Book Board Chat

Hi all. I haven't been around much, but I really need to reach out to some of the folks from the BB for some ideas and/or helpful advice. Don't have many other places to turn.

As I've mentioned before, I live with my mother, moved in with her when Dad died and had promised him I'd take care of her. She has some serious mobility problems but her mind, until recently had been as sharp as can be. There's been a few instances that have concerned me, having to repeat myself several times, or her forgetting a conversation we had just hours earlier and insisting I had never mentioned the subject to her before. But for the most part, she was functioning, balancing her checkbook (slowly) but getting it right, etc.

Last Friday evening I had to take her to the ER with some very serious stomach pains. Finally, around 1:30 am they diagnosed her with a large gallstone stuck in the duct and she needed surgery, so they admitted her. She had to wait until Sunday morning for the surgery because of blood thinners in her system, but they did the surgery and she came out of it just fine.

Monday she seemed ok except she repeatedly asked me what day it was. I thought it was just confusion over being in the hospital for several days and she was supposed to be discharged Tuesday morning.

When I brought her her coffee Tuesday morning, she seemed fine until about 5 minutes later she was seeing a big, ugly monster in the cabinet in her room. Shortly after that she was discussing activity outside her window (construction, families moving in, thinking it was her townhouse building etc). Then she started talking in German, something she hasn't really done in close to 40 years, and she was not making any sense. By the end of the day she was totally delusional, garbled speech that wasn't close to English or German, but appeared to be a language all her own.

She thought I was her mother, she was looking for my dad (who died 3 years ago), she is seeing bugs crawling on the walls, she is totally and completely out of it and appears as someone who is in advanced stages of Alzheimers.

The hospital wanted to discharge her home in this condition, and I had to insist that they transfer her over to a rehab facility which is very close to the house. We took her there today. She only has maybe 5 minutes of being aware, during which time she cusses at me for "dumping her in a home and forgetting about her", before her mind slips away again.

I took a 74 yo woman with minor memory problems to the hospital on Friday for gallbladder surgery and today she is pretty much a a mental vegetable.

Some are telling me she could have had a reaction to all the meds and anesthesia they pumped into her and she "may" come out of it, other know of older relatives who went into full blown alz because of anesthesia...any advice for me? I am a wreck!