My mom made huge improvements last week. Her confusion has subsided and she can now think clearly. Hooray!! No more funny comments and out of place words. She was still a nervous wreck but was able to sit through most of her therapy sessions. She still didn't like to be by herself but was dealing with that. The biggest step she made last week is that she started to sleep. WOW! The doctors switched her medicines and what do you know she slept that night. The doctors wanted us to take her home for a day visit to see how she would do outside the hospital. She was excited for that but we have come to find out that if she knows about anything in advance that she spends all her time worrying about when it's going to happen. So she spent Friday and Saturday working herself up for her outing on Sunday. When Sunday rolled around she was a mess. She didn't want to leave the hospital and once my aunts got her to leave she didn't want to see any of her kids. Or rather she didn't want to have her kids see her how she was. They took her to her house and she climbed into her bed and went to sleep. When she would wake up she would be scared and yelling and asking when she could go back to the hospital. After a few hours she did say she wanted to see us. So Sy, Shane and I went over. She didn't want Sam to come and get scared because she knew she could not control herself. She stayed in her room and wanted one of us to be by her but we stayed in the living room and told her that if she wanted to talk with us that she had to come out there. Sounds mean, huh. All part of her therapy. We have to bring her out of her world and back into ours. She tried to come out but said it was to noisy and started crying and panicking. She asked if it was time to go back so we decided it would be best to take her back before things got to out of hand.
Monday was bad. It is like the last 2 weeks of progress never happened. She is screaming and crying in her therapy sessions. She won't sit down or cooperate. They have to literally block her into the room to get the session done. Her therapist thinks it was a bad idea that she went home. Gee, thanks. You're a day late on that one. My mom has said for weeks now that she would do better if they would just let her go home. That she would heal faster and better because that is how it always is. But when she got home she realized that it didn't help. She still has not grasped the complexity of her injury. I think she thought if she could go home that her fear and anxiety would go away. Obviously home isn't the cure all she was hoping for. We are starting over on some things now. Yesterday was depressing but we keep going. No choice, right.
We were given new insight yesterday. We found out that it is very common for people with head injuries to not want to chew. Hence the reason why my mom won't eat. Chewing will be something she has to learn is a necessity. We got her to take four bites of her dinner last night. And you would of thought we were asking her to pull out her own teeth.
She also doesn't find joy in things. She has a beautiful view of the mountains from her living room but when my aunt pointed that out my mom said, "Am I every going to like things like that again, am I ever going to like food again?" She doesn't see things the way we do anymore. If there was a gorgeous sunset she would not have the desire to take a second look if she smelled apple pie baking it wouldn't cross her mind to have some. That is sad for me. I couldn't imagine every day being gloomy and not being able to find something to cheer you up.
I hope that will be one of the things she is blessed to get back.