REWahoo's comment about "face to the wall" in his stroke thread prompted me to post this regarding my MIL. It takes awhile to get to the comment about "face to the wall."
Up until 6 weeks ago, my 95-year old MIL has been in virtually perfect health living in her studio apartment in an assisted living facility. She has now moved to a nursing home and has pretty much lost the will to live.
On February 17th, MIL called my BIL (who lives relatively close to her, we are almost 3 hours away) and said she needed to go to the hospital because she was "sick" and she was dying. She was complaining of some non-specific stomach pain (no vomiting or diarhea) which she could not describe in detail. She has never had any tolerance for pain (no practice since she was so healthy) and it is my understanding the tolerance is even lower for the elderly. BIL took her to the emergency room where he waited about 8 hours for her to get completely checked out. $688 in claims submitted so far (including an X-ray) but Medicaid plus her MD state retiree insurance will cover everything. BIL takes her home to her assisted living apartment.
On February 18th, MIL called BIL again with same complaint of being sick and dying. BIL made appointment with PCP. PCP saw her and said she has advanced Alzheimers and needs to be go to a nursing home. MIL may be experiencing some dimentia at 95 but I'm not sure where the advanced Alzheimers diagnosis came from as she had been living successfully in assisted living until several days before. Can someone with advanced Alzheimers use a cell phone on their own to call family members? PCP arranges for MIL to get admitted to the hospital to check out the abdominal/stomach pain.
After about 6 hours waiting in the emergency room, MIL is admitted to the hospital where she spends 3 days. MIL had a very bad experience being scoped about 8 years ago for a bleeding ulcer and refused to be scoped. Blood work done and all normal but still complaining she is "sick" and is dying due to the pain in her stomach and/or abdomen. Can't really get a specific answer to what she is experiencing. She is discharged without the cause of the pain being diagnosed to the rehab wing of a very nice looking nursing home. So far, I can see claims submitted on her insurance website for $13,000 related to the hospital stay and transport to rehab.
My husband is a nursing home ombudsman where we live so he checks on MIL's nursing home with its ombudsman in Cinci who says he probably wouldn't put his mom there unless there was nowhere else. A confirmation you can't necessarily tell the quality of care by the look of the facility. MIL pretty much lays in bed the first week of rehab still complaining of pain. She would be fine one day or part of a day and then be "sick" and dying again. She was treated for acid reflux (prilosec, don't lay down after meals, foods) and she started doing PT but root cause of pain or "sickness" could not be determined.
On March 4th, she decided she was done eating and drinking and was going to die. It's her life (and death) so in support of her decision we started to make arrangements with the nursing home. Within about 36 hours she had changed her mind and had decided to hang around. By March 14 she was doing so well she wanted to know why we were keeping her "in that place with sick people." She wanted to go back to her apartment NOW! The pain was pretty much gone as far as we could tell from her comments. On March 18th, she was released and went home. We had things set up for having her meds dipsensed and daily nurse visits to her apartment. The assisted living facility has a contracted nursing staff on-site and would provide assistance.
Total meltdown on first day back to her apartment. "I'm sick, just let me die. Please take me to a nursing home. I can't do this." Knowing this might be coming, we had checked out local nursing homes and found one close to my BIL with high ratings and recommendations for their quality of care. The building is older and the facilities are not as nice as the first nursing home/rehab but that's not our main concern.
MIL has no enthusiasm for life. She doesn't want to do anything but lay in bed. Like WAHoo's experience, she often turns her face to the wall when BIL and DH try to get her motivated and interested in life again. It's heartbreaking to see her with no interest in life when she was full of life 8 weeks ago. She is and has been on anti-depressants. Other meds are lisinopril and Aricept. PCP put her on that when she left the rehab facility although I didn't really see the point.
She has been having diarhea since moving to the nursing home (no issue in rehab, only new med is Aricept). She was on ringers for several days leading up to the latest issue which is a blood clot in her leg which put her back in the hospital. She told DH on Wednesday her foot "felt funny" so the staff at the nursing home took a look but saw nothing. By Thursday, the foot was cold and turning blue and she was taken to the hospital. A vascular surgeon was called in to take a look and he said he wouldn't touch her with a 10' pole given her age so the only option was to put her on blood thinners. BIL is watching over things at the hospital. Luckily, he is retired and his schedule is flexible and he is his mom's favorite.
BIL had his appointment with whoever authorizes Medicaid. MIL has SS and a small pension ($1400 per month combined) but no assets so it looks as if her application has been approved and the cost of the nursing home will be covered.
