Update on Dave's mom

Dave's mom has been in  patient since Saturday night. She was doing fine on Sunday.  Aware of where she was and why.

But then on Monday, she started behaving differently, on Tuesday, she refused to eat or drink or speak...until the evening, when she started an endless stream of babbling.

We spent most of the day with her today, and she babbled incessantly and refused to eat or drink because she would not stop talking when we tried to press a spoon or straw between her lips.  She is utterly incoherent and not present in any way.

Today, mom was declared catatonic by her psychiatrist.  He doesn't have privileges at the hospital, but he has been to visit her and evaluate her twice, and has consulted with the hospitalist.

Today's plan was to do a brain CT, as well as some further testing to see if the reason for her onset of complete mental breakdown is medical.

If it turns out to not be medical, they will call for a psych consult and possibly move her to the psych ward. Her pneumonia diagnosis is being questioned at this point. Seems her lungs never had any crackling sounds, and there was never a bad chest xray.  They're doing another one of those today, too.

Her psychiatrist feels that this is all a rebound from when she initially got sick, stopped eating, and ran out of her meds and did not get more...because when she gets sick, this is what happens.  Dad doesn't take care of anything for her, but she takes care of everything for herself and for him.  So when she falls ill, everything falls apart.

Until she gets sick enough to go into the hospital.  Then he's suddenly able to do for himself.

Whatever.

The prognosis varies depending on the doctor giving it.  The hospitalist thinks it could take months for her to return to her old self, if ever, depending.  The psychiatrist believes that once her brain chemistry is restored with her antidepressants (which are critically important for her), and good nutrition is re-established (or, in her case established), she could be back to normal in about a week.

If there is no further reason for her to be in the medical ward, they will move her to psych, but I think that hinges on if she snaps out of this enough to start eating and drinking.  If they have to put a feeding tube in her, she will stay in medical.  They'll decide that tomorrow.

My inlaws are not good eaters.  They have never been good eaters as long as I've been here.  They love sweets, and will go a whole day without food, and then have ice cream for dinner.

This stops now.

Thankfully, they signed the contract with the visiting nurses outfit we found for them.  But between now and then, we have to see if mom will even be able to come home.