Thank you so much for your reply. Yours is the first from someone who is on
a vent.
I hope you can answer the next slew (sp?) of questions that I know have as
the result of your letter.
What were your medical needs that qualified you for 24 hour nursing when you
first came home? Even 80 hours a week that you have now sounds like a lot.
I've been told Medicare will pay for only one hour a day. My mother does
has supplemental insurance, and I haven't checked what they'll pay for yet.
You mentioned a cuffed trache that you first had in the hospital. What type
of trache allows you to speak now? How long did it take you to learn to
speak with the trache, and how long had you been not speaking before you
tried to learn?
That homemade letter board by which you communicated at first is a good idea
(I'm ashamed I didn't think of it -- I'm a special education teacher). If I
do bring my mother into my home, I'll be more likely to be able to catch my
mother on her good days, when she has her eyes open.
If your paralysis came on suddenly, what kinds of emotional things did you go
through?
We had to amputate one of my mother's legs a week into the month-long coma,
something she had no idea was even a possibility. I have wondered at what
point she realized her leg was gone, and what are her feelings towards us for
letting them do it (it was necessary to give her a chance to live). And how
much of her decreasing responsiveness is connected to the loss of her leg.
Were you depressed? What kinds of things that other people did helped you
with the adjustment that you had to make?
I know some of these are very personal questions. But the one of the
hardests parts of my mother's illness for me is not knowing what's going on
inside her head. I believe that it is my job now to pay attention to her
emotional needs.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Chris
cgawlak(AT)aol.com