Aug 2

The Neurologist on Mom's case called me today. He seems to be the only doctor interested in reaching out to us from Hurley so far. Some tests came back that showed her potassium levels are very low and that she is anemic (sp?). B12 is very low too. They will give her a transfusion to boost her along. We've been struggling to get her to eat and now we see the results of our failure to actually get her to eat. The doc thinks that between her "metabolic disturbance", the latest antibiotic for her not-ever-healed pneumonia, and all the major organ failures that she's endured over the last couple months is causing her to become delusional. He was also struck after reading her chart that we are lucky she is alive after all she's been through.

Regarding her mental state, she has improved considerably since Tuesday; although, she is not herself by any means mentally. He thinks that she will continue to improve. The family meeting that was supposed to happen today was postponed by the other docs until tomorrow because they couldn't attend today.

A family member told me that he said she had lack of oxygen to her brain may have been a miscommunication. Or, the hospital is covering itself from a law suit. Who knows?

Even if she continues to improve I am unhappy with the way that the nurses are letting her secretions build up to become mucus plugs. Family has witnessed this a couple times. Since we're there only a fraction of the time, what's happening when we're not there to raise our hands and ask for help on her behalf?

She's been in Hurley for 1.5 weeks so far. This is supposed to be a 3 week program. There is no way that she'll be ready to stand, let alone walk, on her own in that amount of time. Besides questioning the medical staff about if she's in the right department right now, we'll have to ask what the next steps are.