I’m in total shock. I knew it would happen one day of course, but she was doing so well considering all the health issues she had suffered through for the last year or so. My husband was at the nursing home 5 hours ago and his mother was fine then. Her spirits were better and she seemed to have a more positive outlook.

I just got the call at 3am. One of the nurses from the skilled nursing facility called me and said “I’m calling about your mother-in-law.” I said “yes?”. The nurse said “she expired”. I couldn’t believe it. I asked the nurse what happened and she said she didn’t know, that she got the call to come up from downstairs.

I’m assuming the Old Lady had a heart attack. To receive a phone call like that seems cold and unfeeling but I suppose it is the proper way to tell someone that kind of news.

She was fine when I talked to her on the phone at 4pm yesterday and seemed fine when my husband visited her. I’m just in total shock.

I reckon this is the final entry in my category called “The Old Lady”. What in the heck am I going to have to bitch about now?

What’s worse than being in a snit? Being livid.

I found out this morning that the MIL would not be going home but would be going to a rehab facility instead. Of course, I already knew this but she is in denial and so is my husband so I just went along them when they said she would be going home.

Anyway, it is the hospital staff I’m so angry with. I told the discharge person/social worker yesterday what our first choice of a rehab home was. She told me that was the hardest one to get into. I told her I understood but to please try her very best and she said she would.

I spoke to the social worker again today and re-emphasized which home the MIL wanted to go to. The social worker said, oh, sorry, the facility does not have a bed, we will have to go with her second or third choice, whoever has a bed. Hello??? Maybe that’s they way they treat people that don’t have anyone to go to bat for them but that’s not the way they treat MY family member. I asked the social worker if she thought it would do any good for me to call the home myself and ask. She said she didn’t know if it would help but it couldn’t hurt.

So I called our first choice and they didn’t even blink an eye. I guess telling them that “I’m begging for a bed” may have helped, but I don’t know if that was it or not. They just said that they needed clinical papers (or whatever the term was) faxed over and they would see if they they would be able to help.

I called the hospital social worker and gave her the direct number to the rehab home’s admissions office. I asked her to please let me know if our first choice would be able to take her. That was at 1pm. So I waited until 3:30 without hearing from anyone. I called the home’s admissions person again and they said, oh, yes, we have a bed and gave me the room number. She said it was all set up. The social worker had said she would call me when she knew for sure but she didn’t.

So that was one thing that made me mad. The other thing was that the social worker tried to pass the buck. She said she had faxed the request to our first choice yesterday and got an immediate “no beds” response. I think she should have called them herself and talked with them instead of shrugging it off and calling, er, faxing around to other places. I guess that’s why it is good my MIL has me to go to bat for her. I might not be good for much but I’m good for that much.

The other thing that has me livid today is the hospital nurse. The hospital is 15 miles north of me and the rehab is 15 miles south of me. Last time the MIL went to rehab I went to the hospital and followed the ambulance to the home. The hell hole, er, home was in the same town the previous time though. This time I decided to wait until they transported my MIL and then meet her at the home. The social worker assured me that I would be called whenever the hospital arranged for transport so I could drive to the rehab home and meet my MIL there. So I waited. And waited. Finally I called the hospital and they said, oh, yes, we called for transport about an hour ago and we were given a tentative time frame of 2 hours.

Now as I’m typing this I don’t know just why I became so livid but I was just fit to be tied because I wasn’t called as they said I would be. Deep breath. There really is no harm done – it isn’t like she was taken to the rehab facility already. She is still at the hospital waiting for transport. The nurse now says she will call me when the ambulance gets to the hospital to transport the MIL to the rehab joint. Let’s just see if that happens. The Old Lady said she would call me when the ambulance got there to transport her but sometimes she gets disoriented and I didn’t want to depend on that. I will say she has been strangely coherent today. She sounded just like she did when I met her about 11 years ago, before she had all the medical problems she has today.

It is 6pm now and I haven’t gotten the word yet, so this looks like it is going to be another long night. I’m holding up just fine – I really have a very easy life. I just hope my husband doesn’t have a nervous breakdown from all the stress and long days he has been putting in lately.

The Old Lady’s surgery went well yesterday. Instead of vertebroplasty (super glue in the spine) she had a similar procedure called kyphoplasty (super glue in a balloon in the spine).

