CAREGIVING: Saturday afternoon Kathy was trying to rest. She told me she didn’t feel like having me brush her teeth right away. She started coughing like crazy, though. It sounded awful — like she was drowning. I got her to sit up and gave her more and more cough medicine and eventually it stopped. I went back to whatever it was I thought I was doing. I think I was making the bed, but with the old sheets. (I did water the plants and they are indeed still alive. Dead plants are a bad reflection on the home caregiver.) After lunch I had given Kathy some of her vitamin C supplement crushed in a mixture of applesauce and some cranberry and raspberry stuff. The C tablets were red raspberry anyway so the stuff was dark pink at least. And I gave her a cherry cough drop. So I wasn’t really surprised when I noticed she had cranberry or something on her lips. At this point she was comfortable and watching TV. I got her to smile about something and noticed her teeth were covered with red too. I had her drink some juice or water. They were still red. Then I decided we should brush her teeth and it finally hit me it was blood. Tried to call the VNA but of course it was Saturday and no one was there. She wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable or in pain. I did a quick google search and found out it probably wasn’t a big deal but you should tell your doctor. So I called her doctor’s answering service and the on-call doc called me back in 15 minutes. He said if she is comfortable and it stops it was probably a small blood vessel that broke when she was coughing. He said if it continues or the blood is a dark color then I should go to the ER. I’ll call her doctor on Monday anyway. Shortly after that it cleared up and her teeth were white again. Phew.
I threw something together for dinner. Chili from canned black beans. It was quick and healthy but mainly I didn’t want anything that Kathy would have trouble swallowing or chewing. As it turned out, she didn’t eat much and we skipped dessert. She was so weak by the time I got her to bed that I had trouble moving her onto the bed from her chair. She was so close to the edge of the bed I was afraid she might fall out. I even tried sliding a piece of masonite underneath her so I could slide her over but it was hurting her. I did the best I could. Propped her up. She stayed put and slept fine.