Good Days & Bad Days

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

That's what Mom keeps saying... (actually, she keeps telling us to write the Thank You's).  Mom & Tim and all of us are overwhelmed by the support everyone has given. The cards, prayers, visits, meals, and beautiful outdoor sparkly stars that where hung outside along the house when Mom arrived home from the hospital have been so helpful. It's nice knowing so many people are here to help if anything is needed. 

It's been a little while since I gave an update on how Mom is doing. Overall, there hasn't been much change here.  Mom has her good days and bad days.  The good days are great when she's alert, talkative, and is part of the conversation. Then she has bad days and been in some pain.  Sometimes it easily managed, but the last 2 days has been a little worse.  It's a so frustrating to see her in pain. The hospice nurse team are so great and helpful and giving us ideas on different things we can do. We've went up on the level of pain meds quite a bit the last few days and are hoping this will level is out soon, and she'll be comfortable most of the time again.  Taking the pain medicine up makes her very droggy/sleepy.  Her body will be get used to in a few days & will be more awake and not feel so zombie-like, hopefully.

We've had quite a few visitors and it's nice to have people stop by.  If you'd like to stop by, please just call the house or my cell phone 847-400-6213 and let us know.  The hospice team has asked us to try to limit the time a little bit for visitors, probably around 10-30 minutes. You will know if she's trying to rest that it's probably time to go, and if she's more alert to stay a little longer.  It's hard to tell visitors to leave, but just know that we're trying to keep the overall activity level down so she stays comfortable. That's the #1 goal for Mom right now; we don't want to see her uncomfortable.

Settled At Home

Sharon arrived home on Friday early evening. Hospice met us here and got her settled in here with the morphine pump and all the details we needed to care for Mom.

It was a pretty rough transition getting here. She had a rough drive home from the hospital, and obviously very overwhelming to get here, the Hospice transition, and just overall anxiety with leaving the 24 hour care with easy access to the doctors and nurses if she needed anything.  It was a rough night. By the next day toward the middle of the day, she seemed to have settled down and was more comfortable.  The hospice nurse said that transition is always hard and is expected.  It was just really hard to see her suffering again when we got here.  So far, the hospice program has been great and is a phone call or a short-drive away if we need them. They have a lot of good advice and know what to expect so it's making us feel better taking care of her.

She's been comfortable now for about 1.5 days, she's had a few visitors, but mostly family. She's been pretty tired and hard for her to stay awake so she's sleeping quite a bit.  We're planning to have visitors this week. We've noticed she's perks up a bit when a the people have stopped by. 

Please just give us a call if you'd like to stop out. We know so many people would like to so just give us a call. You can call the house 402-246-4701 or my cell is 847-400-6213, and we will let you know if she's up to it or not.  She's pretty good at letting us know if she wants visitors or not. Please just be mindful if you have a cold or feel under-the-weather that we don't want her to catch anything and have to deal with that too. 

I will continue to update every few days or if anything changes.  We can't express enough how thankful we are of everyone's support. Your prayers, thoughts, and love is so amazing. My mom is a very special person and has obviously made an impact to so many.

Going Home Today

The plan is to go home today! She's been stable for the past 24-36 hours in regards to the pain and the levels of the pain medicine she's been getting. The level of pain meds needed has even been reduced a little bit so that will hopefully help as she is very drowsy/droggy most of the day.  She will be going home with a morphine pump which is a small pack she will be able to take with her to manage the pain so she's not suffering.  

Hospice will be meeting us at her house later this afternoon if we can get checked out of the hospital. I'll provide more details on this later.

We're just waiting for Dr. Wurdeman to come up to talk with Mom and make sure she's good to go home.  We're glad, she needs her own bed, quieter around the house and hopefully can get a good night sleep.

I know many of you would like to visit, I will update again later today once we get home and see how she is doing and if she'd like visitors.

More updates will come later...

Prayers, Love, Support.... And Relief

Quick update - Mom is feeling better, by yesterday afternoon, the pain medicine was at the level that was keeping her comfortable.  She was very tired yesterday, a little down in the dumps, frustrated of course, and droggy from the pain meds. She's able to now & since Tuesday evening push a button at a maximum every 30 minutes to get more morphine if she needs it.  By late last night she hasn't had to push the button for more; we are all so happy about that. The levels of the pain medicine are contributing to the continued constipation and making her tired.

She is doing better today! She was up this morning, took a shower, had breakfast (ate almost all of it, another great thing), and visited a little bit.  We still need to get the bowels moving, if it doesn't it will contribute to more pain.  We're hoping she'll go home tomorrow or Saturday (all depends on the bowels / balance with the pain meds) She will be going home w/ hospice so she can be comfortable and not be in pain.

Grandma & Grandpa Gehring just arrived. We think Mom is up for some visitors today. It will be good to have some different people here today.  The conversation will be lighter and hopefully get her spirits up a little bit.  Travis will be here shortly too.

Lots of love to everyone! Thank you for all of your support, it feels good to know that so many people are supporting Mom. She needs it! Please keep the prayers coming. I will try to update more again soon.



  

Hospital Update!

Here's a quick update, I will post more details and updates by later tomorrow with hopefully more news and progress on the pain.

Monday

After Mom was in so much pain over the weekend, she went to see the oconologist on Monday morning for a pain consult. After the past 1.5 weeks of her testing different recommendations of pain medicine from the home and three visits to the ER, the doctor decided and we all agreed that she should go to the hospital in Omaha (she's at Immanuel Hospital - this is where her team of ocologists practice out of) so they could monitor the pain more closely and figure out exactly what could work to stop the pain. They thought it would take about 3 days. This was all a good thing & not to be too concerned with as this was the best for mom. The pain was getting to be too much, too often. The result was to understand the right balance of pain medicine that works for her. Reminder that the Fentanyl pain patch has been managing her pain quite well for the past 5 months until the last few weeks.

Tuesday

After 24 hours into the pain meds, taking off her pain patch, slowly adding pain medicine, she was still in pain. Everyone was frustrated, including Mom. The balance of how much pain medicine they give her is important as they need to understand at what level it is managed. Then, she can manage that at home & get stronger to see what's next. Part of where they believe the most severe pain in her back, chest, and other areas is coming from pressure from the intestine pressing the tumors on her liver. They are trying to relieve the bowel backup which could help a lot. They did do an X-ray of her abdomen to be sure there was backup & to confirm it was nothing else except that.

Wednesday

Now today, she is still in pain, she's had some relief, but still doesn't seem to be under control. We're still waiting for the doctor today to see how she thinks mom is doing and what else they can do. They did do another X-ray on her lower back and side to see if they could see anything else that could be causing the pain, we're waiting to hear.

Prayers, thoughts, love, positive thoughts are needed. She isn't up for visitors right now, sleepy and so tired of all of this pain. Tara, Tyler and I (Travis will likely be coming soon) are here with them today. We are all a little worried, but hoping they can figure out the pain and she can go home soon and be more comfortable.

Thanks you for all the calls, texts, love you are all sending, and what I know are lots more prayers and thoughts we don't even know about. She's a strong woman as you all know.

More to come...