Is this my Mom's last week?

Nov 02, 2009

My mother is going in for an angiogram on Friday. If that goes well, they'll keep her in for the weekend and do a valve replacement operation on her heart maybe early next week.

Her regular medical team isn't real helpful. I don't know how much of it is that she has a Medicare HMO and how much is real. When she was in the hospital four weeks ago, the hospital's cardiologist was real positive that getting a valve replacement would improve her quality of life dramatically. (He doesn't work for the HMO.)

Her HMO cardiologist told her all these horror stories about people more healthy than she having strokes after a valve operation.

Her HMO hematologist called her frail (at 200 lbs!) at her last appointment.

Her HMO regular doctor signed her up for a hospice program.

We took her off the hospice program because we didn't think they were looking at the whole picture regarding her health. She has emphysema, but didn't need oxygen until this heart thing started getting bad. They were all writing her off because she's on oxygen.

Her HMO pulmonologist says her lungs are good. They haven't got any worse since she 2003 when she had a mastectomy for her breast cancer.

Even if she survives the operation, will she comply with the lifestyle changes they want her to make? (She hasn't made any of the lifestyle changes they wanted her to make when she was diagnosed with diabetes, but her numbers are good.)

I find myself having moments of total misery thinking about losing her. I don't want my daughter to lose her Grandma. I don't want to lose my Ma.
Then I'll think about turning her bedroom into a guest bedroom. Then I'll feel guilty about that.
Then I'll get annoyed with my brother because he gets all self righteous about taking off a half day of work to take her to a single doctors appointment. I missed five days of work in the past two weeks taking her to medical appointments.
 
I'm really scared because my dad died when I was almost eight. That's what led me down the path to morbid obesity as a kid. I had to become the mom to my three siblings -- I smushed all my needs into a little box, then sat on it..

I know things are a lot different now. She's 76. She's had an okay life. She has the grandchild she's always wanted. I think she's relatively happy. Her mother died when she was 76 -- I don't know how much Ma thinks about that.

Anyway, I'm all over the place with this. I went for a long walk yesterday -- helped with the stress some. Then I came home and ate four Nutter Butter cookies. Carb comaed on those.

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