Posted by SLS on April 3, 2009, at 8:42:43
My grandmother died last night. It was not a pleasant thing to see happen. She had become agitated and incoherent. She had to be restrained twice. She even pulled out her PICC IV line. When I saw the doctor a few days ago, he said that he would give her Xanax. That sounded okay. Ativan had helped the week before. However, I think she may have had a paradoxical reaction to the Xanax and became hostile and unmanageable. The more they gave her, the worse she became. When I explained this possibility to the nurse, she must not have done anything with that information other than to try to show off a common sense insight that not everyone reacts to drugs the same way. They kept giving her Xanax, anyway, and my grandmother continued to need restraint. How hard is it to sedate a 99 year old woman? It was difficult to watch her hallucinate and talk to herself while yelling indiscernible words at everyone else. Just the day before, she had been very lucid and clever. I am very angry at those doctors and nurses right now, and even more angry at God, which doesn't happen very often. She didn't have to die such a nightmarish death. She deserved much better. I did everything I could do to minimize her pain, both physically and emotionally. I promised her a comfortable death. It could have happened if I had had an MD after my name.
I am also angry that I have to continue to endure longer this bipolar depression of mine, and cannot operate at the same cognitive and intellectual levels as the people around me. I miss my active mind. I only really came to know it over a 6-9 months period of time in 1987. I had been in complete remission then. To have to give up on the possibility of experiencing this again is making me sad.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:888452
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090331/msgs/888452.html