On my way to see grandma with lil sis this morning it seemed absolutely crystal clear that if grandma's MRSA was overtaking her leg (which it is) that it was going to be the end of grandma and that we were both at peace with that. It sucks, but so does having a frightened confused grandma who doesn't know your name or quite who you are.
Then when we got to grandma's things looked worse than what we expected. Grandma was writhing in pain. It seemed that she would not take her pain killers this morning no matter how the nurses tried to give them to her. Lil sis and I cajoled grandma into swallowing a few spoonfuls of her pain killer mixed with some strawberry ice cream.
Here is the bottom line: We have accepted hospice care for grandma. I signed all the forms today. This means that everything will be done to ease grandma's pain and keep her comfortable and nothing will be done to prolong her life. I knew this was what we were going to the nursing home to do (as well and visiting with grandma) but signing those papers was still brutal.
Grandma now has other spots on her foot/leg. Nothing is going to heal because she is in end stage deep vein thrombosis. She has no pulses in that leg and no circulation. Next we can expect sepsis, also known as blood poisoning. Eventually the infection will spread throughout her whole person and will manage to kill her somehow. There are many ways to die from sepsis, each one is less appealing than the next.
Grandma's foot was reddish purple and kind of shrunken looking. The image I have in my head is of a nice greasy spicy slim jim. And I keep calling grandma's foot "her little slim jim", and I say that with all the affection in the world. No, really, I do, Swear.
Naturally, scumcle and I wasted too much of my life on the phone today. Scumcle thinks grandma should have surgery to save her leg. Yes folks, scumcle thinks his 96 year old demented wheel chair bound mother should have a revascularization (sp?) even if there is only a 5% chance (he made up that number) that she will ever return to her pre-MRSA state of poor health/dementedness and accepting that grandma has a 50% chance (some doctor I took grandma to for her prolapsed rectum told me that number) of dying from the anesthesia alone. Remind me not to ever go to Vegas with the scumcle ..... or maybe I should take him to Vegas and just bet against him!
This will go down as the most disappointing summer of my life. I hope I don't even remember it 6 months from now.
I hope hospice is good to grandma, the one we were in a month or so ago was stellar. It's a sad place and a sad state of affairs, I know, but those people really seem to care and know what they're doing.
Next summer will be better.
Posted by: danelle | August 10, 2008 at 02:19 PM