I've Created A Monster

In the continuing saga of The Graminator, we are following the whirlwind "Jeckyll and Hyde" effect.

Last Thursday and Friday she was doing pretty well, eating and exercising as directed. Then Saturday, no food. "I just have no appetite" was her constant refrain, along with begging to go back to bed. Sunday was a little better, then Monday, more whining, no eating. Same on Tuesday. She was complaining of a lot of pain and the Tylenol wasn't cutting it so we decided to giver he some Percocet on Wednesday. We just gave her a half a pill in the morning (so she wouldn't be in pain during physical therapy) and another half in the late afternoon so she would feel well enough to sit up a while. She still wouldn't eat, although she swore to me that she had eaten plenty. (One bite of toast, one bite of sausage link for breakfast, one bite of meat and one prune for lunch, she's consuming less calories than my chihuahua). So I went to GNC to buy some weight gainer formula. We've been giving her Ensure to give her some calories but we needed to get even more calories and protein in her.

Okay, the look on the guy's face when I told him I wanted to buy weight gainer was priceless. But he was really helpful (and good looking but honestly, not the brightest bulb on the string). This stuff has like seven hundred calories and fifty grams of protein if you mix it with water but I'm mixing it with Ensure, ice cream and half and half so it has like a zillion now. Of course I'm not giving her a full serving at every meal but breaking it up over three meals but at least now I think she's getting enough calories to survive and enough protein to start healing her bed sore.

She was not so awake during physical therapy but her therapist said she was doing a lot better and her balance is improving and she is pulling more of her own weight (which my back can attest to, thank goodness). She still didn't want to eat dinner but I made her drink a 'super shake' and she stayed up a little later than she had been.

But as we know, the night time brings out Mr. Hyde. So when my mom woke me up at four in the morning I knew it couldn't be good news. (What news is ever good at four a.m.? No one ever calls to tell you that you won a million dollars at that time, only bad stuff.) Grandma had somehow managed to get herself out of bed, walk down the hallway to the living room and ended up lying on the floor. She even pulled pillows and a blanket off the couch. My mom slept through the whole thing and wouldn't have even found her if she hadn't had to make a late night bathroom run and noticed Grandma wasn't in bed. Grandma didn't appear hurt, just confused as to why she was on the floor. So we got her back in bed. (When we told her it was four in the morning she asked "Well why was I out of bed?" Good question.) Of course I couldn't go back to sleep which makes the second night this week I have gotten very little beauty sleep (and trust me, I need my beauty sleep!)

We put a bed rail up on the side of The Graminator's bed, but she shimmied out the end of the bed, which we had blocked off with her wheelchair and walker. We also thought the pain would remind her to stay in bed. Apparently the pain pills worked a little too well and so I put another rail on the end of the bed. The next move, I think, will be a series of bungee cords, so that if she wants to get out of bed she's gonna have to have the moves of Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment. I don't want to use actual restraints but we can't have her getting out of bed and falling again and re-injuring herself. Percocet may have helped the pain but it's interfering with her memory and safety. But we don't want her back to the whining, constantly in pain woman either. It's such a tough line to walk, especially when someone doesn't have the mental capacity to understand the danger. So today we'll cut it back to a quarter of a tablet and see how that goes.

Oh, to have all of this resolved, so I can rest easy knowing she's resting easy. I feel like such a nag, constantly harping on her to eat, trying to get her well, then scared that when she's well she's gonna turn into Gramma Knievel. Every day is a new adventure.