Mom is overmedicating and kind of losing it.

My mom has been great for over 2 years with PC. a miracle. had to lose pancreas, spleen and GB and radition and preventetive chemo worked great for a long time, but a PC tumor recurance came recently (stomach) and she started new protocol of chemo and immediately started over medicating. now she is on so many drugs she can't tolerate the chemo and is acting and saying crazy things. totally not my mother right now. the new microtumors are in stomach fat and that accounts for some irritable stomach but we don't think she has a lot of pain. more severe depression. the new chemo is also very hard on her so between memory loss from chemo and too many drugs (pain losenges (morphine), clonopin, etc... she's barely conscious all day everyday. any advice? we are not sure what to do to help her snap out of it but she has grandkids and won't get any quality time with them if she stays on this road. breaks our heart but we'd like to get her back a while before she goes forever. any advice would be great as I know she is not happy like this but in a real spiral downward.

Hi, what helped me was to keep a medicine chart.

Once there is an accurate record you can work with your Mom's medical team to devise the most appropriate dosages to manage her pain and chemo side effects and provide her with a quality of life.

I used a spiral notebook and listed the meds across the top. I penciled in the times I was supposed to take the meds and circled the time when I took them.

That way my caregivers also knew what I was supposed to take and when, and if I forgot they would give it to me and circle the time.

Also sometimes I would think I had to take the med, but went to the chart and found that it was already circled. The chemo and nausea can make you confused.

 

thank you.

 

On 3/18/2009 OverwhelmedLA wrote:

My mom has been great for over 2 years with PC. a miracle. had to lose pancreas, spleen and GB and radition and preventetive chemo worked great for a long time, but a PC tumor recurance came recently (stomach) and she started new protocol of chemo and immediately started over medicating. now she is on so many drugs she can't tolerate the chemo and is acting and saying crazy things. totally not my mother right now. the new microtumors are in stomach fat and that accounts for some irritable stomach but we don't think she has a lot of pain. more severe depression. the new chemo is also very hard on her so between memory loss from chemo and too many drugs (pain losenges (morphine), clonopin, etc... she's barely conscious all day everyday. any advice? we are not sure what to do to help her snap out of it but she has grandkids and won't get any quality time with them if she stays on this road. breaks our heart but we'd like to get her back a while before she goes forever. any advice would be great as I know she is not happy like this but in a real spiral downward.

A lot of pain killer can be addictive. 

I had asked my mom doctors only give her when she is in excruciating pain ( at night ) as she sinks into sleeping too much and that is not good for a person ( will b in depression and dementia).

During the day, I exercise her, talk to her, teach her the basic words again (you should consider as she is a baby now) ie how to distinguish the pain or itching feeling/ level, make her brain refunctioning (learn and think of stuf).  Some times she refuses then you have to reward her something and make her do the rest later ie I will massage your feet but you will exercise with me later ok, etc...

 Victoria