Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Update, Wednesday August 12

If you have been reading this blog with any regularity, you are probably surmising that we are wrestling with some big situations right now with regards to mom's next steps and long term care, and you would be correct. I am not going to sugar-coat it; things are tough right now. Mom's therapies are ending this week completely. She is not progressing at this point. That is not to say that she won't make further progress. It's just that, at this moment, we are in the middle of figuring out our next steps for her and, since her physical therapies ended last week and her speech ends this Friday, she is in the interim where she is receiving no physical therapy right now while we figure out what private therapy we can get for her and get a schedule started up for that.

Today we will hear the assessment of mom's situation from our independently-hired Geriatric Care Management Team. I may not be able to attend the conference call (I have a training appointment tentatively scheduled for the exact same time, with mom's speech and physical therapy team at Sherrill House -- they invited us to have a training since mom's professional therapies with them are ending, so that we can help her to maintain and continue what she has learned.) The meeting with the team is at 3 on a conference call. They will report to us what they assess to be the best case scenario for mom's recovery, what the most realistic picture will be, what mom's wishes are versus what the realistic picture is, what we might be able to expect, and a detailed plan of action for mom's care and living situation. All of these things will take into consideration all the large picture aspects as well as all of the small details. This is a very big deal - these are people we have independently hired as advocated for mom's care, so they have no bias, no Medicare leaning on them, nothing. They are here for us so we anticipate an honest and real assessment of our situation and what steps we will take to bring the situation to the best possible state.

As for mom, I'm having a tough time lately with mom. She just does not understand why she cannot go home. It's heartbreaking and extremely frustrating. She says she can do things by herself, but she can't. She barely even looks to the right half the time. She still asks me to do things for her when I am there. We are in a very painful situation here and there is just no prettying it up. I worry that mom will make no more improvements. I know partly (...maybe more than partly) it is her own attitude/personality that is getting in her own way and this is killing me because it is dire situation - the time is NOW. There IS no waiting until tomorrow. It's maddening. The thing is, she knows -- at least she knows for a minute. But she simply cannot control her compulsions to continually engage in bad habits of communication. This makes it basically impossible for us to help guide her toward the improvements she needs to make in order to attain any independence. I wonder if she is simply incapable of making the changes that she needs to shore up these improvements. I am facing the facts that it is entirely possible that this is the case. Many of the signs do point to that possibility as an eventual reality. Sigh. Only time will tell. And, to be honest, the hourglass is running.

Hopefully we will have more information once the Assessment is complete. Stay tuned.

4 comments:

  1. Good luck and stay strong! My thoughts are with you guys

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  2. It sounds like you are doing everything you possibly can - stay strong.

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  3. My thoughts and prayers continue for all of you. {{{{HUGS}}}}

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