Closer to the edge, part 2:
As Connie weakened, and her anxiety increased, Susan’s load went further through the roof - she was horribly stressed and sleep deprived. This got worse when a very weak Connie kept trying to get out of bed and go somewhere or do something; we finally had to have someone in the bedroom with her all the time at night to keep an eye on her, as she would wake up every two hours or so and try to get out of bed to ‘do stuff’. The person on watch would end up sleep deprived and stressed, and there wasn’t much relief from it. And telling her not to do it didn’t make any difference; she’d just forget it in a few minutes.
On Tuesday, November 29th, I got up way early and couldn’t go back to sleep, and went off to work on my laptop in the dining room; Susan was in Connie’s bedroom sleeping. Around 5:30 am, I heard noises in the back of the house towards the bedrooms - and thought it was our blind dog Dot trying to maneuver around. And right after that, there was a huge, heavy CRASH that got me right out of my chair and woke up Susan; Connie had tried to get into the bathroom next to her room and had stumbled and fell to the floor, hard.
Her body blocked the door, and Susan had to squeeze in and see what was going on and try to get Connie back up.again. Connie had cracked her head HARD on the tile floor, and there was a lot of blood from a nasty-looking head gash. Susan and I got her out of there, cleaned her and the floor up, and took her into the living room recliner to rest. I contacted Connie’s hospice folks, and they informed the twice-a-week nurse (who was coming that morning anyhow to check her out) about the fall. I was also concerned about Connie from the standpoint of the hard head crack causing a concussion; I didn’t want to give her morphine and have that mask any concussion effects.
The nurse came at 8:30 am, and told us to move up her fentanyl patch dosage and the amount of morphine and lorazepam she was getting due to the increased pain levels and the sheer agony of the injury. She zoned out soon after that, and Susan and I started to review our options. And Connie didn’t need stitches for the cut.
One thing was certain; we couldn’t sustain this whole 24/7 close watch on her. Over the days since then, we found that the options were limited to either (1) keep up her care at home, or (2) pay a lot of money we did not have to put her in a nursing home with trained nurses to watch her. There wasn’t any public help available that was any significant use to us in this situation; Connie was on Medicare / Medicaid, but the state was very tight on this sort of thing and simply wouldn’t pay.
What hospice did do was to put better rails on the bed that were too difficult for Connie to deal with and too high to get over - and to dope her up further, as noted above. Connie’s face was pretty messed up by the fall; she looked like she’d been on the losing end of a boxing match, with two black, swollen eyes and the scrapes, head knot and gash. She swore to us over and over again that she would never try that sort of stunt again…
…but she was also sleeping a lot more, and her eyes started looking very vacant. She’s forgotten who I am, and is either very spaced or not terribly coherent. All that is progressing pretty quickly now; our advisors told us that once she was out of the super-anxious stage, she’d slide into a near comatose state. Seems to be playing out that way.
We also have a set of ‘jingle bells’ on the railing of the bed so she can call for assistance, and that’s working, and Susan’s catching up or her huge sleep deficit.
And Mere is starting to show the strain. From Susan’s journal (December 1st):
Today is Meredith’s 12th birthday. Not one we’ll look back on with happy memories. Marlyce came over this morning and sat with Mom so Jim and I could run some errands and stayed for dinner. We got carryout from a local restaurant. The food was not up to her expectations and Mom’s decline made for a somber meal. Mere came home from school, expecting to see Grandma sitting in the living room and was upset that she wasn’t. Meredith has always been very cheerful around Mom and usually comes home with a smile and a ”Hi Grandma”. Today, Mom wasn’t able to respond.
It’s been a very tough day. Mom is no longer able to get out of bed and isn’t really capable of responding to anything. She can’t even turn over by herself.
Tonight, Susan and Connie’s sister Marlyce were taking close care of Connie, and I have no idea what was happening, but the broken-hearted looks of a very tired and very sad Susan told me enough- that Connie was probably failing further. At this point, it looks like the fall will speed up the process quite a bit. I saw this before when my Mom died of cancer nearly a decade ago, and I really hate seeing it again with such a sweet lady.
We called to wish Meredith Ellen a happy birthday, and ended up leaving a message. Mere was obviously sad and unhappy this evening, and there wasn’t much we could say or do.