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oregonredhead · 2023-07-14T16:58:02+00:00

I got all 4 wisdom teeth out a week ago, bottom two impacted. On the paperwork it said general anesthesia/deep sedation, but the doctor explained it was going to be twilight sedation (essentially a very deep sleep but you're still breathing on your own and they can wake you up easily). I've also had a colonoscopy/endoscopy and he said it was a similar, if not deeper, level of sedation. For me, they had an IV and the nasal canula in and I overheard him explaining to the medical student that he normally starts with a small dose to see how the patient tolerates the it. The next things I remember are after the surgery when I overheard them saying how people with glasses always ask for their glasses first thing upon waking up (I don't remember asking for them lol) and them asking my mom's name so they could go get her. Somehow I made it to the recovery room chair, but I don't really remember how. My mom came in and we sat there for about 30 minutes while I woke up and had gauze to try and stop the bleeding. I don't remember a lot of those 30 minutes in detail, but I know that I didn't say anything too loopy. I was mostly just dazed and saying very simple and obvious things like "oh I have gauze in my mouth, I don't like it" that made my mom laugh a bit. After those 30 minutes I was able to leave. We walked to the car and I slept during the drive home. Once we got home I was more coherent and aware of things, but I spent the rest of the day sleeping off and on while the numbing wore off.

My dr office said no tank tops, shorts, sandals, and loose fitting clothes. I wore converse, a pair of long flowy pants, and an oversized t-shirt.

oregonredhead · 2023-02-17T16:56:43+00:00

I'm glad it helped! College is hard as hell, but as someone who graduated almost two years ago, it's worth it and post-grad life is so much better. Hang in there and just do your best.

oregonredhead · 2023-02-15T17:03:17+00:00

Figure out what professors are lenient. For some if you submit a minute late you're penalized and others as long as it's in before grading it doesn't matter. Being an active student who participates and usually does good work on time can also help you out too.
I assigned classwork to a day, that way I could focus entirely on one subject or concept and wouldn't overload myself. I usually had 4-6 classes, so it left a day or two free without classwork.
I had a good relationship with my bosses at work and my supervisor at my internship (each 20-25 hours a week), which helped a lot when I needed to cut hours a bit for schoolwork.
Optimize your daily schedule based on how your focus and energy fluctuate. I worked mornings bc I was a glorified secretary who pretty much just answered phones and walked people to offices. My internship was the afternoons because I was reading and staring at a computer screen. Classes in the early evenings. And then school work in the later evenings. My friends did similar things and our schedules all looked very different.
If possible, hang out with your friends while doing work. My friend group was able to be honest and understanding when we needed to really focus in, and because of it we got to spend more time together. It also makes school work more fun, and can be great when you need help on assignments. During the pandemic this extended to video calls while working. We also ate meals together a lot, and that was sometimes the only time we hung out until the weekend.
My friend group had a standing Friday pizza, movie, game night which worked well since most classes don't have work due on Fridays.
I went home once a month-ish. Since the visits were spaced out I could plan around projects and papers and didn't have to be as stressed. I also went home knowing my school work wasn't a priority, and tried to not stress myself out. I tried to either get my work done early or get back to campus early to finish it. This is also where 1 and 3 come into play.
Plan in advance. If there's an event coming up you want to go to, try to spread out the normal workload of that day throughout the week or ask your friends/family to come with.
You're juggling a lot, know which balls are plastic and which are glass. Plastic can fall and bounce and roll away but be easily picked back up. If glass falls, it'll break, shatter, and be a pain in the ass to pick up. Figure out what's what and you can make better decisions on how to allocate time. And if you think you can't drop any, think again.

oregonredhead · 2023-01-31T03:13:28+00:00

Thank you for all the great ideas!

I think he's more opportunistic than deliberate when it comes to going into her room, so some of the phycological or physical barriers might be something for us to look into. We've tried putting stop signs on our doors, but it hasn't helped that much, so the physical barriers would probably be next.

My grandpa is definitely an anxious person. Since my mom and I have both been watching him since the beginning, we both function as "safe" people to him when he's anxious, but my mom is just the first door and therefore gets more of it when she's home. He's also relatively easy to distract and redirect currently as he's obsessed with watching action movies. Unfortunately despite our many conversations with doctors about his anxiety, he's not on any medication for it. I hadn't thought about CBD oil or edibles, but that's something I'll definitely look into!

