I brought my mom home from the hospital last Thursday after being in the hospital for 3 weeks. It has been an interesting week. She is unable to be home alone and has moved in with me. She is fortunate that she is able to take care of her basic needs and even cooked herself eggs this morning for breakfast. She is having a hard time with the exhaustion and not being able to go "90 miles a minute". She had a SAH with a total of 4 aneurysms, she had two coiled before she left and we go back in 3 months to have the others clipped if the doctor can not work out a way to coil them. Her short term memory has been affected which frustrates her and her words get mixed up which just plainly "pisses" her off. She is over emotional and has had to go through a lot this past week. She had to end her lease since she is unable to work at this time. She does not have insurance so we have been working on applying for everything we can which of course overwhelms her then feels like she can't do anything and hates that she has to rely on me to help her so much, which I do gladly. Today we handed her keys to her landlord and she had to say good bye to her own home, for now. We were approved at a free clinic for primary care needs since I am having a hard time keeping her blood pressure regular and she is finally happy with her hair cut to try to improve where her drain was placed for the Hydrocephalus. She is a hair dresser and needless to say she is very concerned about her hair. She is fortunate she did not need a shunt implanted but she knows that there is a possibility for one in the future. She keeps over exerting herself and then has to rest for most of the day afterwards. I am trying to work with her and explain that she needs to listen to her body and not push herself. My biggest obstacle so far is trying to keep up with her short term memory: Asking the same questions like what the day is or reminding her of a conversation we had earlier in the day. She has a hard time giving me a list of items to be done and wonders why I can't get them done right now when I am also taking care of my kids and husband. Then she will realize and apologize then come back 10 minutes later and do it all over again. We both are stressed and we are both trying to find our individual "new grooves" and working them together. I like the fact that we can sit down and talk about our issues and have an understanding that this is not easy and will take many trials and errors to get a routine that will work but be prepared for changes as well since we are still learning her deficits whether physical or mentally. This sight has helped me with seeing what a survivor has or is going through and what to expect to some degree.
Thank you!
I am happy for any and all advice.