Trip to Town (Fri May 21, 1pm)

After mom's one episode earlier this morning of what she described as "palsy," she had no more problems and took her shower, wrote a few notes to put in the mail, and then we headed for town. It didn't take long before she had another spell...not the palsy kind, but the other kind. She had about ten of them before we even got to Lakeshore Drive. She would be talking, and then suddenly she would stop and clench her hands and close her eyes. As we approached Moore Park, she suddenly grabbed a nearby plastic bag and warned me that she was about to start retching, and she did. I pulled over and stopped. Nothing came out, but she seemed very weakened by it.

We went on to the clinic and had her blood draw (ordered by Dr. Kubac, her cardiologist) with the results to be sent to Kubac and to Dr. Kim. When the phlebotomist was done, and she was pressing the cotton ball against mom's arm, mom had another spell. She clenched, she stuttered a few sounds (not words), and the phlebotomist asked if she was ok. She said not really.

We proceeded to the post office, where she did fine, then the bank, where she waited in the car while I did her transaction for her ("to conserve energy," she said). Then we went to the store where she used a motorized cart. I noticed a couple of spells, but she was sitting down in the cart and holding on. Then we were walking along when suddenly she kind of slumped sideways, obviously in the middle of another one, and almost fell out of the cart. The cart drove right into a rack of clothing, and I had to actually remove her fingers from the little lever that was driving it forward. She recovered quickly, but it made me realize that she isn't safe, even in a cart. I watched her like a hawk from then on.

When we left the store, she had another one of the shaking spells, and a minute later she got nauseated again and vomited. By the time we got home, she was exhausted and I got her to sit in her recliner. She wasn't hungry but she agreed to eat a scoop of cottage cheese with a half stalk of celery chopped up in it, and she drank about a half can of lemonade, then took a nap.