Ray had another seizure
I am still trying to decide where to put Ray into permanent care. Where Ray is now is good for the stage he is currently in, where he can use his good leg to self-propel himself around in his wheelchair. He has access to the gardens straight outside through the French doors in his shared room. His room mates often open the door for him. Where Mum is you have to ask staff to be able to go outside.
The ancillary staff members have shown me where to make myself a cup of coffee now so I can have one any time and when I go to the dining room to help Ray with his lunch the girls bring me a cup of coffee to the table. The nurses and aides seem very caring there too. The facility has nice gardens in closed-in courtyards. There are plenty of shaded areas too and plenty of parking but it is 25 minutes drive from here.
The advantage of where Mum lives is that it is closer to home and I know most of the staff. It is also closer to our local shopping centre so I can buy a "thick shake" on the way, maybe even push Ray to the centre in the wheelchair if I have one of the family with me. Where he is now is more isolated.
Both facilities seem to be good so it is a hard choice.
Ray was very slow on Friday; he kept dropping the fork at lunch so I finished up feeding him. It could be the change in anti-seizure dose. I hope not another TIA. Poor man, he is so over this I am sure. He kept telling me he was tired and "just wanted to go home to bed". I almost cried every time he said it.
On Saturday I spent six hours in hospital with Ray. He was unresponsive at breakfast so the nursing home staff said, so after monitoring his pulse, blood pressure and sugar level and finding all results good they left him there. Someone came back later and he seemed to be sleeping. He was not responsive at morning tea time, but again seemed to be in a deep sleep. Then at 11am the staff decided it was getting serious as they could not rouse him and decided to ring me. As I was not home so they called the next number on the list, my younger son.
It took my kids about an hour to remember what I was doing and Trevor finally caught up with me at the nursing home. I had had morning tea with some friends from Ray's stroke support group. I guess I will have to have another mobile phone so people can reach me and stop panicking! Being without one has allowed me to be “out of reach” when the in-home carers were here but it is different when the nursing home staff need me to contact them urgently.
The ambulance again took Ray to the local hospital as they did last Sunday and again they carried out tests and said there was nothing really wrong. So we wonder if the seizures are stroke related or dementia related? We don't know. No new treatment was recommended although they did do a lot of blood work etc. I left at 6.30pm with the in-patient ambulance due to pick him up in an hour or so.
This morning one of the nurses who was on yesterday was still anxious about what course of action we should have taken. Is it wise to just keep him in bed or did we do the right thing sending him to the hospital? Two serious seizures in less than a week is too much. Surely something must be out of balance for this to keep happening?
Ray was marginally better today. The morning staff left him in bed to rest, I didn't object. Ray and I didn't go to the Sunday concert instead we did some word puzzle words after lunch and after twenty minutes I could see he was struggling to keep his eyes open so I lowered his bed head down and settled him for a nap. He doesn't look well and his voice was weak but he may be just tired from the exhausting day yesterday.
I know there must be others here who have had experience with seizures personally or within their family so any advice would be very welcome. The whole thing really worries me right now.
Sue.
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