Shortly after they started we noticed that he had an eyelid infection. And about the same time he had some boils that got infected on his back. The doctor said that something so simple as an infection in the body can cause hallucinations. With some skepticism, we began to place events on a timeline…and finally had to agree that the doctor was probably correct in this statement.
Whether or not he picked up the infection at the ER or whether the shock of the fall caused things to come out of balance, something brought on this bout of infections and the hallucinations.
Then yesterday, after one of the daughters shaved his face, she returned from putting the electric razor away to find that he was bleeding down the back of his head. Evidently, the scab from where the stitches had been itched--and he scratched it. He had ripped the entire original hunk of flesh back up. Because there was nothing left to stitch it back on to…hubby decided to shave the back of his head and plaster it back down with salve, gauge and tape. But before we could do that, we needed to clean out the scab. Here we are with this old guy that had blood dripping down the back of his head, with a hunk of flesh sticking up and trying to figure out how to get that old piece of scab off without hurting him. I got the peroxide and Q-tips, and Hubby got some small medical scissors and tweezers. The oldest daughter was holding his head still while he seemed to be eating in his sleeping. It was tedious work for the man with the scissors because he was not sure how much of that scab looking stuff was just that and how much was skin. So with every little snip I was afraid the old man was going to come up out of the chair from having part of his pate cut off.
In the process of doing this we found the reason for his being able to rip it apart with such ease—there was pus under the flap, so we are assuming that is the reason it had not healed properly to begin with.
So with antibiotics for the eyes, lancing the boils and getting this pus pocket out from the back of his head, he seems to be coming out of the hallucinations. For this we are thankful.
He has been better today than any time in the past week, as far as being lucid, except he thought he was in jail. After finding this out it made a lot of sense to some of the other stuff he said and the way he was behaving. He was particularly grumpy (not pleasant) with the two of us that stayed home with him today. (This was the first time he has been short and cross.) He definitely was with us today but he was disoriented.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring….