Bad news about Mom.

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I'm afraid things have taken a turn for the worse. Mom was in a lot of pain, which is understandable. She slept sitting up in her wheelchair because its seat is higher than the chair she usually sits in, so not as hard to get out of. The fact that she was in so much pain I totally expected. I had a commode chair ordered for her and we set it up next to the wheelchair so all she had to do was pivot from one to the other with my assistance. Then, in the wee hours of the morning yesterday, during one of her waking episodes, she began slurring her speech. Her mind didn't see affected, but her ability to enunciate, to pronounce her words clearly, had changed. She was lisping, then some words were garbled. To be honest, I wasn't sure if it was the pain meds or not. They had her on Oxycodone, which was knocking her out with each dose. But sun up, I began to notice that one side of her mouth wasn't so much drooping, because I actually was looking at her whole face to see if I saw "droop", as not working WITH the other side. When she talked, she talked out of one side only. Her aide arrived early and she noticed it too. Mom wasn't able to feed herself as she had been the day before. I called her doctor's office and the nurse listened to what I was saying and said to take her to the ER immediately. I called 911 and explained to her that she was going to the hospital. She asked why, and I told her what we were seeing. Like I mentioned, her mind was still fine, and she asked, "They think it's a stroke?" I said, "yes, possibly, and the sooner we get there, the sooner they can help." She was fine with that. What they found was that her congestive heart failure was acting up again, her CO2 levels were really high in her blood (which was a surprise because we'd been monitoring her weight and it was pretty consistent) and her heart enzymes were elevated, indicating she might have had a mild heart attack. There was no evidence of a stroke on the CAT scan, although they could see she'd had mini-strokes in the past. They also said if this had been one, the evidence would show up in a couple or three days. In the meantime, they put her on a bipap mask to increase her blood oxygen and force out the CO2, blood thinners for the possible stroke, and a low-dose morphine drip for her pain. She was in ICU within 6 hours of entering the ER. Right now, she's as stable as possible, but in good hands. Her physicians and nursing staff know her from the past and know what to expect with her. There are few things she'll fight with them over since she's pretty compliant, unlike some elderly and cantankerous patients even I've seen them deal with. But, how this will end is anyone's guess. So, I'd like to again ask for your prayers, thoughts, light, energy, and all other good things on her behalf. I'm beginning to understand why I lost my job - that decision was from a much higher source than even the business manager. I had to be here. And this is why.