Mom's Medical Morning

Mom & I spent a lot of time today at the doctor. We started out by seeing Dr. Pham at 9 am and left Kaiser about 3-1/2 hours later. We talked to Dr. Pham about Mom's hives, her sore throat, sore ear, dry mouth, and weak legs; she also looked at Mom's thumb. It turns out that Mom's hives wasn't hives; it was more like a rash that was exacerbated by scratching. I was unaware that hives are usually transitory and we should have seen them come and go over the last week. Mom's just got worse. A big clue for Dr. Pham as to what was really happening was that Mom's back had no red marks and looked very nice. Dr. Pham suspects that the air in Las Vegas dried out Mom's skin and caused her skin to itch much more, when she scratched it just made the itching worse, and the vicious cycle was started. Our course of action will be to generously moisturize her entire body and keep an eye on it; but we have triamcinolone acetonide cream to reduce the itching if the moisturizing doesn't work to reduce the itching. I will also give her loratidine if needed.

For the sore throat, Dr. Pham thinks it could be a combination of the smoke in the casino and dry air. She recommended salt water gargle but prescribed prednisone for 3 days to take the swelling down and make it easier for Mom to swallow. Dr. Pham did a throat swab to be sure there is nothing else going on. (Since Mom is on the clindamycin for her thumb, Dr. Pham thinks its unlikely but wants to make sure since Mom has a compromised immune system.) While we were in Las Vegas I gave Mom salted lemons to soothe her throat, which they did; in hindsight I realized it probably contributed to the edema in her legs - too much salt! I will not be giving her salted lemons but will be have her doing saltwater gargles, no swallowing allowed!

Leo, Dr. Pham's nurse, spent a while flushing out Mom's ears. Then he carefully pulled out large chunks of ear wax that had been lodged in the ear canal. Mom also has ear drops to help some cuts inside her ear canal to heal.


Mom's dry mouth has made her speech a little slurred. Dr. Pham thinks it might be partly due to the dry air in Las Vegas. We'll keep an eye on it to see if it gets worse.

Dr. Pham feels the weakness in Mom's legs is partly being older and partly the strain of traveling. We'll keep an eye on that, too. We'll keep on using the wheelchair when needed and have her use her cane even in the house. And I am going to speed up the purchase of a new Subaru; the RAV4 is a little too high for both Mom and Dad.

One of the primary care nurses came up to Dr. Pham's exam room to clean up Mom's thumb. I have been given additional care instructions; changing the dressing daily, rinsing it out with a cleansing solution each time, and using the stretching rubberized dressing to hold the Mepilex in place. We are experimenting with keeping the splint off so she can exercise her thumb a little; if it starts bleeding again we will have to put the splint back on. Mom will need to cover the dressing with a glove any time she uses the bathroom since she is not willing to wipe with her non-dominant hand.


We also went to do Mom's blood tests, had her glasses adjusted, and picked up her new prescriptions. How much did all this cost? A total of $64.50; $30 for the examinations, $31.50 for prescriptions, $3 for parking, no charge for the blood test and glasses adjustment. Mom has great medical coverage!

After we got back I went to check for Momo. The roosters were there again, but Momo wasn't.


I briefly spoke with Tiane, the Safe Harbor supervisor who will be doing the assessment tomorrow. I also spoke with Curtis about how long he wants the Safe Harbor health care assistant to be here. Curt said he did not feel as comfortable as I do with taking care of Mom overnight so he would like someone here 24/7 while I am gone. He said he did not think he could be helping Mom like I did in Las Vegas or even on the plane. Even though the Safe Harbor care assistant will be there 24/7, Curt will also be there in the evening. We also discussed logistics for the care giver; we'll be working on that tomorrow.

One of the things we want to make sure regarding the care givers is that they like cats, not just tolerate cats, but LIKE cats. The person has to really like cats since 2 of the cats are very fond on Mom, Xander more so than Shiro. Both of them spend their evenings sleeping with Mom while she watches TV. Here's Xander keeping an eye on Mom while she takes a shower. I'm pretty sure he came to check on where she was because she was in the shower during the time she is normally watching her Korean soap operas. On other occasions he has come looking for her when she was not there on time.


Tomorrow evening I leave for the Big Island so posts will become sporadic until I return next week.

Happy Birthday to Steph!