Dramatic, I know. But it feels so real. I had posted less than 2 months ago about my mom surviving a minor stroke. Still in the midst of my own grief about my dad passing from dementia, we are now dealing with another ill family member less than two years later.
She had a lengthy stay in the hospital and three weeks of in-patient rehab. She did great, and came home while we put 24/7 in home care in place while she was recovering. We were so impressed at the recovery she made. She was walking, going out, doing some cooking, etc. We were really hopeful about her future.
Fast forward to Monday, and she suffered septic shock from a UTI. I have a feeling her blood sugar exacerbated the infection because she only told me about her symptoms two days prior. She sounded very confused on the phone the night prior and I wrote it off (since it was about technology) consumed in my own anger and anxiety about the future. I now feel so guilty I didn't check with the caregiver further about whether she was okay.
For anyone familiar with sepsis, her lactic acid number was 12.5. A few hours longer and we would have lost her. I feel like this sets her back in her post-stroke recovery and I'm just so mad at the world for doing this. I'm now back in the hospital with her.
Just looking for words of encouragement and anyone who shares a similar experience. Thanks for listening!
My dear mom nearly died of sepsis due to a severe uti. I had escorted her to her doctor's appt. three weeks previous where the doctor gave her something to do her own urine collection. I trusted that she would be able to handle it but she forgot and thus what happened. I should have double checked that she had done it but I didn't. Was it my fault?..........no, it wasn't. I'm not perfect. No one is. You do the best you can and then move on.
The world is not against you. It's just life. It happens.
How's your mom doing now? Is there hope in recovery after sepsis? My mom seems mostly fine but significantly weaker. Basically erasing a lot of the progress we made post-stroke.
Waited 4 days for antibiotic treatment for a UTI.
Self-care is difficult when taking care of spouse.
1) Worse when he makes it difficult by objecting to everything.
2) Worse when the confusion and possible delirium happens to self.
I can do it!
Thanks..............
I do feel and think that for many people, old age stinks. My mom is 97 1/2 years old; her decline has been heartbreaking to witness. But I know that there is nothing that I or my siblings or health-care professionals or the staff at the memory care facility where she lives could do that could prevent this decline. And I don't think you caused or contributed to your mom's current health (or lack of health) situation.
My mom is only 73 so it feels early to go have to go through this with her especially so soon after losing my dad. I get it, it's life, but it also feels so tough when you make progress and then are met with repeated hurdles, year after year. The stories I have are just draining.
Sorry you're going through tough times, too. All we can do is support one another. Thanks for responding.
Then there's my incredible second husband...12 years younger than me, a devout Christian, hard working, totally respectful and polite. He was big, tall and buffed. Ate healthy, no drugs, a beer sometimes...and totally gorgeous. I waited 25 years to find such a perfect man and cherished him every day.
We had 5 years, then he suddenly got sick, took him to the ER, and found out he had 1 year to live, with Stage 4 colon cancer, with mets to his liver. It was a brutal year, including horrible chemo. He was brave and determined God would save him. The doctors invested in him, being so young and fit, so likeable. Yet that year flew by and he was gone at 33 years old.
Then I read about these spoiled seniors, dragging their families thru hell, with no reason to really live at all. Abusive, mean and unappreciative. So much illness and defects that can't be fixed...yet they hang on into their 90s.
Why I don't believe in God. He took his best fan away and the best man I've ever known...gave him a brutal, suffering death. I don't get it. I never will.
I moved my parents here in 2011 after marrying my second husband in 2009. They lived in Independent Senior Living but still required a lot of our attention. Mom was hospitalized 2x, dad was in the ER a few times, we had to move them to AL in 2014, tons of hospitalizations and rehabs in between, dad died in 15, moved mom to a smaller apt in AL shortly afterward, many trips to the ENT for her chronic vertigo, a flooded apartment requiring another move, then 2 bouts of pneumonia and subsequent hospital stays interspersed with ER trips, then off to Memory Care. Then DH started with his urgent health issues and an emergency pacemaker in 19, triple bypass in 20 in the height of Covid, a second surgery for pleural effusion 2 weeks later, then a liver transplant in another state in 22. My mother died a month before we were called to the Mayo Clinic for 7 weeks. After DH recovered, I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in Jan of 23. After immunotherapy nearly killed me, the cancer was gone from my body but left me with disabilities. So here we are now, 3 years later going back and forth to doctors offices for our entertainment.
The golden years aren't quite as golden as they're supposed to be. I hear you loud and clear. DH and I recognize some miracles we've been blessed with along this difficult path, however, but that doesn't minimize the exhaustion and toll it's taken on us.
Press on and pray a lot. That's what I do and it's helped me get through a lot of tough times and a lot of fear and uncertainty. The love and support of my children and (some) of the stepchildren has been a lovely thing too.
Wishing you the best.
Just complications from plain old-age.
She recovered well from the sepsis actually. She was 91 at the time so all things considered she bounced back from that really well.
I remember being very upset about a minor “mistake” I made at the beginning of the chaotic series of events of my late father’s health crisis that resulted in his quadriplegia. (The mistake didn’t cause the quadriplegia but was but one issue in a whole series of events delaying the diagnosis of his spinal cord injury.) With time I realized that I like everyone else involved who made “mistakes” was doing my best and that there were larger forces behind the scenes (aging, frailty, illness, our ultimate inevitable mortality) that we really can’t do much about at the end of day.
Hope you can forgive yourself and let it go. You’re doing your best!
So don't beat yourself up. Now you know. From now on its prevention. My Mom was put on a cranberry tablet and a probiotic. D-Mannose has been recommended here. If she gets another UTI, make them do a culture so they know what bacteria is causing them.