New Routines, Lots of Help

We are settling into the new routine, now. With the added blessing of having my sisters and a cousin coming in from California and Louisiana to help out and offer 24 hour support, I finally got a good night’s sleep last night. I have to say that our Hospice Team has been a HUGE blessing through this transition. I cannot praise the Providence Hospice program enough for the smooth, professional and compassionate care that they have offered to my mother and the loving and steady support that they have given me.

Mom is sleeping almost all the time now. She is able to suck a bit of water off of a small sponge in more wakeful moments, but we are avoiding giving her larger amounts of water, even from a syringe (without a needle, obviously), as she cannot swallow consistently now. We are placing her anti-anxiety medicine under her tongue or between her teeth and her lip and letting it dissolve. Every once in a while she is wakeful enough to chew it and once she spit it back out at me; Ever the defiant one!  Her pain medication is given by way of a syringe, without a needle, and is squirted on either side of her mouth between her teeth and lips. This allows the medicines to be absorbed slowly through the mucous membranes of her mouth. It is bitter tasting medicine, so we follow it with several sponges full of water.

She is actually doing quite well, right now, with only limited doses of the pain and anxiety medicines. When she gets restless, we give her a small dose of the anxiety medicine and when she begins to toss and cry out in her dreams, an indicator of oncoming pain, then, and only then, do we give her a dose of the pain medicine. She has not been chatty, but she has been able to acknowledge and, sometimes, converse a bit with her visiting grandson, which brings her great delight.

She has developed some swelling in her ankles and feet, but by keeping them elevated, we have managed to avoid that becoming a problem, so far. Her hands have shown signs of bluing, but then they clear up again, which is an indicator that her circulatory system is starting to slow down. Her body temperature regulating system is wacky now, too. She will begin feeling hot to the touch and we remove her blanket and when she begins to feel chilly to the touch, we cover her back up. When she gets too hot and clammy, then we have to give her a Tylenol suppository to break the “fever”. Most interesting to me this morning was that her core and her feet were cool, but her hands were burning up. Her face was cool, but her chin was on fire. There were some amazing gymnastics being done with blankets and ceiling fans to try and balance her body’s heat, for sure!

All in all, it’s all quiet on the home front now. We are treasuring the last few days that we have with Mom and each of us are taking an extra moment to hold her hand, or pet her cheek. I even sit beside her and sing some of the old songs that she used to love… badly, yes, but none-the-less they are familiar favorites, so I do my best.