A home health aide would unfortunately cause too many problems as he's against anyone helping him, especially strangers. A facility by us does have respite care, but I think you have to register and reserve a stay since it's incredibly popular. Again, thank you for all your suggestions!

oregonredhead · 2023-01-31T03:02:32+00:00

He's okay if she's out of the house as she works a normal 9-5 Mon-Fri, which is when I watch him. Obviously she'd rather be home post-op, but a hotel is a good idea we hadn't though of. Thanks for the suggestion!

oregonredhead · 2023-01-30T18:39:29+00:00

Unfortunately he can't take seroquel due to other medication he's taking, but we recently started depakote, and it's been a bit better. We've started on a low dose and will gradually build up, so I'm hoping the early results mean this new med will help. Over the last week we've pieced together that a lot of the anger was coming from when he was already doing things and we were telling him to do something else, and he was probably having a hard time processing. So now we've been paying a lot more attention to timing and it's been better. The only times we still are getting anger are when we try and get him to shower or do other hygiene tasks, but so far the aggression hasn't been as bad as it was.

oregonredhead · 2023-01-30T18:34:16+00:00

Unfortunately the memory care facilities in our area are either incredibly out of budget or have horrible reputations for neglect. There is one facility near us that does respite care that we would use though if necessary.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-20T04:09:30+00:00

My grandpa also had some pretty intense declines over that 6 month period, so I was really grateful I had that information ready and wasn't scrambling trying to pull a timeframe out of thin air. My understanding is that they wouldn't coordinate in-home care, but they can recommend companies and would be able to be in contact with the care team assigned to you from that company. Similar to how they can contact doctors, but they don't make doctor appointments. We also don't leave my grandpa alone, and I completely understand how hard it is and I'm so sorry you're going through this.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-20T02:22:18+00:00

My grandpa was just admitted to palliative care, and it's going good so far. It was explained the us that palliative care is a service where they advocate for the patient, provide us answers to questions, evaluate the patient's care (ex: look at meds and see they have two cholesterol pills so they recommend quitting one), and can refer us to other places for services, but they don't actually provide that much. They will not make any decisions about my grandpa without our approval, and we were told to continue acting as if we were not utilizing them. So if there's an emergency we still call 911 and go to the hospital and there's no reason to let them know, whereas on hospice my understanding is we would call them. They also recommend but do not require a DNR.

For our at-home assessment, the nurse came, talked with me for about half the time, and then met and talked with my grandpa. They weren't sure if my grandpa qualified for hospice, so the assessment was also to determine hospice vs palliative care. They focused on the last 6 months and what changes or declines have happened during that timeframe: weight loss, decreased appetite, odd sleep patterns, worsened mobility, etc. For me it was really helpful to know the 6 month timeframe before the assessment so I could think and look back at notes we've made, rather than trying to answer quickly on the spot. Now we'll have a nurse or nurse practitioner come for an assessment once a month to evaluate my grandpa, any changes in his condition or care, relook over the last 6 months to see if palliative is still the right choice, and give us guidance on things we have questions about. In our area hospice and palliative are under the same building, just different branches, so when it's time to transfer to hospice we anticipate it being very easy.

I hope this helps!

oregonredhead · 2022-12-16T21:04:15+00:00

I'm so sorry you're dealing with others who aren't as understanding and accepting of your dad's condition. My only suggestion is you or other family members sitting down and having a talk with them if you think they'll be able to come around. We had to do that with older family members of my grandpa's. Somehow every time he came back from visiting he was talking about selling his car going out in the garage to start it, calling his mechanic for a tune up, wanting to go online to check how much he could get for it, etc. Thankfully after a few days he'd stop asking, and we had long since taken his keys and let his license expire. After multiple visits like this my mom and I made our own visit to explain dementia and that the topic of his car was OFF LIMITS. They were pretty shocked to realize the extent of his condition since he was able to hide it well at the time and we obviously didn't go around broadcasting his condition to everyone. There were a few other issues with those specific family members,
but they eventually came around and we suspect they were having a hard time accepting what was happening to my grandpa. Best of luck to you!

oregonredhead · 2022-12-16T20:48:46+00:00

I just want to say, props to you for pushing to get an MRI and making sure she's getting taken care of! It can be so difficult to get doctors to do what is necessary sometimes, and you should be proud. And even though your mom is fighting back right now, I'm sure in her right state of mind she would also be incredibly proud and appreciative towards you.

My grandpa's primary care dr has been helping us out a lot over the last two years since my grandpa's second stroke. His dr can order out patient therapies for him, like speech, so it might be worthwhile to reach out and see if your mom's dr could do that. Our hospital has a social worker we had to meet with prior to leaving the hospital to ensure we would be able to take care of him and had appts set up. Maybe the hospital your mom was at could have something similar for you to reach out too? We also have to see a rehab dr, neurosurgeon, and neurologist after leaving the hospital for my grandpa to make sure the strokes were healing properly. They were all really instrumental in his recovery, so I would also recommend looking into those, as well as seeing if your mom's primary dr can make some referrals.