We are preparing to put our house on the market in the next week or so to begin the process of moving back to FL. That's another post.
Up until 6 weeks ago, my 95-year old MIL has been in virtually perfect health living in her studio apartment in an assisted living facility. She has now moved to a nursing home and has pretty much lost the will to live.
On February 17th, MIL called my BIL (who lives relatively close to her, we are almost 3 hours away) and said she needed to go to the hospital because she was "sick" and she was dying. She was complaining of some non-specific stomach pain (no vomiting or diarhea) which she could not describe in detail. She has never had any tolerance for pain (no practice since she was so healthy) and it is my understanding the tolerance is even lower for the elderly. BIL took her to the emergency room where he waited about 8 hours for her to get completely checked out. $688 in claims submitted so far (including an X-ray) but Medicaid plus her MD state retiree insurance will cover everything. BIL takes her home to her assisted living apartment.
On February 18th, MIL called BIL again with same complaint of being sick and dying. BIL made appointment with PCP. PCP saw her and said she has advanced Alzheimers and needs to be go to a nursing home. MIL may be experiencing some dimentia at 95 but I'm not sure where the advanced Alzheimers diagnosis came from as she had been living successfully in assisted living until several days before. Can someone with advanced Alzheimers use a cell phone on their own to call family members? PCP arranges for MIL to get admitted to the hospital to check out the abdominal/stomach pain.
After about 6 hours waiting in the emergency room, MIL is admitted to the hospital where she spends 3 days. MIL had a very bad experience being scoped about 8 years ago for a bleeding ulcer and refused to be scoped. Blood work done and all normal but still complaining she is "sick" and is dying due to the pain in her stomach and/or abdomen. Can't really get a specific answer to what she is experiencing. She is discharged without the cause of the pain being diagnosed to the rehab wing of a very nice looking nursing home. So far, I can see claims submitted on her insurance website for $13,000 related to the hospital stay and transport to rehab.
My husband is a nursing home ombudsman where we live so he checks on MIL's nursing home with its ombudsman in Cinci who says he probably wouldn't put his mom there unless there was nowhere else. A confirmation you can't necessarily tell the quality of care by the look of the facility. MIL pretty much lays in bed the first week of rehab still complaining of pain. She would be fine one day or part of a day and then be "sick" and dying again. She was treated for acid reflux (prilosec, don't lay down after meals, foods) and she started doing PT but root cause of pain or "sickness" could not be determined.
On March 4th, she decided she was done eating and drinking and was going to die. It's her life (and death) so in support of her decision we started to make arrangements with the nursing home. Within about 36 hours she had changed her mind and had decided to hang around. By March 14 she was doing so well she wanted to know why we were keeping her "in that place with sick people." She wanted to go back to her apartment NOW! The pain was pretty much gone as far as we could tell from her comments. On March 18th, she was released and went home. We had things set up for having her meds dipsensed and daily nurse visits to her apartment. The assisted living facility has a contracted nursing staff on-site and would provide assistance.
Total meltdown on first day back to her apartment. "I'm sick, just let me die. Please take me to a nursing home. I can't do this." Knowing this might be coming, we had checked out local nursing homes and found one close to my BIL with high ratings and recommendations for their quality of care. The building is older and the facilities are not as nice as the first nursing home/rehab but that's not our main concern.
MIL has no enthusiasm for life. She doesn't want to do anything but lay in bed. Like WAHoo's experience, she often turns her face to the wall when BIL and DH try to get her motivated and interested in life again. It's heartbreaking to see her with no interest in life when she was full of life 8 weeks ago. She is and has been on anti-depressants. Other meds are lisinopril and Aricept. PCP put her on that when she left the rehab facility although I didn't really see the point.
She has been having diarhea since moving to the nursing home (no issue in rehab, only new med is Aricept). She was on ringers for several days leading up to the latest issue which is a blood clot in her leg which put her back in the hospital. She told DH on Wednesday her foot "felt funny" so the staff at the nursing home took a look but saw nothing. By Thursday, the foot was cold and turning blue and she was taken to the hospital. A vascular surgeon was called in to take a look and he said he wouldn't touch her with a 10' pole given her age so the only option was to put her on blood thinners. BIL is watching over things at the hospital. Luckily, he is retired and his schedule is flexible and he is his mom's favorite.
BIL had his appointment with whoever authorizes Medicaid. MIL has SS and a small pension ($1400 per month combined) but no assets so it looks as if her application has been approved and the cost of the nursing home will be covered.
We are preparing to put our house on the market in the next week or so to begin the process of moving back to FL. That's another post.