Coming Home or Going Home

It's been a week now since Mom was admitted to the hospital.  She is still there, and not doing nearly as well as she was this past Sunday.  At that time the UTI seemed to be resolving, and with adequate hydration, she was more alert and had more strength than she had for a week or so before then.

Within the next few days she showed symptoms consistent with Clostridium difficile overgrowth (C-diff), which tests have not confirmed, however.  This sometimes develops after people have been on antibiotics--a case of killing off good bacteria with the bad, and then leaving a few surviving "baddies" to grow unchecked, without the good guys to run interference.  Not everyone is sure that the test is completely accurate--a possibility the doctor acknowledged yesterday.

Yesterday her UTI was back again, along with pneumonia in her lower left lung lobe, and the IV antibiotics were started again.  Her breathing is somewhat labored, and her irregular (and fast) heart rate continues.  She has some edema in her hands and feet, probably from the heart not keeping up with all its circulatory duties.

Her blood oxygen numbers are good.  That's a blessing.  Today again she ate well--another blessing.

The steep declines we saw yesterday seem arrested.  Overall, however, her condition has not improved to how it was on Sunday of this past week. The goal of being dismissed as soon as she can walk to the bathroom with a walker, which seemed realistic last Sunday, seems very unlikely to happen, at this point.

In spite of significant losses because of dementia, my mother has a sweet demeanor and is as cooperative as she knows how to be--another blessing.  My sister, Linda, who is her main care-giver, often asks Mom "would you  like ___________?" and Mom usually responds with either an affirmative or negative answer, except when it comes to taking a drink.  Then it's usually, "Mom, I'd like for you to take a drink."  She doesn't say much anymore at any time, but since she's been in the hospital, she said "Thanks for coming" once, and another time she said "Thanks for your support."  These glimpses of cognition and appropriate verbalization are really good to see and hear.

We're all very happy to hear that my sister Dorcas and her family are en route to Kansas from their home in North Carolina.  Bill is an experienced nurse and Dorcas is a newly certified nurse's aid--both very helpful kinds of expertise for the needs in the family.

Matthew and Clara hope to come soon from Ohio, but Matthew has his own health crisis to deal with.  He's scheduled for a chemo treatment on Monday.

It's hard to know at this point whether it's homecoming or home-going we should be preparing for.  Either way, this hospital stay seems like the beginning of a transition to some new realities.   Your prayers on our behalf are appreciated.

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Tomorrow is the funeral of Irma Hodgson, my brother-in-law Roberto's mother, who died at the age of 91.  She lived in the DC area.

If her life story were written, it would make interesting reading.  She married an African American who was from Bluefield, an island off the coast of Nicaragua that had at one time been populated by people of British descent who were slaveholders.  Roberto's father spoke English only until after he married a Latina and learned to speak Spanish.  The children grew up in Nicaragua, and suffered through the turmoil of the Sandinista years.  A doctor grandson was coerced into treating wounded fighters, knowing that if the other side ever learned of it, he would become a target for that side.  The doctor's father was shot randomly while riding his motorcycle one day, and never again had the use of his lower limbs because of a spinal injury.  He died several years ago in Nicaragua.

First Irma's daughter Elsa came to Christian faith, and then one by one, other members of the family did so also.  Gradually, most of them found their way to the US, and took up careers here.  Roberto, the youngest in the family, became a pastor and now is the Nazarene church's denominational director for Hispanic congregations in the US--about 1,000 of them.  Elsa works in a bank and Elena has a very responsible position in an office.  (I think I'm remembering this right.)  The US is a better place because of these immigrants, but these immigrants are in a better place than many native-born Americans because of the power of God to change lives.

Irma was always a feisty lady, and in recent weeks she  had fallen and broken her wrist, and was quite inconvenienced by the injury.  After that she simply refused to eat and gradually faded away.  Right after Roberto and Carol returned from Nicaragua on Christmas Day, Roberto went to his mother the next day.  After he got there, she seemed to feel at peace about leaving, and she died on Tuesday.

That leaves my sister Carol much farther away right now than she usually is (she lives in the Kansas City area).  She had headed here for our family Christmas gathering when Roberto headed east, and ended up visiting Mom in the hospital before going home the next day, so she's been here recently. We'll all rest easier after she gets home again.