Ups and Downs

When  your blood glucose is 40, they let you eat anything and everything you want.Here's Floyd with cheesecake on one side and a chocolate shake on the other. 

So this week was crazy. . . . Let's just say first up.  Maxine is not  happy to be here and is displaying some pretty drastic signs of pathological depression.  Hallucinating, not eating, not sleeping, refusing to perform any amount of self care, complaining when someone else tries to do it for her.  We have had many discussions and I am sorry to say not all of them motivated by love on my part but I am working on that.

The real excitement happened on Thursday night.  Rodger heard Floyd call out to him and found him on the floor.  He said something about the floor being slippery.  Weird.  He also so that he seemed confused.   Soon after  he got up again and fell again this time hitting his head.  Rodger came in to report that he was acting really strange and saying weird things and what should we do.  Well he takes a blood thinner and as an ER nurse who has seen bad stuff I naturally thing he must have a bleed and we need to get out of bed and call an ambulance.  Rodger decides to watch him for awhile and sleeps or more like lays on the couch and listens to him alternately breathing and muttering incoherent stuff.  Finally early in the morning hours we call an ambulance and the guys come and do their stroke exam.  Floyd's speech is slurred, he is disoriented, he is listing to the right and thinks he is upright.  All strange behaviors.  Unfortunately the battery on their glucometer doesn't work.  I don't get too upset about that because I am thinking bleed and perhaps they should just go to Harborview because that is were we send out bleeds.  Anyway on arrival to the ER they check his glucose level, that's what we do for strokes/bleeds and his is 40.  Super low.  They give him an amp of dextrose and viola he is back to normal.

All goes well, except a repeat glucose level and they send him home.  I give him his meds upon arrival, have lunch and go to Costco to pick up a glucometer.

All goes well until the pre dinner glucose level, that is 47.  We give  him juice, then dinner, lasagna etc. and desert.  2 hours later before bed his glucose is 42.  I make him drink an Ensure and say we will check it again in 20 minutes.   This time it is 47.  Not cool.   So I call the on call doctor to see what I can do about it.  He says to take him back to the ER, to find out if it is real.  Well that gives us ideas about the glucometer we got for free.  I check my level, 87.  Normal.  Rodger checks his, 90, also normal.   I call the ER and ask for the nicest doctor there.  I get Dr. Zwart, a nice one.  He is kind and takes some time to talk to me and tells me to bring him in.  We check his level again at 10:30 and it is 31.  So after a quick glass of OJ we pack him in the car.  I have a pocket full of mints and keep feeding them to him all the way to the ER.  On arrival he is 40.  Great juice.  

After an amp of dextrose and 15 minutes his level is back to 31.  Not normal.  They give him another and start him on a 5% drip.  About 1:30 we head home for some sleep and he is admitted with hourly dextrose and a 10% drip.  No one can figure out the mystery.

 

 

The contents of the pill box for Saturday

So the pharmacist comes to his room and asks about his meds, any changes, anything look any different?  Perhaps  you could go home and get the actual things he takes and let us look at them.  Rodger went back to the hospital but forgot to take the pill dispenser.   This is the picture I sent him and he showed it to the pharmacist.  See the little rectangular one?  That is the culprit.  Amaryl, an oral diabetic medicine.  Why he had it or where it came from I don't know.  When I looked at the bottle, the script was from 2012 and should have been tossed in 2013 but no.  

Free At Last

We brought him home today and he was pleasant and agreeable through the whole ordeal.

Maxine is another story.  She does not like me and tells me often, She is unhappy to be here and lately has stopped eating unless I trick her into it.  If I just put something snacky beside her she will absent mindedly eat but at the table with food.  No way.  She doesn't want to be dressed or undressed or walk or sit on the toilet.  She asks me "What have I ever done to you?" at least 20 times a day.  Lately her thing has been to say, "Jeanne, I really do not like you" I told her that was okay.

Last night I got a little steamed and had to get over it.  I listened to the Women's broadcast.  The messages were really great but pretty far from my present mindset.  One sister talked about not leaning on the world but being centered in Christ.  Another talk was about Holiness in every minute, nope not me, at least not that day.  The last Sister talked about Certain women, Certain and sure of their testimonies and commitment to Christ.  I could agree with that one.  The thing that really got we was a story President Eyring told.  He said that many years ago his little boys were jumping off their bed or doing something that was blatantly wrong and he said he went in and picked him up by the shoulders and raised him to eye level.  He then said he heard the Spirit say. "you are holding someone important".   I have been thinking about that ever since.  Maxine is someone important in God's eyes and she should be that to me.  I have had a better day today.  I haven't lost my temper.  I have tried to be more loving.  I have even told her I loved her a few times in response to her question, "Jeanne, why do you hate me?"  I am not perfect and I am saying it so I will feel it and believe it.  I am working on it.  We should all think of those we meet with that voice of the Spirit in our heads and heart.  This is someone important.