Wow. 10/17/03 was my last post.
    Although I haven't checked (I should and I will after posting this), as I recall things were going well. The reason I wasn't posting was because the two of us were becoming quite active, almost social, in fact. Mom's health was doing well, she was getting out someplace with the aid of oxygen every day, we were beginning to "go out to eat" more, which is one of my mother's favorite social pastimes...
    Then, on October 25, 2003, at about 1330, Mom fell and sprained her back. It was a part of her character that most people would consider "good" that did her in. My mother is A Helper. She cannot resist the urge to offer a hand. On that day we were anticipating the delivery of a television that my mother would actually be able to see and hear. I had lifted our old TV, weighing a bulky but easily managed 35-40 lbs., and had swiveled away from the coffee table off of which I'd lifted it. My mother had been watching all the preparations from a chair in the dinette. Suddenly she was at my side offering to "help" me.
    "No!" I yelled, in various versions, such as, "I've got it!" and "Get away!" And, sure enough, as my mother simply reached underneath the TV the muscles in her lower back grabbed and she fell flat on her, well, back.
    Yes, it is sprained, lower lumbar region, right side worse than left but no bones are broken. I took her to the emergency room in medical transport and brought her home in our LUV truck. She's been in pain of varying degrees since. Finding medical follow-up has been frustrating. Our only choices seem to be taking her back to the ER or taking her into Urgent Care. No private doctors have been available for immediate follow-up although we have made a "new patient" appointment "not a follow-up to your mother's current problem" the appointment-maker advised me twice, with a highly recommended new doctor in the area. Earliest we could get in? December 1st, 2003.
    She was on Vicodin, both 500 & 750 mgs, for almost two weeks. When we ran out, keeping her on 600 mg ibuprofen every 5 hours when she's up seems to be doing exactly what the Vicodin did without the constipation that finally required me administering a much resisted yet relieving enema to my mother.
    We continue to have problems with severe watershed when she is sleeping although it is abating in comparison with the first week to week and a half. She is moving more, although not much more. She is staying up more, although not much more. And she is always in pain, always wincing from a random back spasm.
    I've been trying to get her to assent to seeing a highly recommended acupuncturist in the area. Although she's not prejudiced against alternative medicine, she's taken some alternative treatments from me well, the idea of having needles stuck in her has not appealed to her and she has believed that she can handle this and it will get better day by day. This weekend, though, I broke down and started sobbing when I simply couldn't take the physical evidence of her pain anymore. I told her, no more choices (I'd been hanging onto letting her make this one choice, as she, presently, has very few choices left to her while I companionate her through this healing). I'd be calling the acupuncturist on Monday.
    My mother must have been psychically engineering the call behind the scenes. The acupuncturist is in Tuesday through Friday, 0800 - 1700.
    I'm very excited about the possibilities. At one point, which my mother forgot, I told her I'd sign up for treatment of something if she would and I'd go first so she could see whether or not I perished. Although I finally discovered the source of the carpal tunnel syndrome I've developed over the last few months (the way I massage my mother's feet) and changed it, the original bizarre development continues and makes other things difficult so I could have that treated. I think, though, that my mother may have forgotten this unsuccessful lobbying technique of mine. If she doesn't mention it I'll wait and see how her treatments go, or, for that matter, whether the acupuncturist will feel she can help my mother. It has occurred to me that she may have nothing to offer my mother. I hope I'm wrong about that.
    I've been taking fairly regular blood sugar readings. Those still need to be posted. I'm considering switching to HTML by hand, with which I am fairly handy and restarting the log like that. I think I won't continue to get the inaccurate "over published" notice if I hand build and ftp my site. I am, as well, trying out a few other web log facilities. I will probably switch. In addition I will not be getting rid of past information but adding it with the new. Not, however, through an auto site builder. So I may very well open up a totally new site shortly with this site remaining as history.
    We'll see. My intense involvement with my mother, essentially becoming her body, is pretty draining of both time and energy. I expect this to alleviate but I'm not sure when. It will surely continue to affect the work I'm able to do on this site.
    As well, as a reminder to myself, I have other things to report about sisters and friends and medical communities, which I'll attempt to do...
    ...later.
- posted by gail rae @ 09:17   email...this post