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A Caregiver’s Odyssey – Part One

March 29, 2012, Thursday, Day 29 ~ 30-Day Blogging Challenge prompt is SERIAL EXPERIENCE - Describe a life experience so important to you it deserves to be told over multiple entries. BEGINNING a.k.a Part One.

My odyssey began in 2007, when I took Mom, doubled over in pain, to the U.M.C. emergency room. We went into the E.R. at 7:00 PM and they didn’t get Mom (then 80 something) into a bed until 4:00 AM. From that experience, I learned that if you want immediate help in a E.R. you call an ambulance and have them transport you to the E.R.

This is when I became Mom’s unofficial caregiver. Mom had a bawl resection in 2007. That is also the year (if my memory servers me correctly) that she was diagnosed with macular degeneration and cataracts In 2008, she had cataract surgery on her right eye, a tear duct unclogged in her left eye, and an infection removed from her left leg.

Somewhere between 2008 and 2009, I became her official (unpaid) caregiver. In 2009, she had cataract on her left eye and diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. In 2010 or was it 2011, she went back into the hospital because she had chest pains and I was afraid it was a heart attack. The reason, I thought that had to do with an EKG that reveal a scar on her heat from an old heart attack (I have no idea when this occurred.

In 2011, she went on Medicaid. In 2011, (I think this is when she went to the hospital because I thought she was having a heart attack), we began getting in home hospice care. I am going to close this now and continue this odyssey tomorrow.

FORUM

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