Sixteenth Post

Well, first off I would like to thank everyone for their support once again. Every time I talk to someone they say that they are reading my blog and to keep up the good work and stay strong.

About Mom, lots of updates. Dad saw the wound on her left hip today and said that it looks like there is a large crater in her hip from where the other car sheared the tissue off from the crash.

Dad is meeting daily with some doctors and nurses as part of an ICU study. The study is to see if doctors can better serve the families of ICU patients with more face time, and in return for these personal meetings all our family has to do is fill out questionnaires to see if the meetings helped us understand Mom's condition.

Mom was the most animated we have seen her be today. She would move her head to the direction of where we talked to her from and attempt to open her eyes about once every 2-3 minutes, though it clearly took a tremendous effort. She would also cough a lot to try and clear mucus out of her lungs. In addition, Mom would move her arms a lot, about once every minute, to grasp either her broken left ribs or attempt to grab the ventilator tube. She was definitely fighting. She also squeezed my hand lightly a few times, though not as hard as the first time she did that a few days ago.

Mom is still on pain medications but they said not really too many because too many meds would interfere with the body's ability to heal. They are trying to find a balance between pain and healing with the meds. She is still unconscious but is getting more aware every day. The doctors say for her condition she is on pretty light drugs.

When Mom did open her eyes today, her eyelids were finally raising high enough to be above her pupil so that she could see things, though I'm not sure how much they registered with her under the drugs. One thing I did notice was that her eyes are not lining up straight relative to each other, it is as if they are looking at different things or she has a lazy eye that does not move. When I asked the nurse she said it could be because of the stroke or the pain meds.

The nurses said the stroke was on one side of her brain in the vision center, so in addition to perhaps some lost vision she may be weaker on one side than another.

When Mom was moving around a lot I couldn't really tell if she was trying more to communicate or simply reacting to pain. I think it was both. A few times she grimaced because of pain.

I hate to say it but she is nowhere near as peaceful now as she was in the first couple days.

For me the hardest part was when I left the room to talk to other visitors or the nurses. I spent around 2 or 3 hours there today and every time I left she looked very sad and bewildered. She would look around and kind of feel for me and seemed very sad that I had left. When I finally had to leave to go home I told her I was going and she moved around much more than normal as if trying to tell me something. I feel bad that so much time each day is spent alone, in pain, probably wondering where I am and what is happening to her.

The doctors said that while patients may hear and react while in ICU, that nobody ever remembers anything after they are out of ICU of their time spent in it. Perhaps this has to do with the drugs affecting her ability to store information as memories. She must be in a constant stream of sensation without remembering any of it, like a bad dream, with only a vague sensation of how long it has been going on.

Before I left I had the doctors give her some more pain meds to help her get to sleep.