Home & Hospice

So it's been a bit of a whirlwind week...and gosh, it's only Wednesday!

I last updated you with mom with mom having gone to the hospital via 911 on Monday.  I can now say that as of today, she is home and resting in bed...in the living room!

See this?  A wee bit of a grin from both her and her cat, or at least the picture of her cat I drew for her that's hanging over her head. ;)  The real Jezebel is around there somewhere, maybe still hiding a bit instead of laying in bed with mom (but that's not her bed!).  No doubt all of this has been a bit of a trauma for her as well, to be sure...but I'm sure she'll be up on the bed with mom soon enough.  We know our furry family have special 'powers' that can sense far more about us that we may realize, as I believe it is with Jezebel.  I believe her "new" lap cat behavior that started a few months ago indicated she knew mom was sick before mom knew herself.  Pretty amazing when you think about it.

Now, to recap...her trip to the ER did indeed include a pretty powerful infection in her tummy that was making her feel pretty darned horrible.  On top of that, it was such that her incision from the recent surgery was effected by the infection fluids, fluids that had to be better contained while reducing the infection and hopefully allow some actual healing.  Her couple of days in the hospital included mega doses of antibiotics and she left today feeling and looking a lot better than she went in...I mean, look, you can actually tell the difference between the sheets and mom's face! ;)

Before her discharge from the hospital, there were a couple of family conferences and other discussions.  One of those was with the representative from Hope Hospice.  With mom's participation and approval, she is now officially in hospice care and there will be no chemo.  That's where that fancy bed came from, part of the hospice service.  Hospice basically provides oversight and assistance with mom's medical needs.  Nurses will be available, meds attended to, assistance from a CNA for body care, etc, but they will not be staying to provide any daily living assistive needs...such as trips to the bathroom, food, laundry, etc.

The current hope is that with the infection gone, mom will recover some elements of her ability to do for herself, which she was pretty able to do prior to this latest event.  Allowing "helper" visits as much as possible versus 24/7 care giving.  Hospice assistance is covered by her insurance, care giving is not, so we are trying to plan as strategically as possible.  This will be the time when assistance from her community will be most helpful to us all.  I will be heading down next week for a few days around the 4th of July weekend.  I'll be able to provide some respite for my brother and sister who have quite ably managed this current transition.  We will also be making further assessments as to what kind of assistance we may need and reach out to those able to help us in a bit more organized fashion...so as I've previously mentioned, stay tuned!

Reflecting on this latest and Nan's New Way, I know there are many of you who read this blog who have dealt with similar struggles in your own family.  We know you can empathize with the effects and challenges that are forced upon all involved with this terrible disease that is cancer.  As mom has stated several times, she's not afraid to die because she has her faith, believes strongly and looks forward to returning to her Father's heavenly home.  The reality is we don't really know when that time will come...it won't be tomorrow, but then again, who knows?  Part of that is up to mom.  But until it does, whenever it does, what we hope for is that mom's time in pain is as little as possible and she runs enthusiastically toward the light when it shines down upon her.