My mother in law almost fell
She has lived in a nursing home for about 7 years now. She has always 'enjoyed' poor health and that has led her to have poor health now in her much older years. She is almost 82. She has COPD/ Emphysema, diabetes, paranoid schiz(controlled), a very simple woman. She is the oldest of 12 children and wasn't in school much as she had to take care of her siblings. Plus her Grandmother had four children after she was born so had a large nursery to take care of. But she raised my husband to be the man he is today and I love her for it. Now that both my parents and my father in law are gone she is the oly parent I have left. So I love her dearly, along with all of her illnesses. She doesn't like to ambulate at all. She felll and broke her hip about five years ago and gets around 'walking' her wheel chair while she is sitting in it. It gives her a lot of grief. She smoked 4 packs of ciggs/day so she has had chronic asthmatic bronchitis along with her COPD for a long time and doesn't understand why she always has so much mucous.
We try to take her out once a week which can be quite a chore getting her in and out of a ca and she has no teeth so it take a long time for her to eat. She has had some recent UTIs and we haven't been able to take her out because of weakness and general lack of desire.
So tonight was our big night. She loves Bob Evans and so do we. Her nurse said she was OK to go, I did insist on my husband checking that. So she got in the car half way OK and getting out is always OK, she just slides out! But after eating was a different story.
My husband can reallly be distracted by bad drivers and the car that was parking next to us was a little close. So he has his Mom in a standing position trying to get her butt up on the seat when this car somes. Of course all attention to his Mom goes out the window!She is sliding, brething terrible and he is warching and cussing out the other driver. I finally get his attention back on his Mom, afte much effort she is barely on the seat. I open the driver door, reach in and try to help her get further over in the seat. DH is still not seeing wehat is going on with his Mom and her breathing. All he knows is that he was successful in getting her in the car. So I get him to turn the AC on and open the vents on so they are blowing on her. Her oxygen is on, which he didn't want to bother taking. She is still fighting for air. So I stand there beside her, stroking her arm and talking calmly. I have tried to get her to learn the pursed lip breathing and she just cant get it. So he is ready to take off and she is still struggling and he hasn't noticed it at all.
On the way back to the nursing home her main concern was if I was OK. God, I love her!
I knew not to appraoch the subject of his anger and what happened while she was in the car. So when we left the nursing home I did. I could tell from his noin chalant answers that he really didn't care to listen to me at all. His anger put her life in jeapordy!
So after he cooled off a couple of hours here I told him that we should talk about it. I carefully chose my words. He said to forget about it, he was never taking her out again. I think that's a good idea but it needs to be for a different reason and not just his, or my anger. I told him if she had actually gone to the ground that we would have had to call an ambulance to get her back. He said he would have had not problem in picking her.up by himself. Well for one thing she was having some pretty bad problems with her COPD and couldn't lay flat on the ground while he tried to pick her 225 pound body up. I know that we might need to have an inhaler with us when we go out.
OK, I'm done venting. Thanks
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