Thumbs Up!

January 30, 2014


I have decided to write a blog with journal entries to keep me updated with my mom's progression and also to update others in the process since there seems to be so much going on. I hope you will come visit here often to see what my mom has been up to & to see how she is doing!

Currently, she is not responding very good to text messages and she is not answering her phone. She would love to receive mail (I know she would. I know she looks forward to walk out to her mailbox everyday.) She is doing well and I am keeping an eye on her every day, just for some reason she is not responding to texts or phone calls anymore. I think maybe it is hard for her communicating on her own.

We are waiting to hear back from the neurologist to set up an appointment to a new neurologist doctor that we were referred to in December. I should hear back something on Monday.

 The next posts will be updates to what has lead us to where we are now.....




Our Makeover Fun Day - Christmas Eve

January 05, 2014



One of my mom's symptoms has been to wear the same clothes everyday for the past months since my mom had knee surgery. My mom hadn't worn make-up since her knee surgery, also. My mom has a hard time taking showers. I'm not sure if it's her memory or why it is so hard for her. The doctors noticed that she had a hard time to do that at the hospital, as well.

I encouraged my mom the day before Christmas Eve to have a shower the next day, and I found her a pretty pink sweater out of her closet that I hung out for her to wear. I got her prepared ahead of time for our makeover day!

I arrived to her house Christmas Eve. She had already had a shower. She had her pretty pink sweater on and was excited. I went through her bathroom to find some kind of make-up to put on her. I started putting on her make-up. She looked in the mirror and said "wow, I look different".  


Since this day, she has put on some make-up herself and she is loving her lipstick.

I'm learning that reminders and telling my mom in nice ways, with encouragement has been helpful for her. 







LDS Hospital Stay

January 04, 2014




My mom was transferred up to LDS Hospital by ambulance. She made it in time to have dinner that evening. She enjoyed watching tv during her stay there. There wasn't much else for her to do there. She was in a locked up unit and was watched over carefully. My mom called me at least twice a day. 

After many testings, MRI tests, psychology tests, a slight pill change, etc. the doctor believed that my mom has dementia/and or some psychotic disorder going on. Her MRI showed that her brain has shrunk which is not normal for her age. He compared her brain to an 80 year old's brain.

My mom was discharged just in time for Thanksgiving. She was happy about that.

Since her discharge we have gone to a psychologist, which the psychologist said "she can not help my mom". I believe it is because my mom tells everyone that she is doing fine.

We went to the neurologist that she saw at the LDS Hospital. My mom didn't do good on the testing my mom did at that appointment. My mom got upset at the doctor and walked out on the doctor. The doctor called the DMV and right now my mom's driver's license is suspended and she can not drive. We need to follow up with the neurologist we were referred to, to see the next steps to everything. Her testings show poor memory and problem solving. They feel like it isn't safe for her to be driving.



The Hospital Stay - IMC

January 04, 2014

 
It was past 1 AM in the morning on November 17th, 2013, when my phone received a call from my mom's cell phone number. I was sleeping, but Paul was awake. Paul woke me and told me my mom had just called me and we both knew that was strange. I, right away, called her back. Her neighbor, Bob, answered her phone. He sounded concerned and he told me he thought that my mom had "OD'd" on medicines. I told him that I would be right over to her house and to make sure she doesn't take anymore medicines.

We rushed right over to her house and when we walked inside the house and only my mom was inside. She seemed loopy and not all there. She would call things different names like a couch a bed or things like that. Her sentences didn't make sense. My mom's neighbor finally came back from his house and my mom was talking to him and telling him that "Paul and Natalie were taking a long time to get to her house", when we were sitting right in front of her. She would repeat that every 10 minutes or so and also thought maybe I was taking awhile because I was putting make-up on first before going to her house.

After searching through her medicines and noticing what was missing, calling her pharmacy and poison control, we decided to take her into the ER at the hospital.

My mom had been having problems sleeping for weeks at night. She was determined to try whatever to get some sleep. She literally was not sleeping, but then had tons of energy during the day. She went to the store with Bob (her next door neighbor) to buy Benedryl, and the Nighttime kind of NyQuil to help sleep. I believe that she just continued to take pills after pills that night trying to go to sleep and she didn't even know what she was taking.

She had walked to her neighbors house at 1AM in the morning and fell on his driveway hitting her face, to tell him that she couldn't sleep. That is how the neighbor got involved that night.


She was admitted into the hospital that morning and stayed there for the next few days before she was transferred up to LDS hospital so she could be evaluated further more. 

The excessive pills she had taken made her heart beat differently so they were monitoring her heart and she was admitted into the heart department area. My mom still thinks she was just at the hospital because she needed help to sleep. All a long my mom just wanted to go home and thought she was fine, but just needed help to sleep.



There were so many signs that she was anything, but okay. I finally felt relieved after months of worrying about her and not know what was going with her.

 To Learn More About Our Early Frontotemporal Dementia Signs My Mom Had, visit,

 http://ftdjourney.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-early-signs-of-frontotemporal.html

  

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