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My mother's symptoms seem to be trolling me. Every time I think I have something to grab onto the symptom mysteriously disappears only to be replaced with something else. Pain in the lower back, itchy lower back, impacted colon, blood in the urine, black stool, hacking cough. All there and then gone just as quickly. I can't keep up.

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Symptoms are never ending. I think she sits and thinks of new ones every day. It drives me nuts. If I took her to every doctor she wants to go to I would stay in the road.
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Ahmijoy Oct 2018
Gwen, if it makes you feel any better, when my mom got a new prescription, she would read the leaflet that came with it. And then proceed to have every side effect listed. I swear if one of the side effects had been green hair, blue skin and horns, she would have found a way...
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Gremlin, I think we’ve been through all this before, but either you need to take a stand with your father, get him to an attorney and get Mom in a facility or you need to completely step back from the situation. You cannot possibly continue being a doctor, lawyer, therapist, health aide, etc., etc., etc. I know that’s easy for me to say. I am worried about you, casting about, sliding further and further down this slope. We’ve talked about “reinventing” yourself, but if you don’t “put your foot down” with Dad, this isn’t going to happen.

Constipation doesn’t cause colon cancer and I don’t believe it’s a sign of it either. If Mom was diagnosed with cancer, would Dad allow her to be treated? Or would he ignore it and hope it goes away because he selfishly doesn’t want to be poor and alone? All these things that are plaguing your Mom are part of her issues. She sounds very angry and unhappy. The doctors need to handle this. There really isn’t much you can do except agonize over what to do. And as long as your father has his head in the sand and you don’t force the issue with him nothing will change.
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Gremlin Oct 2018
Mom's in the nursing home now. She was excepted yesterday. I'm still numb but filling the time with a year long to do list.

Constipation can be a sign of colon cancer if the growth is large enough to obstruct the colon. If it goes on long enough it can put pressure on the other organs and eventually cause a heart attack.
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Gremlin, has mom's doc prescribed any medications to help with her mood and behavior? Have you looked into her seeing a geriatric psychiatrist?

It's hard not to "awfulize" in this situation, but be aware that the fact that a doc says "we need to rule out XYZ" does not mean that you need to "worry".

The way I started to look at it when my mom got to this stage was "there is NOTHING we can do to fix this; we can only ameliorate and treat her symptoms and above all, keep her pain free". That line of thinking helped me a lot. It took a long time to get there.
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Did you get the Medicaid thing worked out and she is now in a facility? If so, her health issues are not your problem and you don’t need to “keep up”. Her symptoms and health problems are her’s, not your’s. Her doctors are the one’s who need to treat her as best they can. Remember in another post you said you were wishing for her to have cancer or a heart attack? Now, you’re upset because this could very well be the beginning of the end. Have you asked for Hospice?

Its obvious your mom is very ill. And you’ve had a very long row to hoe. Don’t stress out over every symptom and feel you need to hang onto them or figure out the why’s and wherefore. Find a peaceful place, if even in your mind and go there. For me, it’s redecorating my bedroom in my thoughts. It works.
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Gremlin Oct 2018
No NH yet. Dad is still dragging his heels so she's still in the house slowly picking away at our sanity. Her new thing was constipation. She hadn't pooped for 11 days so colon cancer became an issue. That was remedied last night with a laxative. Unfortunately, she was nicer when she was constipated. Now she is right back to yelling and banging things. Fixing one problem just creates another.

Cancer would still be a kinder end than watching someone slowly become everything they would have hated.
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