Spells (Fri May 21, morning)

Mom seems mostly fine most of the time, with one giant exception: the spells. Yesterday I was standing in the kitchen and mom was sitting on Ray’s end of the couch chatting with me. I turned away for one second and when I turned back, mom was on the floor. She had one of those spells and fell off the edge of the couch. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt, other than a rug burn on the bridge of her nose, and a bump on her right arm (which is a big bruise this morning). She said that was the first one she had all day. That was at around 4:30pm, and from then till we went to bed, she had probably ten more. None of them lasted more than a couple seconds, and she was even able to keep talking through some of them… "See, it’s starting right now, and I can’t really explain the feeling, kind of like heat or flushing, and my vision gets dark,…” etc.

One other thing…while she was still on the floor, I held out my hand to help her up, but she refused and said, “No, it’s easier if I do it myself,” and then proceeded to get onto her hands and knees and then got up from there. It made me wonder how she knows that it’s easier if she does it herself…if maybe this isn’t the first time this has happened. But on the other hand, she has been very open about these things and does not appear to be hiding anything.

This morning Fritz needed to go out around 6am, so we came downstairs, but she was still sleeping. Fritz settled himself in the sun room and I went back upstairs to do some email. I came back down around 7am and she was sitting in the chair right at the entrance to the sun room, drinking her coffee, and she said she was sitting there because she didn’t want to disturb Fritz by walking over to her normal corner chair. I sat on the couch and we were talking, when suddenly I looked over and she was shaking in some kind of seizure. Her arms were both shaking and she was leaning forward and her head was lolling forward, clearly not able to control her body, but still completely aware of what was happening. I leaped up to make sure she didn’t fall forward, and the whole thing was over in about 5 seconds. She said it felt like “palsy” like she couldn’t control herself. She said that is the third time that has happened. The “spells” and this seizure thing both look to me to be some kind of disturbance in the electrical system, kind of like epilepsy.

We talked about the danger of her falling and breaking a hip. She said that Dr. Kim had mentioned having a bone density test a month or so ago, and she THOUGHT she had scheduled it, but she has no recollection of missing the appointment, so we are going to be following up on that. But I said that regardless of the bone density test, there is a real danger of her falling. She acknowledged that and said that she had thought about getting one of Ray’s canes out. So I immediately jumped up and brought her a cane, but she is not used to carrying it with her and she took it out into the kitchen, then left it leaning against the cabinets while she walked back to the couch.