Disease progression so far

Well it was about 16 months ago when my Mom first had to be rushed to the ER by ambulance because she could not breathe. Her BP was like 230/120 and her O2 was around 90. It was at the hospitalthat I first heard the word COPD in reference to my mother from the ER Doctor. They admitted her and she was in the hospital for 1 week. During her stay, they gave her a medicine she was apparently allergic to and she almost died! This has made her none too happy about having to go back there; however we live in a very small town and there are no other options.

She was pretty good for nearly a year after that time; she continued to go to her crafting group and cards 2 days a week. She began saying she was not feeling well for a few days and the next thing I knew she told me she could not breathe again and I needed to call 911. Now one thing to note is, she does not cry wolf or overreact. So here we go back to the hospital. She had phenomena and the doctor wanted to admit her. She did not want to be admitted saying they almost killed her last time. We tried to get the doctor to let her have a nebulizer and O2 for home as that seemed to help her. The doctor said she could have the nebulizer. She also said that she really needed to stay in the hospital and she relented and stayed; another week!

When she got out she was doing well and decided to ride with a family friend about 7 hours away to stay at my sister Linda's for 5 days or so. Well after being there for a couple of days I spoke to her and she started crying saying she didn't feel well and wanted me to come and get her; she wanted to go home. Now she LOVED going to Linda's so I knew that was not good. I made arrangements to leave first thing in the AM. However this time it hit me really hard and I kind of lost it. I could not stop crying and I could not figure out why. Jewels the family friend she was with had been an RN and I totally trusted her and Linda, but I still could not help my distress. My other friends rallied around me and assured me everything would be ok at home while I went to get her.

Well she didn't make it till I got there; she ended up in the hospital there. This was 2 weeks after her last stay. She was in for a few days and they said it was just an exasperation, which happens with COPD. Well I had to get back to work and Mom wanted to go home really bad so we talked to them about getting her out and they let us go after 3 days and let us borrow an O2 tank to get home. Boy what a horrendous drive that was. I was so worried and nervous I thought we would never get home. But we did!

We got her in to the doctor as soon as we got back and she got her on O2 for the house. She would not let me stay at home next door and asked me to stay with her. She had a very hard time even getting to the bathroom and stuff. She had accidents from not making it to the bathroom; she was confused and kept messing up her medicine. She was doing so bad that she actually quit smoking! She couldn't smoke! She barely ate anything, she said she wasn't hungry. Nothing tasted good to her and nothing sounded good. I was really worried and I called the doctor who got her in the next morning. She took blood and put her back on antibiotics and steroids and sent us home. I continued to stay with her at night and Jewels checked on her during the day. I had to take over giving her the meds because she was getting them all mixed up. She started to get better and better each day.

We had a follow up appointment at the doctors the next week and the doctor said her sodium levels were low which would constitute her confusion issues. She wanted her to come back in for more blood work in 2 weeks since she was now eating better. In the meantime I got my other sister Judy moved here and in with her (Judy is disabled so she does not work). I also got home health in to help me with her. We couldn't make the appointment last Tuesday because her portable O2 would not work, so we rescheduled for this coming Friday. Mom has been doing pretty well though, good enough to start smoking again! Too Much!

We have had the talk about what she wants and stuff in the past but we recently went through it again. She cries when we talk about it, she says she is not ready yet and that she is afraid she will feel like she is suffocating to death when it happens. One night though, she said she was sick of fighting. Well that was very hard for me to take. We discussed that later too and she just meant this episode. So she can't go play her cards or crafts anymore, but at least she is feeling better. Now we go on and just wait for another exasperation I guess........