1. At 9:30, I went to Mom's room. I knew Carol had requested that she be transferred back to her bed because Mom was nodding off and twitching in her wheelchair. Mom was in a state of distress when I arrived. She was restless, pulling her knees up, moaning, groaning, calling weakly for help, grimacing, rolling her head back and forth, and twitching. She had very brief intervals of calm, of stillness, and then, I imagine, another wave of pain came on and she showed all the signs of pain. I tried to comfort Mom by holding her hand and stroking her arm. Sometimes she squeezed my hand hard and other times she pushed my hand away.
Soon I realized that this pain wasn't going to subside on its own and I asked for Mom's nurse to come in. She immediately determined that Mom should have a dose of morphine. The morphine didn't take effect immediately and when an aide came in about an hour later to check on Mom, she stayed for a few minutes, saw how restless Mom was, listened to Mom talk incoherently, and saw her act out benign hallucinations and went to Mom's nurse to see if the nurse could give mom further aid.
The nurse gave Mom a dose of Lorazepam. This was at 11:30. It didn't take effect right away.
2. At about 12:15, I texted Christy and Carol that I thought the Lorazepam might be taking effect. Mom seemed to be a little more still, not so restless. I fed her some lunch -- not a lot -- and she talked a little bit with Joanne Monteith and said hi to Carol Lee. She had been out of it when Susan and Joe came by.
At about 1:25, I texted my sisters that Mom had been still for about ten minutes without any physical signs of restlessness or pain. The ten minutes grew into 45 minutes, became an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, and when Christy came to see Mom at 6:00, Mom continued to sleep peacefully.
I stayed with Mom all through this afternoon of peaceful sleep because I wanted to see how she would be when she woke up, but I decided soon after 6 o'clock that I would leave and go back over to Mom's house and have a beer with the Deke and, a little later, the Deke and I joined Christy and Everett in the back yard for brats and salads and beets with chard and watermelon.
3. Meanwhile, Carol and Paul's daughter Cosette was having a medical emergency. She'd been unable to keep any food or liquids down for close to a couple of days in Moscow and, at 9:00 Saturday night, Paul drove to Moscow and brought her back to Kellogg.
Early Sunday afternoon, Paul took Cosette to the ER. She was in a lot of pain and severely dehydrated. The doctors ran tests, did blood work, and worked to hydrate Cosette.
Cosette returned home in the early evening, but, later Sunday night, Paul and Carol took her back to the ER for another IV. Cosette spent the night in the ER. I'm writing this on Monday morning and Cosette is back home again and Carol is very cautiously optimistic that she seems better.
Maybe, by the time I write on this blog again tomorrow morning, I'll have a clearer understanding of what's been afflicting Coco and I can write a clearer report telling how she's doing.
Please keep Cosette in your thoughts and prayers, right alongside Mom.
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