End of October Update

I spent the week of October 19th to 26th with mom. The first thing I noticed when I arrived was that she is as bone-thin as ever, but she has a perfectly round pot belly, which looks very odd on her completely fat-free frame. During the ensuing week I learned from mom that fluid accumulation in the belly is a very common symptom of congestive heart failure, which she has due to the malfunctioning valves in her heart. The other very common symptom is shortness of breath due to fluid accumulation in the lungs, and she has that problem as well.

She was very fatigued during the whole time I was with her, but she was cheerful and said that even though she dislikes being so worn out and short of breath, at least she knows why, so she just takes things easy.

I was able to take care of some fall chores for her--taking all her patio furniture down to the "underhouse," chopping up more kindling and filling her kindling boxes, emptying the ashes out of her wood stove, stocking the wood in her wood box and on the back porch, and surprising myself by doing some plumbing! One night after she washed her face in the bathroom sink, she noticed water on the floor. While I was feeling around under the sink to find the leak, the entire pipe separated itself from the drain! Turned out that the drain under the sink was so old that it had rusted through! So after two trips to town and assistance from her neighbor, we were able to completely replace the drain mechanism. Then the next morning mom was sitting on the floor in the bathroom sorting her stuff and putting it back in the cabinet under the sink when she called me and asked me why there was cold air coming up out of the furnace duct. I pulled out the vent cover and discovered that the flexible furnace duct was lying on the ground in the crawlspace under the bathroom! It had been held in place with ONE bent nail, and the nail had come out. So I found a bunch of nails downstairs and nailed the duct back in place. Thank goodness that happened before I left or her furnace would have been heating the crawl space!

Anyway, we had a real nice time and it was wonderful to be able to spend time with her. Toward the end of my visit she called her primary care physician Dr. Kim to ask him about increasing one of her drugs that "makes the Lasix work better." She had had one of her bouts of nausea and dry heaves that morning. She really believes that it's acid reflux, but I really believe that it's some kind of systemic chemical imbalance caused by too much fluid in her tissues. So Dr. Kim told her to go ahead and increase the diuretic, but he wanted a blood test in about 5 days to check her kidney function. Back on the balancing act between excess fluid making her heart and lungs work harder, and too little fluid making her kidneys shut down.

Mom was supposed to drive up to Bill's on Friday, but she was so tired that she decided to put it off one day so she could rest up. She said that on Friday she got up, then went back to bed and slept till 10:30am! She is now in Redmond--she drove up yesterday--and she said she is glad to have a few days where she won't have to worry about keeping the fire going or making dinner or cleaning up or going grocery shopping, etc.

Here's a pic of mom and Little Red Riding Hood. (Or is that The Wolf???)