I received an email from a family friend in Florida who visited mom last week. She said:

David,
My daughter and I visited Kathie last week in that room. She seemed serene, so they must have her on meds that take the edge off. […] I will share the address with the folks at church. They were waiting for her to come out of ICU before visiting.

[name redacted]

I sent the following email as a reply (and copied my sister):

Hey [name redacted],

Right now the only psychopharmaceuticals she’s taking are Namenda and Zoloft. The Namenda is pointless and seems to just be something that they insist on giving everyone over the age of 60; but from everything I’ve researched it really has no negative side-effects or proven positive benefits, so I have just been letting it go. The Zoloft, of course, is fairly well-known and studied; it takes several weeks of regular dosage to have any impact, though, which may be why it is only just recently that she’s seemed to be stabilizing a bit.

I had 20-minute conversations with mom today and yesterday. She wasn’t back to her old self or anything as dramatic as that, but at least she wasn’t completely lethargic, catatonic, or unresponsive. She didn’t seem to understand that she was in the hospital, which is worrisome, but at least she was speaking in complete sentences for the first time in weeks and weeks.

Thank you for visiting her. Just today Nurse Ramos, in a somewhat insulting and pathetic attempt to make me feel guilty, told me that nobody has visited mom in a long time and that it was, “just so sad,” that I can’t bring my mom to Los Angeles to move in with me.

The psychologists are now saying that whatever is wrong with her is “medical” and they cannot do anything for her, which is pretty frustrating because the medical doctors are saying that she is fine medically and simply has psychological problems. As far as I can tell, the exact opposite diagnoses cancel each other out and they want to discharge her because she’s fine. That, of course, is absurd.

I have not heard from anyone at the hospital (other than the nurses) in well over a week, though I call twice each day, every day, and ask to have any of the doctors — medical or psych — call me. I’m going to call again tomorrow (Tue) morning to talk to “Keith”, who is the discharge coordinator, because I fear he is trying to push her out of the hospital even though (a) she’s obviously not well and (b) she has absolutely nowhere to go.

I will keep you posted,
Thanks,

David Vincent Gagne