Life has gotten so crazy lately. I look back to just a few months ago when I was bored and want to slap myself and say "enjoy this! I won't last long!". Hindsight is always 20/20 and there will likely be many points in my future when I look back as this moment and say the same thing. Hopefully none of them will be soon.
The good news is that everyone in our family is either healthy or being care for with the hopes of becoming healthy again soon. The bad news is that it's been a rough few weeks getting there. The worse news is that I think there's a better than average chance that these few weeks will repeat themselves. And the worst is that I think that repeat itself will repeat repeatedly.
The hubs and I are getting to that sandwich phase of life where we are caring not just for our children, but also our parents. Well, actually, his parents. And they are acting more and more like children. But like children who don't realize they are children and still want, expect, and deserve to be treated like adults. It's a hard line to walk. I know we are not the first people to walk this line, nor are we the last and I find comfort in that abstract sense of camaraderie. However that abstract warmth doesn't keep me from constantly feeling like I'm stumbling.
Both of my in-laws are sick, but in different ways, needing different care in different environments. It's just crazy how much things have changed and how quickly it has happened.
My FIL got sick after a 'mini-chemo' session, as we call them. He's in remission from slow growing non-Hodgkins lymphoma. He has to go back for mini-treatments every couple of months. From this most recent one, he got mouth ulcers. Common after chemo, I'm told now. What's not as common is that his immune system completely tanked and the ulcers got so bad that he couldn't eat, drink, sleep, or do pretty much anything but lay in bed in pain for weeks. He sees an LPN, whom I believe has done significantly more harm than good for both MIL and FIL over the last decade or so - but that's a different post. She diagnosed him with an infection and put him on anti-biotics, no surprise there. A couple weeks later she diagnosed him with shingles in the mouth, said he'd be better soon. He wasn't. By week 3, he was passing out from dehydration and not eating. We found out later that by this point he had completely stopped taking any of his meds because it was too painful to swallow. Both FIL and MIL insisted that he was fine. Getting better by the day. MIL was yelling at him to eat and drink, but making almost no effort to actually help him do either. She was, in fact, annoyed that it had taken him weeks to notice the bags under her eyes from lack of sleep while worrying over him.
We got our first wake up call when I happened to call them one morning. FIL answered and told me he was feeing much better. Then MIL walked into the room, not knowing that he was on the phone, and started asking why there was blood dripping down from his forehead. When she realized he was on the phone, they hung up quickly. They called us back a few minutes later and the truth finally started to come out. He had passed out at some point over night when he'd gotten out of bed to get some water and sit and read the paper. Gone down hard and hit his head on the counter, hence the blood. He had then gone back to bed, slept awhile, and was awake again when I called. All with the blood still on his head.
We headed to their house immediately. After an hour of arguing, we finally convinced FIL to go to the ER. We called the paramedic squad to come get him b/c we were all concerned he might pass out again. We found out that the overnight incident had not been the first time, though the number changed often depending on who was asking him. I'm still not sure if he was lying intentionally or honestly didn't know he was giving different answers. They started him on fluids and ran blood work. He was severely dehydrated. Dangerously so. Also neutropenic. They kept him for 3 days and then sent him home to recuperate. They listened to his (wrong) diagnosis of shingles and didn't investigate that further. His oncologist did visit him, but made no mention of the mouth ulcers, just the neutropenia. Everyone told him he was safer at home because hospitals have so many germs. They sent him home with masks and instructions to stay away from anyone sick. His discharge papers said to follow up with his doctor if his fever got above 100.4 degrees. MIL didn't feel the need to wear her mask when around him because she wasn't feeling ill. Luckily, he didn't get sick.
The hubs and I thought to do more to help them through this, we vowed to go down and look in on them 3-4 times a week. Take out the trash, go to the grocery, clean the toilets, etc. They have a housekeeper who comes 2 times a month and is willing to come a great deal more, but they won't ask because they don't believe they need the extra help. This is where it gets touchy, because MIL isn't capable of doing basic life task, such as running to the grocery or preparing meals. She refuses to even eat, and by extension allow him to eat, microwavable meals. Every meal is carry out from a local restaurant. The majority of the time she uses restaurants that provide 'curb side carryout' where they bring the food out to your car. We found out that her diet during this time was consisting of half of a salad every night from one restaurant and a quarter of an omelet every morning from another. So she would go out every other day for carryout from one or both restaurants. We made sure that at least she was getting those and I bought other things and left them for her, even though I knew she wouldn't eat them.
FIL's diet was harder to pinpoint. He couldn't handle anything without intense pain. He said that yogurt and pudding and gatorade were about all he could do. We tried to get him to drink Ensure with a straw, but even that was too painful. MIL said to get him his favorite soup, so I did, but she would have had to open the cans and pour it into a bowl, etc. She didn't. Within 2 weeks, he was passing out again.
I put my foot down after the hubs came home on a Sunday saying that FIL was getting worse. I'd seen him holding onto things to walk and stupidly thought that he was just weak from having been in bed so long. I called and told MIL to get an appt as soon as the LPN office opened up in the morning and I would be there to help them get there and talk to the nurse. I called back Monday morning a bit after 9am to make sure that MIL was awake and had called promptly. MIL told me that FIL has blacked out during the night, she had heard him fall, she was able to make him get up and get back to bed but it took two hours. When I launched into a frantic chorus of "why didn't you call an ambulance???", she told me that she knew better than I what her husband needed and that she hadn't had any sleep or any coffee and hung up on me. I was appalled to say the least.
I called hubs at work and I don't remember ever being so angry in my life. I was screaming into the phone, "What is wrong with her? Is she really going to just let him lay there and die? What is wrong with her?" I was so loud and angry that his coworkers literally heard the entire thing and needed no explanation for him leaving work immediately.
He picked me up and down to their house we went again. By the time we got there, MIL had gotten some coffee and had called their LNP's office, who recommended a call to the life squad and another trip to the ER. He was more than willing this time, no persuasion necessary. As the life squad was taking him away, MIL asked me to fix her computer so that she could play her favorite pastime game, it hadn't been working for awhile. This time he was hospitalized for 11 days.
He was stil neutropenic. Worse actually. Dehydrated again. Also worse than before. Erratic blood pressure. His mouth was a mess, just looking at him hurt and I can't imagine what he must have been feeling. The oncologist came back but didn't seem to think the mouth was related to cancer or chemo. We now know that it was. They called in and infectious disease doctor to evaluate his mouth, who ran a slew of blood work and finally said he thought it was probably herpes simplex. It wasn't. They gave him IV fluids, but never did anything to help him eat, just told him to order off the menu. He didn't. They told him that they wouldn't release him until they found out what was causing his three main problems - mouth, low wbc, and blood pressure dropping. Of course, though, they did.
By the second day he was there, I found out who the discharge planner was (and what a discharge planner was for that matter) and made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that he was not to be sent home for continuing care. An at-home nurse was not an option. I told her blatantly, that the level of care that he was receiving at home was greatly exaggerated and the fact that he was back in the hospital with in worse condition than when he left supported this. I believe that she is the only person at that hospital that did him any justice while he was there. In the ER, there were people in gurneys in the hallway with the flu and FIL had to wait 6 hours for a room to open up for him to be admitted. They were severely over crowded and under staffed and I will do all that I can to see that neither of them go to that hospital again.
That catches me up to about a month ago, and I'm bushed. I'll finish this tomorrow.