The only newsworthy thing that happened was the Old Lady’s threat to call her attorney and sue the hospital if they didn’t let her out of the recovery room. Haha, it is easy for me to laugh because I wasn’t the nurse in charge. I pity the poor people that had to take care her. I’m sure she made her demands known at the top of her lungs. I don’t know what her big hurry was – I thought she had to remain still and quiet for a few hours after the procedure to let the glue set. She also told them that if they didn’t let her out of there that her son was going to come in there and tear the place apart. geez. Maybe this was her anesthesia talking but she was a real piece of work yesterday.

She was all over the nurse’s ass for writing her vitals on a napkin. The nurse explained that she was going to put the information into the computer immediately. (There is a computer terminal in every hospital room.) The Old Lady just couldn’t get it through her head. She thought she was receiving bad care because the nurses all write information on a napkin or other scrap paper and then throw the scrap paper away!

Now I have to worry about whether she will be coming home or going to rehab. She had such a bad experience in rehab last July I doubt anyone can talk her into going again – even to a different facility.

So I guess I should probably write something. Some people say you have to blog every day to have a “successful blog”. To those people I say “kiss my ass”. Success is in the eye of the beholder. I’ll blog once a year if I want to and you can hit your back button if you want to and there you have it. Complete harmony.

So why am I in such a snit anyway? Lots of reasons but mainly the MIL and step-son.

This past Wednesday the Old Lady told me during my daily call that she was in excruciating pain. I got in my car and drove straight over there. She was lying across the bed in almost a fetal position. She had wet the bed because she was in so much pain (she has a history of compression fractures of the spine) she could not make it to the bathroom. Somehow she did manage to change her gown and her depends briefs so at least she was clean and dry when I got there.

She said she had been throwing up. She said she had not had any breakfast, said she did go to the kitchen to eat but was in so much pain she had to go back to bed. I saw the uneaten bowl of shredded wheat on the table. She said she took two pain pills at 8:30 instead of one. She said she had taken a Tylenol at 10:30. It was 12:30 when I got there. I got her some fresh orange juice and brought her another pain pill. I was very worried. I wanted her to go to the hospital. She refused.

She has been under the care of a home health agency since she got out of the nursing home in July. The physical therapist stopped by. The PT had planned to discharge the Old Lady that day because she had been doing so well. We got my mother-in-law into a sitting position and wheeled her into the kitchen using her 4-wheel walker which has a seat. I made her some fresh shredded wheat with sugar, milk and banana and helped her take her other medications.

The PT took her blood pressure and said “oh shit”. Her blood pressure was very high. The PT wanted to call 911 to take the MIL to the hospital but she refused. The PT called the MIL’s doctor and the doctor wanted her to go to the hospital. Her doctor is nice but he does not do hospital admissions. He said to take her to the ER. *sigh* I think she needs a different doctor but that’s a blog post for another day. At any rate, the Old Lady refused to go to the hospital.

The thing is, this past July almost the same thing happened, only she waited all week until Saturday night to go to the ER. We arrived at the ER that night at about 7pm and she didn’t get into her room until after 3am. That’s just how long it takes to get admitted. Actually, the same thing happened several months ago also. She waited until night time to go. This is the part that pisses me off. She said she would not wait so long “next time”. But she did. Again. For the third time.

I guess I really should not get mad at her about this because she is 85 years old and while she isn’t senile she is not as sharp as she used to be. But sitting all bleary eyed and sleepy in the ER for 7 or 8 hours (or longer!) when it could have been easily avoided by going in earlier did make me angry. We got to the ER this time at 8pm and by 2am she still was waiting to be admitted. We did something we have never done before but my husband had to go to work the next day and we just couldn’t stay up all night. All her tests had come back and the ER doctor did decide to admit her and all they were waiting for was a bed. And the Old Lady kept telling us to go home (like she always does and we never do until she is settled into a room) so we went home.

She told me she didn’t get into her room until 4am. There was no way we could have held up until that time – it would have been 6am before we got home.

So the Old Lady has a compression fracture of the T12 vertebrae. I know it is very painful and I’m not mad at her now about what she put us through unnecessarily. I guess it took me 4 days to get over it, heh. I wasn’t the only one mad, my husband was mad too. Several people tried to get her to go to the ER for several hours and she flat out refused. Okay, enough ranting about that. It is over and done with.

