Mom back home after scare

Any time a physician agrees to see my mother the very next day after I call, I get worried. She had been to her family doctor for a routine visit and was told to move up her date with her heart doctor. She asked me to call and make the appointment as she has trouble understanding people on the telephone.
When I called they gave me an appointment for the very next day, which was a Friday. Then when we met with the doctor, he showed us the tiny pacemaker he intended to implant that would regulate Mom’s heart rate. Her rate was too slow and contributed to her lightheadedness and other health problems. He scheduled an operation for the following Monday. Either this was more serious than I realized at first or he didn’t want to give us time to worry.
He said she would need to go to a nursing home for a couple of weeks to recover. This caused an entirely new set of worries as I was afraid she would never get to return to her own house.
I went home and packed a bag so I could stay the night and be the one to take her to the hospital. We agreed to leave her house at about 6:45 Monday. That would give us plenty of time to get there.
That didn’t work out as Monday morning I woke up to the sound of Mom telling me it was already 7:00 and she had just awakened. I had a bath, washed my hair and we were out the door in less than fifteen minutes. We were almost a half an hour late and I was afraid that didn’t bode well for the rest of the day.
Thank goodness I was wrong. The doctor implanted the pacemaker into Mom’s chest and she came through the operation like a trouper. Her doctor had added one more to the 300-400 that he implants every year, not in the same patient, of course.
They sent her home the next morning. Medicare wouldn’t pay for a nursing home so that idea was thankfully scrapped. It was a very rough day and the next morning wasn’t any better. I spent the rest of the week taking care of her, cleaning her house and listening to her tell me how I was doing everything wrong.
A visiting nurse came by and we arranged for her to come back the following Monday. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that she lives just down the road from where my brothers and I grew up. We also arranged for a home health aide and a physical therapist to visit. I just hope Mom lets them in and allows them to do what they are trained to do.
According to an article I read recently, the number of adults helping a parent personally or financially has tripled in the last 15 years. An estimated 36 million U.S. households have at least one person who is a caregiver. I consider myself lucky that my caregiving is limited to emergency situations and is not an everyday occurrence.
My brothers and sister-in-law bear the brunt of the caregiving as they live a mere five minutes away from her. But when she needs more than someone to run her to a routine appointment or pick up a prescription then it’s my turn.
I come over and shoulder the responsibility for anything requiring an overnight stay at her house. Plus I get to experience the feelings of guilt at not being there to do more for her.
I am afraid that as time goes by she will need more and more attention. I hope we can delay making any permanent changes in her lifestyle for as long as possible.
For now, she is back to normal. And I am back home, waiting for the next health scare to turn my world upside down yet again.[[In-content Ad]]