For the past few days...
...my mother has been shedding water nonstop, in every way there is to shed water, but, primarily, through extreme incontinence. It started three nights ago. I was a little slow to pick up on it. It's been a good couple of weeks since I've had to change her bed in the morning because she's soaked through her paper underwear so, the first night she did this, I didn't think much of it and chalked it up to the busy day we'd had. She was unusually tired the day following the first shed night which is typical when she's dehydrated but, because she hasn't been dehydrating lately I was slow to pick up on that, too, and let her sleep, not thinking that I needed to watch her water intake more than just to make sure she consumed enough that morning to make up for the previous night's loss.
    After sleeping a good 10 hours the night previous she was up for about three then went to bed for another five hours. When she awoke her skin hung on her. That's when I went into emergency mode. By yesterday morning I realized it wasn't going to matter how much water I pushed on her, her body seemed determined to shed every last drop and all of it was ending up in her bed. I apologized to her for my slow response and told her that I'd watch her for another day but she was going to have to cooperate with me and drink lots of water and liquids or I was going to start getting "nasty, too"; she was beginning to get nasty in her irritation at my constant fluid push. If I couldn't get fluids to stay with her we'd probably have to consider visiting the doctor on Friday, which is something neither she nor I wanted.
    It's been a harrowing couple of days. I plied her with all kinds of liquids, salty foods and foods loaded with potassium just to keep her body chemistry relatively stable. Still, she continued to lose water like a sieve and her appetite as well. I didn't want to take her to the doctor because I figured he wouldn't believe that she was losing water and not blood and he'd seize this as an opportunity to tell me, once again, she needed yet another unnecessary and elaborate test to look for internal bleeding and ignore all other possibilities. Besides, although she was looking somewhat more wan than she has lately, it was a different "shade of pale"; rather like a waxy build-up over pink muscles, which, I figured, was an indication that, while she is still probably a bit anemic, she's well on her way to recovery and, at least, she wasn't losing blood so much as simply not keeping enough water on her frame to make enough blood. And, of course, we had a blood draw coming up today for The Big Gun tests, which require twice the blood usually drawn. So I decided to wait it out at least until Blood Draw Friday then, if she was continuing to lose fluid, I'd give up and take her to the doctor.
    Don't ask me why but, although she once again shed an enormous amount of water last night, sometime today her body turned around in its tracks and this evening, when I examined her feet as I usually do when rubbing them, I noticed that they no longer looked like translucent vinyl stretched over a skeleton. They were pleasingly plump, deep pink and the rest of her body was beginning to fill out.
    I have no idea why her body decided to purge like this for a couple of days. I have no idea why it stopped purging. I tried a variety of measures while it was pumping water out, including increasing her Detrol by adding one at night for two nights. Nothing worked. I even considered giving her Prednizone, since she reacts to that by retaining water, but I figured I'd take her to the doctor before I did that since Prednizone inauspiciously affects a lot of those enzyme producing organs in the torso.
    About all I can say now is that the body is an amazing machine. I will probably do some research in an effort to explain this phenomenon just in case it happens again. But her body corrected itself (perhaps the entire episode was a correction of sorts) and I know it started before I noticed it this evening. After her hair appointment today and before her blood draw I mentioned that I needed to go to Costco to pick up the right size of paper underwear for her (I inadvertently got the smaller size last time which were a little tight but, frankly, it hasn't mattered the last few days because while she was shedding water they fit perfectly). I was about to tell her I'd take her home then pick her back up for the blood draw but she wanted to go to Costco. She didn't have much energy, stopped with the basket about halfway to the pharmacy area on the opposite side of the store and suggested that I get the pads while she rested, which I did. But she maneuvered through checkout and back to the car without a hitch, just more slowly than usual, perked up at the lab, suggested we get hamburgers on the way home, which we did, asked for a double, which is unusual for her, ate almost everything she ordered and stayed up for a couple of hours before taking a late afternoon nap.
    One more note I want to record, for my own memory: I noticed this morning that she didn't take her medication yesterday morning. I found it neatly folded in her napkin underneath yesterday's newspaper which she usually scans during breakfast. I don't think this has anything to do with her body's 2.5 day (give or take a half day) water shed but I was a little surprised. However, her blood sugar was 109 this morning. It was a little high this evening; 143, but I'm not worried about that; that's probably the fries she had with her hamburger. I'll need to be more observant now in the morning, watch her take her pills. I know she hates to take them; it's a matter of life-style aesthetics. I don't think she was purposely being sneaky. I think she was very tired yesterday morning, looked at the pills, was easily discouraged by their presence and what they represent to her and was too tired to complain to me about them, which she does with arch commentary at every single breakfast, so simply pushed them aside underneath the paper.
    I scolded her a little this morning for her pill folly but I wasn't hard on her. I told her the truth, that her tactic would probably show up one way or another in the blood draw and we'd probably both catch hell from one or both of the doctors we're seeing next week. I also told her that I sympathize with her distaste for her medication but I had already cut it back quite a bit and I hoped she would trust me to continue to make sure that she was no longer being over medicated. She said she would.
    Now I know that when she is having a few unusually low physical days I need to keep a cautious eye on whether or not she takes her medication. Good lesson to learn. I'm extremely grateful that I'm learning these lessons under gentle circumstances. I know in many cases with many caretakers gentle learning isn't always possible. There are so many ways in which luck rides with my mother and me on this adventure of ours. Once again:

    thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou
- posted by gail rae @ 23:57   email...this post