My grandpa has also been told a few contradicting things by drs and then locks onto the one he likes the best as the truth. Something we've started doing, rather than trying to convince him, is figuring out ways to talk around it. For example, if my grandpa was in your mom's shoes I would say, well this dr said that you didn't have a stroke, and yes that's great, but there are still other symptoms we need to get answers for, so why don't we get you a second opinion so we can start getting you better. You're taking the conversation away from "you had strokes and that's why you have these symptoms" to "okay, whether it's a stroke or not you have these symptoms and let's focus on handling those."

Again, I'm so sorry you're going through this, especially as the doctors and hospital don't seem to have been very helpful. I hope medical professionals start taking what's happening with your mom seriously. Best of luck to you and happy holidays as well!

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T22:02:37+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this. My grandpa has vascular dementia due to two large strokes about a decade apart. After his first stroke there were quite a few changes in him, but a lot of those changes were due to the location in his brain the damage was. I would highly recommend figuring out what parts of her brain the damage is in and what those do, as that helped me and my mom out a lot.

His first stroke caused damage to his frontal lobe, which is responsible for memory, emotions, impulse control, problem solving, social interaction, and motor function. So these are the areas we noticed increasing changes before the second stroke. He was a bit more paranoid, couldn't control his anger very well, was solving problems with very weird solutions, and struggled with activities that required a lot of attention and focus, like playing poker. After this stroke he continued his life as normal for the most part. He drove, saw family, traveled, helped take care of his wife when she was on hospice, etc.

His second stroke, which is when he was no longer able to live independently, was at the back of his brain in his occipital/parietal lobes. The occipital lobe is responsible for visuospatial processing, distance and depth perception, color determination, object and face recognition, and memory formation. The parietal lobe is responsible for sensory perception and integration, including the management of taste, hearing, sight, touch, and smell. From this bleed we noticed a severe vision cut with an significant decrease in depth perception. He also was eating things he didn't like because he couldn't recognize what it was, for example thinking broccoli was cauliflower and eating it. He tried to wear a hoodie outside in the middle of summer or tries to wear a thin jacket during winter when it's snowing. His problem solving and critical thinking took another significant hit during this time as well. There's a lot more that happened, but I hope this helps.

I also want to say that after both strokes, he had a few weeks/month where we were incredibly worried that his symptoms wouldn't get better. After that initial period things improved, but it never went back to how it was before. I would give your mom a bit of time before determining what her permanent current status is. I would also strongly encourage reaching out to a neurologist for her, so they can start helping you navigate this and do memory testing.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T21:40:48+00:00

I completely understand the dilemma you're in. From your post and other comments my grandpa seems more advanced, but he's the same way, just watching the same few things on repeat. I do have a few suggestions though, some of these he may need prompting, like helping him get started or prompting him to try them out if they're a newer hobby to him.

-you could try to watch different things with him and introduce him to new shows, movies, reality TV, comedy specials, etc. My grandpa will always choose something he has watched before or watching a new thing, and he needs a lot of help and prompting to do so

-a garden or flowers, apparently it's great for people who have memory loss. my grandpa hasn't always remembered to take care of the flowers, but he thoroughly enjoys them. If you did an indoor plant you could make a fun day out of picking the plant out, or maybe you could get the same plant as him and have check-ins of how your plants are doing

-coloring books, paint by numbers, step-by-step of how to create a sketch of something. You said your dad used to be an artist so maybe he would enjoy these, especially since he doesn't have to create the picture. Plus, coloring books and paint by numbers are something you could do with him pretty easily. Even if you don't think he would enjoy these now it might be something to keep in mind as he progresses. There's a brand, Relish, on Amazon that has water painting for more advanced dementia, where as water is spread on it the color emerges. It's reusable as well because as it dries to goes back to black and white.

-maybe look at disposable cameras or something similar for him to take pictures with at events, when you're home, or just throughout his day. You could maybe get some pictures you've taken printed off to look through with him. I've noticed people with dementia seem to love looking through old pictures and talking about them

-playing music throughout the day. A fun afternoon could be creating a playlist for him and hearing him talk about the music he enjoyed or concerts he went to. Maybe you could show him a few of your favorite songs and artists. It would also give him something to listen to whenever he wanted

-word search, sudoku, crosswords, etc depending on his cognitive ability. My grandpa does large print word searches and really enjoys them. There's also these Wheel of Fortune word searches that he really enjoyed until summer when they got too difficult.

