Is There a Dcotor in the House, er Internet?

I was going to try to write article today, but that didn't happen.

My grandpa tends to come by most days and see how things are going.  For awhile, even when my mom was getting bad, they were okay.  I could handle what was happening and just make sure she didn't do much.

However, in the past year, things have not been good.  She has seemed to decline rapidly in the past two to three months.

She goes to the ER, to our GP, to a neurologist (a pretty bad one as we don't like him and cant understand him and his ratings are also the lowest of all neurologists in Lake Charles!)

The only thing that these doctors have been able to tell us is that she has depression, low blood pressure, Asperger's, and neurological degeneration.  She also often has a bladder infection or a UTI (or are they one in the same?).

Now, it is no doubt that her low blood pressure doesn't help her keep her balance.  However, years age when my Daddy was alive, she tended to drink.  She would get drunk and then she'd fall down.  So, her falling mostly started when she got drunk and it later turned into all the time even when she was sober.  I can remember her falling a few times when my Daddy was alive, but nothing like she does now.

She has problems that they will not address.  The one thing that was addressed is what my sister and I always tell her.  She needs to exercise to keep her leg muscles strong as if she does not, her muscles will atrophy.

She has these "seizures."  I don't know what to call them, but that's what they seem to be.  She is unresponsive to everything around her and she shakes.  These seem to happen when she is sitting.

She falls and she has hit her head many times when she has fallen.  Of course, we care about her and the doctors have looked and they don't find anything.

She goes into these "episodes," where she doesn't really know what she is doing.  She will often spend money on things that are not needed.  She'll go out to get food from somewhere. (We didn't know that's what was happening until later).   She'll do things (like unplugging the phone or trying to talk to her dog) that she won't remember.   I've said that it is kind of like Sybil, if you've ever read that book.  However, when she's in one of these "episodes," it's not like another personality that will remember what happened.  It's just gone from her memory.

Every now and then she'll remember a little bit of something she did during one of these "episodes," but it'll be just a bit of stuff, and then if you ask her about it more, she'll change the subject.  It may be related to the topic, or it may just go to her saying, "While I'm thinking of it . . ."

Briana and I can't take care of her like she needs.  She is taller than Briana. She is heavier than me.  She fights and argues.  If we try to help her, she falls on top of us.

However, she doesn't wash up properly.  That's one of the hardest challenges.  How can we get our mom to showers and wash herself properly?  I keep telling her to let Briana help, but she doesn't let Briana help.  She says that she is capable of taking care of herself.

However, today, when she was in the ER at very first, they put a catheter in to get a urine sample.  Before that, though they had to take down her pants and her off brand depends underwear.  Then, they had to clean her vagina because feces was all over it!  Briana and I had no idea that she had a huge accident.   She didn't tell us about this.  She didn't get up out of the bed.

It would be nice to find some hospice care or a nursing home facility for her.

The thing is, we can't afford it!  My mom gets SSI.  My sister gets SSI.  I work.  We pay our bills with the three incomes.   We've been lucky at times that I've had money to make it so my mom's bank account is not overdrawn.

A nursing home is about $5,000 per month. If my mom lives 50 more years, that over three million dollars!  I don't know of any jobs that would even pay that much (plus probably $2,000 for the bills at home) even if they would hire me.

Do any doctors have any idea what could be happening?  We keep getting sent back home without a diagnosis.  How can she be having these problems and not having them show up on a CT scan or MRI?

We need some type of  diagnosis and we need some help.