I struggled over exactly where to relocate our bedroom, knowing that hubby’s dad would do best in a room with some privacy. I labored over moving upstairs or down into the basement. The basement was ruled out because the furnace is running and I figured I’d be deaf by the end of winter if I slept next to it. And upstairs meant I would have to displace a daughter, which I really did not want to do. It is important to me to try and keep their lives as stable as possible.
So I opted for throwing my mattress down on the living room floor and putting a more firm memory foam mattress in our room for Dad. It turned out that this was the right decision, because of the necessary care that is needed during the night. It is only a few feet from one room to the next and not up or down any stairs.
The situation with the dad has turned out thus far to be a 24/7 full time job. He still has to be watched almost constantly to keep from injuring himself. We keep a baby monitor next to his bed and after a week, he is finally realizing that if he calls out someone will come running in the night. This is not yet the case during the afternoon naps or while he is sitting in the wheelchair. Hubby is still telling him that he cannot just get up and walk around without help.
The real issue that we are struggling with is the hallucinations. He has spent more time hallucinating than realizing where he is. He has been this way ever since the surgery and the introduction to the medicines. He just finished up the Lasix, with the horrible swelling gone down; the Metoprolol has been cut back to the pre-surgery dosage; and we are cutting back the Parkinson’s meds with the intent of trying to see if we can get his mind back. And to see if the Parkinson like symptoms that we see are actually that or a side effect of the medicine. It complicates things when the medicine can cause PD side effects. Particularly, since he did not have them before the medicine!
I was never totally comfortable with the off the cuff diagnoses of Parkinsons after his surgery. He was still not fully out of the effects of the surgery when this diagnoses came from a doctor and a physical therapists, who were unfamiliar with his neuropathy issues. He obviously, has not done well with this medicine from the beginning. I am slowly weaning him off of it to see if we can get the hallucinations to stop or at least lessen. These dopamine altering drugs can be quite difficult…. I am watching him very carefully.
Last night I was pondering the hallucination issue. I got to remembering that when my dad was out of his head hallucinating in the hospital, one of the nurses said something about his electrolytes being off. And after a quick reading of the side effects for the medicines, I read that the Lasix could cause a potassium issue….. I think , that has been my biggest frustration about all of this. It was accepted as normal that he was a difficult patient in the rehab because of the hallucinations, yet no one was looking at the cause of the hallucinations. He was not having them before the surgery.
Needless to say, so long as he is hallucinating like this, physical therapy is not going to go well. That is why they released him from the rehab, his therapy had come to a standstill. We get him up and make him walk daily and when he is on the right mental channel he takes good strong steps. He is continuing to get daily OT. Good thing my dad had knee and shoulder issues, the previous training we got from that is coming in handy with the other dad.
Well it is very cold here at the moment. We are praying that we will not lose power because that would complicate our lives greatly at a time when we are trying to shift and settle the load around here.