What the hell?!
June 11th, 2012 @ 8:00 am

I called the Halifax Psychiatric Unit in another attempt at talking to mom. Someone answered the phone almost immediately, then when I asked to speak to my mom I was put on hold for eleven full minutes. Finally Nurse Ramos answered and we spoke for quite some time. She told me that mom had been […]

Status Update
May 29th, 2012 @ 2:45 pm

I just sent the following email: [name redacted], I’m copying [name redacted] on this since I haven’t had a chance to update her on my call with the hospital this morning yet, too. I’ll leave it up to [her] to update [name redacted] and / or [name redacted] if she wants. The nurse told me […]

News from Dr. Escander
May 24th, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

I finally was able to talk to an actual doctor this morning about mom and the news is good. I talked to Dr. Escander — not sure about the spelling there — and he was very nice and extremely helpful and kind. Here are the notes that I took from our conversation: He said that […]

To consider…
April 28th, 2012 @ 12:46 pm

Here’s an email I just received from my sister: I think I told you that they took Mom off of the Cymbalta the other night. I have not heard from Jan yet, but I think she may have already visited Mom today. I can’t imagine that if she saw Mom as she has been since […]

This Is Madness
April 27th, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

My sister just sent me this very disturbing email: I told Dr Moore no Haldol. He is taking Mom off Cymbalta. Her behavior has been off the chain the last couple of days-constant crying, starting some hallucination type comments, and a slew of the other side effects the Cymbalta ads say “notify your Dr right […]

Stuck in the 1960s
April 27th, 2012 @ 2:58 pm

Here is the email I just sent to my sister: [name redacted], Under no circumstances should mom be administered ECT. She shouldn’t be taking Haldol, either. Is Halifax hospital stuck in the 1960s or something? This is ridiculous. Wikipedia says, “[haldol] is by far more active against ‘positive’ psychotic symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, etc.) than against […]

Update
April 27th, 2012 @ 7:34 am

My sister just sent me this email: I received a call Wednesday night around 11:30pm from Crystal, the nurse on duty. She called to tell me that Mom’s bed alarm went off and that when they got to her room , Mom was on her knees on the floor. She did not appear to have […]

Update on Mom
April 19th, 2012 @ 1:58 pm

My sister sent this email to me and copied Janis Stovall and Janice Day at Grace Manor Hi, All. Dr. Moore, psychiatrist at Halifax, came to visit Mom around 1pm yesterday. When I asked him what he thought, he said he thinks she has a combination of some dementia/confusion/paranoia with possible severe depression. She was […]

Drugs and drugs and drugs
April 16th, 2012 @ 9:25 pm

I replied to my sister’s email and copied Janis Stovall and Janice Day at Grace Manor: [name redacted], I can get you the details about Elder Source tomorrow when I get to my office. The assessment was definitely done; I will get you the date and the name of the person that did it as […]

Too Many Drugs
March 6th, 2012 @ 12:20 am

Here is an email I sent to Janis Stovall at Grace Manor Port Orange: Dear Ms. Stovall, I received the email below from a friend of a friend who works as a consultant with veterans dealing with PTSD. 1 It’s interesting because she seemed to have a lot of information about the medications mom is […]