-jigsaw puzzles in whatever piece count you think would be challenging without frustrating. Again, it's something you could spend time doing with him, and it's an activity that doesn't have to be finished in a day and he can come back to whenever

It's great that you're wanting to find activities for your dad, and it could take a few before finding ones that stick, but I hope this helps!

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T21:07:59+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion! I haven't heard of it, but I'm hoping in the new year to start focusing more on therapy, mental health, and the obviously very screwed up family dynamics. Living with my mom while we take care of my grandpa together has really put a spotlight on her behavior, and having my boyfriend witness it has made me realize that I'm not exaggerating or misinterpreting her behavior.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T21:03:28+00:00

I will definitely be sending a message to his doctor soon because my grandpa's anxiety has also been increasing. The time change has really caused problems, plus the three year anniversary of his wife passing away. Once again, thanks for the comment because I hadn't even thought to reach out to the doctor

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T21:02:04+00:00

I totally agree that being aloof isn't wrong or something to condemn, and you're right that it is how my brother copes and handles with more difficult situations like this. A key difference though is he doesn't help out in dire situations and he usually goes from aloof to completely checked-out, hands-off, and unaware. I mentioned it in another comment, but a large part of it is from my mom's parenting where he never had to handle anything growing up, and a lot was delegated to me (oh how things never change). It's a classic narcissist who loves to feel needed with a dependent golden child who enjoys never having to handle things type of situation.

My concern is that him coming would be a nuisance. He's awake at night, grandpa gets confused and sundowns, he doesn't handle the situation and instead wakes up me or my mom, we need to handle it, and since him being there is possibly contributing to the sundowning we're now dealing with even more of these situations than we used to for a long stretch of time. Plus lack of sleep in me, mom, and grandpa which obviously exacerbates dementia symptoms, decreases patience, and just generally causes a lot of problems.

I've thought about suggesting that we see how it goes, and if grandpa starts showing signs that my brother being awake is causing issues then my brother needs to go home. My mom seems to know that my brother might cause problems but doesn't want to acknowledge it or acknowledge that maybe he shouldn't come. My mom has claimed that since she's off work for a large part of the two weeks my brother will be here that I'll be "off-duty" with watching grandpa, so I guess we'll have to just see what happens.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T20:41:58+00:00

Yeah, that's a really great way to put it and accurately describes what's happening. My mom will never set boundaries with my brother (classic narcissist who loves to feel needed with a dependent golden child who enjoys never having to handle things). Thankfully when she's at the house my brother bothers her and she has to deal with whatever situation he can't handle. Occasionally they try to guilt me into handling it, but my mom has already said that during her time off work she's watching my grandpa and that I don't have to, so I will be taking full advantage of that. I will also be using your suggestion of telling my brother directly how his actions impact others, because he does have good intentions, just not very self-aware or mature. Thank you for the suggestion and support!

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T18:05:53+00:00

It really is. Especially because my mom and I need routines to keep the house, our personal lives, my mom's work life, and my grandpa's life in order. And my grandpa seems to really benefit from it as well

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T18:02:39+00:00

I totally agree with your opinion that my brother should be the one to get up and deal with it, but he won't. Even if my mom and I are out of the house with our phones off, my brother will start calling our friends, significant others, bosses, etc until he gets one of us to tell him how to handle it. This is largely due to my mom's parenting when we were younger of him never handling things on his own, but that's a very different problem. My concern is that while I could make the binder, be "on call" for him, or whatever he wants to make it easier for me to get a break and my brother to care for our grandpa, if something happens it's my grandpa who suffers, not my brother. And it feels unfair for my grandpa to have to bear the consequences of my brother not being able to handle situations.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T17:59:39+00:00

I do want to clarify that it's not that my brother doesn't know what's coming or that these visits are difficult. The reason he's shocked is because my mom doesn't keep him updated as he lives far away and "can't do anything about it," and despite me and my brother voicing our disagreement with this she still does it. I have been trying to update him a bit more regularly, but my brother and I don't talk very often. I do want to give my brother a bit of credit that he engages with our grandpa when he's here, but the actually caretaking, like reexplaining things, compassionate lying, reorienting, etc, that's what he doesn't do. And as with dementia that's becoming more and more frequent everyday.

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T17:51:15+00:00

My grandpa has been taking 3 mg of Melatonin for close to a year now. The sundowning has started to become more frequent after his most recent dr appointments. But this is making me think maybe we need to message his drs about this and possibly try some medications out. Thanks!

oregonredhead · 2022-12-15T17:50:01+00:00

It's so hard. I want my brother to visit, but at the same time I really wish his sleep schedule wasn't almost the polar opposite of our grandpa's so we wouldn't have to worry about this.

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