More Fits

Rosemarie had two more fits today. I was there.

She was twisted in the bed when I arrived - one leg under the other and looking away from me. As is usual these days she did not register my presence or react in any way when I kissed her. 

I stroked her arm and talked about what I had done today. I made up some thickened apple juice (the dietician recommends nearly two litres of liquid a day so getting her properly and safely hydrated occupies a lot of time). I started to feed her spoonfuls of it but she kept turning away and took a lot of encouragement to take a mouthful.

Then suddenly she wasn't responding at all and I could see her shaking and hear laboured breathing. 

As I rushed round the bed my first thought was that she was aspirating but as soon as I could see her face I knew it was not that. She was blinking very rapidly, her pupils were dilated and her teeth were clenched together. She was going bright pink before my eyes. I stabbed the alarm.

It was probably less than a minute but it felt like a thousand years before a carer came rushing in and almost immediately rushed out to get Good Nurse, who was thankfully on duty. Rosemarie was put in the recovery position and connected up to the usual monitoring devices.

Her pulse was over 155 and her blood pressure was very high (I didn't notice the numbers till it started coming down) and her breathing was frighteningly laboured. She is not naturally a nose-breather but she had clenched teeth and a mouth full of saliva so there was no alternative. 

I would give ten years of my life to know what she is experiencing and is capable of understanding, but in any case it seems to me she must really be suffering. If she knows what is going on then her helplessness and inability to communicate must be torture; if she has only a limited understanding of what is going on then the whole thing must be very frightening. 

After about five minutes her levels began to come down and her breathing got easier as her jaw relaxed. They suctioned the saliva from her mouth and that helped even more. Everyone relaxed a bit. 

Good Nurse said she would probably sleep now and after watching her start to drift off left the room saying she would check back in half an hour. 

I sat tensely by the side of the bed. Every flicker, every gurgle, every jolt made my heart beat suddenly faster. I whispered useless words of comfort and encouragement. 

Then, after about five minutes there was a sudden change. The jaw clenched, the breathing became laboured, the legs spasmed and her eyes rolled up. Stab the alarm again. Wait forever. Good Nurse arrived.  

Shorter this time, maybe five minutes in all. Lying there suffering, lonely and distressed.

Again the pulse and BP came down slowly and the breathing became easier. Then deeper sleep came.

Good Nurse left again, and I resumed my vigil, my eyes glued to her dear face and my breast sharing every breath of hers. Once again I felt crushed by my helplessness.

A carer came to change Rosemarie and I helped. She hardly woke at all, and when we had finished she seemed to collapse into a very deep sleep. Her usual faint snoring sounded like music to me, and the paleness of her skin was beautiful.

I sat there looking at her as time shuffled past. After a while it became clear that she was deeply asleep and I could safely leave her and go and find the nurse. 

So this is the third episode of fits and the third time they seem to have come in pairs. I must raise this with the neurologist. I am still haunted by the worry that this happens more often than we know and she doesn't patiently wait until someone is around before having a fit. The staff are supposed to check every resident each hour but this is not the Army and I doubt if you could set your watch by them. It possible that she could be checked and found awake and calm, then have a fit, sort of recover, have another fit, sort of recover, fall asleep exhausted and be found apparently sleeping at the next check.

Almost too horrible to contemplate. But I must.

The list grows.