For Once Hospital Discharge is Full of Hope

I got word today that my mother will be discharged from the hospital tomorrow.  Now usually at this point all the family members are scrambling, I'm on the phone with the hospital social worker begging for more days.  The phone lines are all busy and I have two people on the phone at a time.  This time mom appears to be better than I've seen her in years.  I think she's ready to be out of the hospital.  Plus this time (unlike all the other times) she's going back to her assisted living facility, so there is someone there to keep track of her meds and make sure she's been bathed.

But I think what makes this time different is that we saw actual improvement in her.  We didn't feel like the doctor was just doing everything she could to quickly stabilize her and send her on her way because another more needy person was waiting for the bed.  I hope my mother will continue to improve.  The last time she was in the hospital we were told to just expect her confused, depressed, delusional brain was her new baseline.  Like that was supposed to give me some warm fuzzy feeling about her care.

Instead of receiving hospital care that feels formulaic and impersonal, as if the doctor were treating a simple infection or a broken bone, she has received personalized care.  The doctor this time, it seems, spent time figuring things out and really asking specific questions about how my mother has been over her kids' lifetimes.  As a result my mother has received a new diagnosis.  One that explains all the ups and downs of my childhood and the reason why she does well for only a few months at a time until the depression takes hold and fuels the psychosis and she ends up back in the hospital every few months.

Her new diagnosis is Schizoaffective Disorder. For my mother it is basically schizophrenia plus bipolar disorder.  It explains why she spent all of the 1980's and most of the 1990s in bed, book ended with occasional bursts of compulsive shopping, cleaning and calling the 700 Club. This change in diagnosis means changes in medications and hopefully a better "baseline" from which to draw.  The unfortunate thing about it is that it can look like dementia.  So, the question becomes does she have dementia or was it just Schizoaffective Disorder.  It complicates things since we have a long family history of the disease.

I am thankful for this more clarified diagnosis and I really hope it means things will improve, but this has brought out painful memories for me.  I haven't been able to help myself in brooding in the childhood I experienced.  If only someone could have helped her then would my siblings and I experienced a childhood filled with sports teams, dance classes and wonderful family memories?  Was there a chance for something other than a childhood full of darkness and anxiety?  It's hard to let go of the past when it affects the present so much.

I saw mom a few days ago and I can't tell you how much she's improved.  Of course there are still delusions.  She told me and two of my siblings that the doctor did a CT scan and found she had multiple strokes and suffered permanent brain damage.  The doctor never had her undergo a CT.  She only tells these delusions to family.  Makes it that much more difficult to find people to help.

I'm hopeful for this next stage of the journey, but we've been here before and nothing improves.  They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  And we've been at this point many times only to be set up to fail all over again.  But without hope you can do nothing but give up, so I'll hold on to every scrap of it I can find.  What choice do I have?