucinations 101:

• Pastor took her to a church auditorium (not within the facility), where children in white sang to her.  As she put it, “They were angelic. (SR)
• The nurses were walking like penguins. (ER/SR)
• Aliens visited to take my younger brother (Jimmy) and they were informing mom before hand. (SR)
• She thought I was in the hall talking with mom’s younger sister Susie, when I was sitting bedside and several times she looked right at me. (RH)
• She has seen Trish’s (my wife) Grandma and Dad at the end of her bed and they were singing Pop songs, both have passed away. (RF)
• She has had talks she does not remember content, with Trish’s mom. (ER/SR/RF)
• She has Yelled, from her bed, “If you want to talk about me, do it to my face.”  Come to find out there is a nurse there with the same name and they were calling here and then discussing other patients, Not Mom. (RF)
• I received a call from mom asking if I could call Mark (my older brother) and tell him she could hear him talking about her with the nurse in the hall way.  When I called Mark he in fact was 35 minutes into his 2 hour drive home. (RF)
• Mom heard a helicopter land outside her room and just before that heard nurses in the hall talking about one of their friends was in a mass accident and was being airlifted into the facility.  When this nurse came to check on mom, she was offered thoughts and prayers for her friend and with a wondering look on her face the nurse asked mom what it was she meant?  Mom explained the situation as she knew it and while backing up toward the door, the nurse explained, “Ugh Carol, we do have helicopters land here and none of my friends have been involved in any accidents.”  Mom explained that she heard one land just moments earlier and heard her and the other nurse talking.  The nurse (who didn’t want her name revealed) again explained the reality to mom, who would have bet dollars to donuts it truly happened.
• After several talks with mom she still believes that the nurses (one in general) were trying to get her to take Morphine so she will sleep all night and they will not have to deal with her. (RF)
• There were several other occasions where things happened that I’m sure mom would be embarrassed for me to list.  So for her I will have to take the 5th.

This is just the situations I have been involved in and the one or two that my brothers informed me about.   The real question here is, “Who was she seeing or talking to when we were not around and just think what the staff and other patients thought about this crazy woman in the same room with them.  That is the real hard part in all this, when mom first was seen both at the hospital and here at the rehabilitation facility, no one taking care of her, doing surgery on her or feeding her medicine knew who this strange, mumbling, in another dimension, sedated, woman really was before the anesthesia, Tramadol and Morphine all kicked in.  Mom would never in a million years call someone a whale, non the less a beached whale.  She is the out going, welcome to the neighborhood, I’ll watch your kids why you take a break, mother of three boys, two daughters (step), five (grand/step grand kids, four grand/great-grand doggies and more).  You take the side effects of the narcotics she’s now on and top this off with her words being transposed due to her stroke, her nerves making the stroke side effects worse and now the pain from a broken femur,  Who knows, they may be thinking about fitting my mom with a straight jacket and right now she is not acting like my mom.  This is just some of the reasons we as Caregivers and Caree Advocates need to do our best to be available when ever the doctor, hospital team, case worker, who ever may walk through their door that is of any power, to back our caree and let them know that the person lying in bed right now is not normally the person you see, but person “XYZ.”  If we don’t, they will believe and will do what they feel is in the best interest of their patient if we are not around to stand up for them.

I am in the process of making myself up some “Care-Advocate” business cards (because this is a business), which will have all my contact information on it and on the reverse if it will fit mom’s medication list, so for when I run to the cafeteria, the facilities or to the care to grab a wall charger for my darn phone that seems to run low on battery right before the doctor visits.  I will leave these with mom, on the side table in her room and up on the message board so the nurses and doctors all know how to contact me if I happen to not be there.  I am using Avery #5871 Clean Edge Business Card Stock, which I purchased from Staples for $17.99 for 200 business cards and it comes with directions on how to go into various systems and set up the exact margins and printer settings so they print perfectly.  If we happen to run into each other at a show, conference, or other situation ask me for my card, I guarantee I will have one or at least know where to get my back up stock.  Thank you for taking your valuable time to read my blogs.

– Richard (Kreisler)

PickYourPain@att.net

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