Another Stroke

It has been a while since I have submitted an entry on this blog and there is a good reason for it. Last time I entered something, I wrote about concern around an argument with my wife and her mom about her mom wanting to drive downstate with us. Well, that argument never happened.

Shortly after my last entry, my mother-in-law suffered another stroke, her third. It looked like this was the end for her. When she went into the hospital, her blood sugar was over 400 and her blood pressure was something like 200 over 78. In fact, based on the numbers, a certain medication that they like to administer shortly after someone has a stroke, could not be given.

My mother-in-law was unable to eat and kept pulling the IV out of her arm. In fact, they ultimately took her off the IV and moved her onto Hospice. A couple of days later, however, she was moved off, by Hospice, since she was doing so much better.

My mother-in-law was not eating, was not drinking (finally she drank a little bit) and was not getting medication, yet she was doing better. This is a woman who has said numerous times that she wants to die, yet the thought running through my head is, “This is not true”. Based on the damage the stroke did and what everyone expected, I believe that the only way you survive something like this is if you have a will to fight and, if you have a will to fight, then you do not really want to die.

At this point, she has been moved into a rehab center. It appears as though the stroke has done some permanent damage, but nothing nearly as severe as first believed. I think the positive to this is, hopefully, it will give my wife and her mom and opportunity to resolve any issues between them. Hopefully, other people reading this who have unresolved issues with a parent, will also decide this is the time to resolve them.

Good luck!