So when I walk in to visit my mom (I don't tell them when I am coming to visit), she is usually laying in bed or sitting and looking so AWFUL. She is tired. She can hardly put a few words together. She losses her thoughts. She hardly gets up to walk. If her lunch comes, she can hardly eat it. I have to feed it to her. Then she doesn't eat very much. She has progressive dementia and had a broken hip that is now healed. She still has 2 compression fractures but the pain is very controlled. But she talks then she cries, talks then cries on and on.
Ok, so then I ask the nurse how she is doing and I hear that yesterday she was walking up and down the hall with her walker and CNA with her. She was helping sort out magazine. She ate all her food. on and on like that.
I usually only see her as often as once a week. I almost feel like she does better on the days I am not there. Maybe I am breaking the routine? Then she had the CNA call me and she told me yesterday that she didn't have the key to her home and she was staying at the woman's home..the one who is in my room (her CNA)...she wanted me to help her get home.
I don't know what I should do. Should I see her less often? Would she do better? She is always glad to see me but I feel like she falls apart then.
I don't know why she is so bad and low functioning when I show up and I hear about all these other times when she was up and about, eating well, etc.
She is on a lower dose of morphine sometimes for the compressed fracture pain. They also give her an antianxiety med in the afternoon when she starts getting aggitated and really falling apart. Other meds are thyroid med, cholesterol med, blood pressure med sometimes, med for her bones. I'll know more this week.
I don't know why the staff would not tell the truth or even embellish how she is doing if it isn't so. From what I have come to understand is that so often, my mother acts worse in front of me and even on the phone. If I call and she thinks it is my sister calling - her voice is "up" then when she hears me, it is often doom and gloom - just because she wants me to think she is not happy.
My mother is 100% better with the proper medications. Instituionalized living is an adjustment, so unless you are witnessing poor care, it could just be that she is doing better, but doesn't want you to know that. Hope this doesn't sound too convoluted; but it is just my experience. Good to look into it though.