Tanked!

Wow, it has been a month since my last update. Sorry it's been so long!

For the past couple of weeks, maybe a few days longer than that, Suzy has been having some swelling in her legs because of fluid retention. We've tried some diuretics which don't really seem to be doing much. We've also been wrapping her lower legs in Ace bandages to help get the fluid up out of her lower legs so that her skin doesn't get too stretched out. Apparently, her kidneys aren't working as well as they should be.

Last weekend, Suzy became really confused. I believe it was Sunday morning. I thought it was because she had taken too many of her pain meds. But our hospice nurse, who is really great, said that it was probably due to the amount of fluid she is retaining. She could hear a bit of fluid in her lungs, and this is limiting the amount of oxygen getting into her bloodstream. The lack of oxygen to her brain is probably what caused her to be confused. She gradually got better over a few days and for the past three days has been doing pretty well, mentally, especially in the afternoons and evenings. Physically, she has been really tired and lightheaded.

We had a really nice time Thursday evening when George, a volunteer with the hospice service, took us out to a really nice Italian restaurant. Suzy zonked out for the night as soon as we returned home.

Late last night/early this morning, I heard a thud and Tyler saying "Mom, you ok??" I leapt out of bed and found Suzy sitting on the toilet with water running all over the floor. I threw on my jeans and went into the bathroom thinking that the toilet was plugged. But Suzy had lost her balance and sat down quickly, leaning back in the process, which cracked the toilet tank. I realized what had happened when I saw a large portion of the tank lying on the floor next to the toilet. I quickly turned the water off and started sopping up the water with numerous towels so that Suzy could make her way back to bed. I tried going back to sleep after everything was cleaned up, but couldn't. So I ended up calling a plumber who came and replaced the toilet while I was at work (Tyler hass been coming over to keep an eye on Suzy while I'm at work). A bit of a disaster, but not that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things. I'm just incredibly thankful that I happened to be home so that Tyler and Suzy weren't there trying to figure out what to do. And the toilet was replaced by about 10:00 this morning, so that was good too.

That's all for now, folks. I've been up since about 1:30 this morning and I think I hear the bed calling me.