Sandra Jo Nursing Care Help
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In February 2021, my 80 year old mother, Sandra Jo, suffered a fall. I couldn’t lift her back up on my own and was worried that she’d been injured. I called the paramedics. They took her to a local hospital to have her checked out. The hospital kept her overnight for observation.
I gave a cell phone photo of all of my Mom's medications to the charge nurse so she could update her chart in the hospital computer. The doctors at the hospital decided that Mom had suffered no neurological damage, but may have an intestinal blockage, so they ordered several tests and a regimen of physical therapy.
To everyone’s surprise, her condition only worsened. She lost her appetite, her cognitive responses dwindled, and the normally very active Sandra Jo lost the ability to walk or even hold a spoon. The hospital decided, without notifying me, to send my mother to a rehab facility to get her more specialized care.
At the rehab facility her condition continued to diminish. She wouldn’t eat, she couldn’t walk, and she continued to sleep most of the time. No one at the rehab facility could figure out what was wrong with her, but I was determined to figure out what was happening to my mother.
After much deliberation and a lengthy conversation with the physical therapist, I stumbled across an idea. What if something was wrong with her medication? I had the nurse on duty compare her current medications with the photo I had given to the hospital. The answer to Mom's problems was at the end of the list: Risperidone 2.5 mg. The photo showed a dosage 0.25. Both the hospital and the rehab facility had been regularly giving my mother TEN TIMES her prescribed dose of medication for over five weeks. The effects of a Risperidone overdose like this are 1. loss of appetite, 2. diminished cognition and motion skills, and most telling, 3. the inability to walk.
I had the nurse immediately notify the doctor and her medication error was corrected. However, after five weeks of being overdosed, her recovery has been slow. Ten days later I was hit with another surprise: the rehab facility was discharging her in just three days. The rehab facility wanted to send her home with no special equipment and no one to care for her, something I'm no longer physically able to do. "All that will come later," the rehab social worker said. It would be unsafe to do that since I can't physically lift her if she falls, or to help her move around, and three days is not enough time to find new facility to care for her.
The rehab facility then offered other options, each of them requiring my mother to surrender 100% of her meager fixed retirement income. Additionally, I'm disabled and in remission from Leukemia, so I can’t contribute to the high costs of her care. What’s more, the rehab facility wants me to sign documents releasing her from the rehab facility’s care, and is threatening to call Texas Adult Services and have me brought up on abandonment charges if I don't comply.
I am literally out of options. I don't want to allow my mother to come home to an unsafe situation or allow the rehab facility to place her somewhere that we can't afford. I also don't want to be brought up on abandonment charges or be evicted for not paying my apartment rent but those are my only choices, since the rehab facility is demanding 100% of my mother's income. The original hospital has yet to admit any wrongdoing and hasn’t offered me any help. The only thing they'll tell me is that they're still investigating. All the while my mother and I are desperate for help.
That’s where things stand right now. Without help, Mom’s future is looking dire, and I am facing litigation, eviction, and poverty.
Mom has been sick for a while but the facility really blindsided me with the threats and demands to release her, only giving me one week to choose between risking both my and my mother's health by trying to care for her on my own, or move her to another facility and surrender 100% of our income, leaving me completely broke and soon to be homeless.
I'm only asking for help so I have time to get my mother settled into a new facility and tie up loose ends in Texas. This is going to take me a month or two, and then my plan is to move back to Maryland where friends have offered to help me with a place to stay and a job.
Thank You for helping out in any way you can.
Rob and Sandra Jo Wilson
I gave a cell phone photo of all of my Mom's medications to the charge nurse so she could update her chart in the hospital computer. The doctors at the hospital decided that Mom had suffered no neurological damage, but may have an intestinal blockage, so they ordered several tests and a regimen of physical therapy.
To everyone’s surprise, her condition only worsened. She lost her appetite, her cognitive responses dwindled, and the normally very active Sandra Jo lost the ability to walk or even hold a spoon. The hospital decided, without notifying me, to send my mother to a rehab facility to get her more specialized care.
At the rehab facility her condition continued to diminish. She wouldn’t eat, she couldn’t walk, and she continued to sleep most of the time. No one at the rehab facility could figure out what was wrong with her, but I was determined to figure out what was happening to my mother.
After much deliberation and a lengthy conversation with the physical therapist, I stumbled across an idea. What if something was wrong with her medication? I had the nurse on duty compare her current medications with the photo I had given to the hospital. The answer to Mom's problems was at the end of the list: Risperidone 2.5 mg. The photo showed a dosage 0.25. Both the hospital and the rehab facility had been regularly giving my mother TEN TIMES her prescribed dose of medication for over five weeks. The effects of a Risperidone overdose like this are 1. loss of appetite, 2. diminished cognition and motion skills, and most telling, 3. the inability to walk.
I had the nurse immediately notify the doctor and her medication error was corrected. However, after five weeks of being overdosed, her recovery has been slow. Ten days later I was hit with another surprise: the rehab facility was discharging her in just three days. The rehab facility wanted to send her home with no special equipment and no one to care for her, something I'm no longer physically able to do. "All that will come later," the rehab social worker said. It would be unsafe to do that since I can't physically lift her if she falls, or to help her move around, and three days is not enough time to find new facility to care for her.
The rehab facility then offered other options, each of them requiring my mother to surrender 100% of her meager fixed retirement income. Additionally, I'm disabled and in remission from Leukemia, so I can’t contribute to the high costs of her care. What’s more, the rehab facility wants me to sign documents releasing her from the rehab facility’s care, and is threatening to call Texas Adult Services and have me brought up on abandonment charges if I don't comply.
I am literally out of options. I don't want to allow my mother to come home to an unsafe situation or allow the rehab facility to place her somewhere that we can't afford. I also don't want to be brought up on abandonment charges or be evicted for not paying my apartment rent but those are my only choices, since the rehab facility is demanding 100% of my mother's income. The original hospital has yet to admit any wrongdoing and hasn’t offered me any help. The only thing they'll tell me is that they're still investigating. All the while my mother and I are desperate for help.
That’s where things stand right now. Without help, Mom’s future is looking dire, and I am facing litigation, eviction, and poverty.
Mom has been sick for a while but the facility really blindsided me with the threats and demands to release her, only giving me one week to choose between risking both my and my mother's health by trying to care for her on my own, or move her to another facility and surrender 100% of our income, leaving me completely broke and soon to be homeless.
I'm only asking for help so I have time to get my mother settled into a new facility and tie up loose ends in Texas. This is going to take me a month or two, and then my plan is to move back to Maryland where friends have offered to help me with a place to stay and a job.
Thank You for helping out in any way you can.
Rob and Sandra Jo Wilson
Organizer
Robert Wilson
Organizer
Denton, TX