Mom is still in the hospital, but she's doing okay.
Her laceration is healing nicely. The swelling is mostly gone, although she is now showing some bruising, and is developing a black eye.
The main reason they are keeping her is to run tests. So far she's had a CAT scan, MRI, some kind of heart study, colonoscopy, and an endoscopy.
The good news is that there is no cancer, no really nasty bowel diseases, no ulcers.
She does have gastritis, dumping syndrome, mild anemia, low potassium levels, and low blood pressure.
The gastritis and dumping syndrome may explain the chronic diarrhea. The dumping syndrome is caused by her lack of a pylorus which was removed - along with part of her stomach and part of her duodenum - during a previous ulcer surgery. The pylorus is a sphincter like muscle that acts as a valve between the stomach and the intestines. Because she has no pylorus, rather than having her food get churned up real well in her stomach, and then get slowly released into her intestines, it just gets a brief churn and then gets dumped into her intestine. Because of this, she can't properly digest the food. The best way to deal with this is to eat lots of small meals. That's exactly counter to how Mom now eats. Take her to a good steak joint, and she can eat most truck drivers under the table.
The bad news is they still don't really know why she is falling so much.
They will be running another heart study on Monday. At least they're really trying to figure out what is going on.
My guess is that there is no specific disease process that is causing the falling. Rather, I think it is that she gets awakened with an urgent need to go to the bathroom, and, given that she is still half asleep, the room is darkened, her coordination and ambulation are poor, she is rushing to get to the john, and her blood pressure is low and has already been shown to drop when she stands, that she either gets dizzy / passes out from low blood pressure, or that she simply stumbles and falls.
I can't say enough about how great the staff is at Western Wake. They are the nicest, most patient, caring folks I've ever seen in a hospital.
Jeanie and I went to visit Mom today. The previous visits were kind of tough because it is so hard to carry on a conversation with Mom. Today, Jeanie had to good idea to bring stuff to do Mom's nails, and I brought my laptop. Mom doesn't really care if we're reading or working - she just wants someone in the room for company.
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Posted by David at August 17, 2002 07:48 PM