JoAnn, my mother-in-law went thru the same thing when she had open heart surgery at age 76. I read that much of the change in their attitude is due to what happens to the mind from the heart pump and anesthesia during surgery. My wife would go to pick her Mom up to take her some groceries and to a doctors appointment and her Mom would yell at her for disturbing her during her nap. It did get better as some time passed but her Mom never got over the memory problem and always had trouble remembering everything after the operation. Be patient with her  even though it's pretty hard to do at times.

My  mom has started to urinate blood, so I had to take her to the doctors today. He had me take her to LabCorp for some blood tests and a urinal culture. My mom goes to LabCorp for all of her lab test since that is the only place her insurance company covers.

They usually ask to see her insurance card when we get there. This time they asked for her insurance card and a pictured ID. I asked him if this was new with the pictured ID. He said yes and it is required by the government and must be done each time we go. So he took a copy of both and gave them back. I said to him, "Just like socialized medicine." And he looked at me and said "YUP"!

I did ask him if it was just for medicare patients and he said no and that it is for all patients.

Pretty soon the government will implant chips in us and that will be our universal ID for health-care, social security, airline travel, and to identify our body when we die. Welcome to the future.

Joann - I'm so sorry ... anything I can do?   Is she ok?

Not again......I'm sorry JoAnn, let us know how she is doing ok

Quoted from JoAnn

Thanks MT. She has compressed discs in her neck and she is in tremendous pain. The ER doctor said she was not sick enough to be admitted. So she is home with me. A nurse will be coming tomorrow to help me with her. She is just in too much pain and I don't have nursing skills on how to handle her. I'm afraid I will cause her more pain than she already has.

How is your mom MT?

Sorry to hear J ..

Hospice has her at home ... it won't be long, most likely.

I'm sorry for the two of you and your moms.  My heart is with you both..........

I hope all goes well for your Mom JoAnn and MT you have my deepest sympathy for what you're going through.

How is your mom doing JoAnn?

My mom ended up going into Kingsway Arms for about 3 weeks in Sept. for rehab due to her compressed discs. As usual, they did an outstanding job with her. My mom really would have preferred to stay there. And I can understand, since I am all she has here and I have to work, so she is alone during the day. Once she came home, I became sick and you will never guess what I came down with? Shingles! Although it was a mild case, my doctor suggested that I slow down, rest and get someone in to help me with my mom.

So I exhausted all efforts by reaching out to every organization out there. One was the Eddy. It is a great organization and offered everything my mom needed. The down side was that she would have to be poor. And I mean really poor. My mom is not poor nor rich. She is on a fixed income, owns a little home here in Rotterdam and has a little savings. The Eddy is also inclusive. She would have had to give up her doctors and use their doctors, nurses and lab technicians exclusively. They would be in charge of her medical care 100%. My mom nor myself were ready to give that up.

So through word of mouth, I found these 2 GREAT women to take care of my mom. One is a newly retired nurse from Glendale and the other an aid. So for the last 2 weeks, the aid goes in on Tues and Wed nights for 2 hours and makes sure she eats and takes her meds. The nurse goes in every Wed morning to give her breakfast, make sure she takes her pills and gives her a shower. Most importantly it is company for my mom and a break for me.

My mom's health seems to be pretty good except for her shortness of breath on light exertion. But her mind, well that's another story all in itself.

So thank you for asking Rene, but I bet you didn't think I'd be so long winded, huh?

And has your back problems gotten better?

They're not the "Angels" are they?

JoAnn, Kind of don't know what to say.  it sounds like things are status quo for now and being taken care of.  I'm glad you found people you can trust, I'm sure it means alot.  You need to take care of yourself, they say shingles is brought on due to stress in large part.  My girlfriends mom came down with them and she was told she could have gotten a shot to prevent them.  Something about if you didn't have the chicken pox when you were a kid.  Or was it if you did have the chicken pox?
My back???  I guess I will always have problems, my arm and hand still goes numb frequently but the pain is gone.  Thanks