Yet another 10 mg of furosemide...
...even though Mom moved about more than usual yesterday. It was a hair day, a blood draw day and an eating-lunch-out day. She was shuffling a bit more than usual but this may be because of something I discovered a few days ago: It seems that on Monday of this last week, while I walked over to the man's house who trimmed our orange trees and returned a saw he left that I hadn't earlier discovered, Mom decided to get the mail. Barefoot. She headed out at, thankfully, at the same time that MTNDN was coming out to pick up her own mail and a woman who lives in the park was driving by. Good thing because MTNDN reports that Mom's knees buckled and she collapsed. She was assisted quickly, herself and our mail was retrieved, and by the time I got back she was sitting at the dining room table gleefully ripping open the mail. That evening my mother went to bed early, refusing a leg rub (she seemed so tired that I gave in). It was not until the next morning that MTNDN told me about the fall. I guess she thought I knew about it. Sure enough, when Mom awoke and I insisted on performing a leg rub did I notice the blisters over the pads of the balls of her feet.
    Mom didn't have any memory of the incident. Other than the bruises, she seemed fine but she's been a bit slower since then, both, I think, because of the increased sensitivity of her feet (which she denies) and the tiny bruise on the outside of her left foot which was probably the foot she fell on. I scolded her, gently, for going outside in the summer without shoes on, or anytime, for that matter, but, other than that I let the incident go. I'm considering it a lesson to myself, though. I need to keep a somewhat keener eye on her. It has seemed to both Mom and me that I've been overly watchful but, apparently, on that day I could have been even more so.
    I'm not castigating myself for this. There are bound to be times, especially since my mother's sense of independence is still very high, that incidents like this are going to happen. My goal is to simply take my cues from their type and frequency and continue on from there. I know that I am providing more scrutiny than she would have had in any other caregiving situation; and yet, a mail-box visit here, a trip to the bathroom there is going to slip through the cracks in my vigilance. My goal is to keep those slips to a minimum.
- posted by gail rae @ 09:39   email...this post