The sad thing about this fracture is that she had been SO careful lately and she didn’t fall or anything like that. It is just that her bones are so brittle and fragile that she broke her back just by twisting a little when she tried to get out of her chair. She is scheduled for a procedure called vertebroplasty on Tuesday. I really hope this helps her.

I’m worried about the future but there is no point in worrying about anything that really isn’t in my control. I’m trying to take it one day at a time.

I’m also mad at my step-son (the one that recently returned home from Iraq) but I’ll post about that another day. Or maybe next year. Or something.

Against the wishes of everyone my mother-in-law decided to leave the nursing home and came home this past Saturday. She will be under the care of a home health agency and will also have someone visit her daily to check on her and help her with her daily activities.

I’ve offered to stay with her at night but she doesn’t want me to. She asked if I would visit her every Friday from now on so of course I said I would. I do hope she doesn’t ever have to go to the nursing home again. There is no such thing as a “good” nursing home. Nope.

The social worker never did call me back so I threw a fit about that when I got to the hospital. I know I should not have done that but it really ticked me off.

It turned out that the Old Lady was able to go to Hawthorne after all and I didn’t have to transport her. I was shocked when we got to Hawthorne because the pictures on the internet looked so beautiful. My heart just sank when they took her into her room. It looked like an, um, nursing home. Yeah, I know that is what it is but dang.

I do feel for her and I’m sorry she has to go through it. It is only for rehab though and to help her get her strength back. I know I rant about her all the time but I don’t wish bad things to happen to her. I’ll do whatever I can to keep her from being institutionalized permanently, even if it breaks my spirit. And it will, there is no doubt about that. I took care of my mother in 2000 in my home when she was in the hospice program and I took care of my brother in my home in 2004 when he was in the hospice program. I know I should “be over it” by now but I’m not the same as I was before I was their caregiver and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. (A good shrink would probably help but *insert any excuse here for the reason* I don’t go.)

My mother-in-law is not in the hospice program and has not been diagnosed as terminally ill, but she is almost 85 years old so that’s basically the same thing as far as I’m concerned. We are doing all the same things for her that I did for my mother and brother.

I’m beat and I must not be a “real” blogger or I’d relate the whole ordeal of this afternoon detail by detail. Instead, I’m turning off the internet for awhile. I’d rather read blogs than to write in them anyway.

My husband called me last night from the hospital when he was visiting his mother. He told me (which left me flabbergasted) that his mother had agreed to go to a facility for physical therapy for her back. He said she would be going to Hawthorne, which is a place she has been aware of for some time and decided if she ever needs to go then Hawthorne is her choice.

Hubby asked me if I would pick MIL up from the hospital, bring her home to get some clothes and tie up any loose ends and then take her to Hawthorne. Being the good daughter-in-law I am I said I would.

I started getting second thoughts this morning. If the Old Lady can’t even walk from her bed to the bathroom how in hades am I supposed to manage getting her into and out of the house and car, etc. etc etc.? Hubby was already at work so I called and ran that by him (and whined) but he said he can’t take today off. arrrrgh…

So… being the bad daughter-in-law I am I procrastinated all morning fooling around on the internet. (so what else is new?) Finally about 12:30 I decided I’d better find out what was going on at the hospital. I called the nurses station and the nurse said the Old Lady wasn’t being released today – that she was being sent to a “home”. I said “yes I know, she is going to Hawthorne” and the nurse said she wasn’t going to Hawthorne. The nurse said the social worker was working on “finding her a bed” wherever they could take her.

So I called the Old Lady and asked how things were going and to let her know I’ll be there in just a little while. I asked her if she was sure she was going to Hawthorne and she said yes, she is sure. I believe there has been a miscommunication somewhere and the sparks and fur are really going to fly if she is placed somewhere besides Hawthorne. The social worker was at lunch so I left a message for her to call me. I’ll forward my calls to my cell phone and I’m out of here.

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but I didn’t know it was going to be like this. I hope I don’t have to fight with the social worker or the other hospital workers. I hate it hate it hate it but there are certain things I won’t put up with and having a hospital put my MIL into a home without her permission or her son’s permission is one of those things.