Oh, that's not good

On the Aunt Messy front things are getting much worse. Finding the humor in the situation is a challenge.

She was taken back to the hospital last weekend with low blood sugar 35 where normal is 100 to 150 then released back to the Nursing Home. Yesterday they shipped her back to the hospital and I was finally abe to speak with a nurse who has her history and current condition.

Its bad, we're not just dealing with controlling blood sugars and blood pressure we have not one, not two, but three serious infections in the sinus that have migrated to her brain. The nurse rattled the names off so fast and my medical definitions seminar was so long ago that I had to do some research last night to catch up to what she told me. (What do people without the Internet do when a term like "hydrocephalus" is mentioned? Hydro - water. That's not bad right? Uh, yeah it is when you team it up with methicillin resistant staph aurelia. (That's .MRSA folks)

I'll be speaking to the ICU doctor today and am armed with the secret decoder ring questions to open an honest dialog that isn't clouded by calming words and softened diagnosis'. It helps that we've got some exposure to the inner workings of the medical profession. (And I'm not talking about the 18 years that I've been watching ER.)

I'm in an odd emotional place about this. I want her to be confortable and pain free. I also don't want her to linger with diminished brain activity. I'm feeling guilty that I'm not rushing to her bed side. I honestly wonder if that's more about my need to not appear cold and disinterested to the hospital staff than anything else.

My dad is content to go with my direction about the Do Not Recussitation order. Its nice that he trusts me, not that I ever doubted it, but these are some pretty adult decisions.

In reviewing her tax records for the last few years (in order to work out a return for 2007) I see that in 2005 she took the Hurricane Katrina deduction intended for those displaced, or for those who took in people. I suppose in her mind, watching it on tv counted? Audit away IRS man...she's got nothing! She'll have even less when I sell her car.

What a fun spring I'm having!