The Senior Observer

Making friends with the enemy.  

Salzburg May 1945

Looks like I was right all along.  Now a huge survey shows that even a small amount of aspirin a day can cause bleeding or increase chance of a stroke.  From my days in TV repair I developed a nose bleed condition that was caused by allergy to house dust and cat hair.   Later it developed into an allergy so bad that if I were in a house where a cat had been living for a long time my esophagus would close up and I could not breathe.    Even after shots to overcome this allergy I was still susceptible to  nose bleeds and other internal bleeding.  So after the doctors recommendation to start taking a baby aspirin a day which caused  an increase in this bleeding I told him I was stopping the aspirin.  I had also decreased it to half an aspirin but that did not completely eliminate the tendency to bleed.  


I credit this stopping of aspirin for me not having a much worse stroke than I did have.  I feel fairly safe now that I have my blood pressure down.  However no telling what bad side effects these pills have in store for me. You can bet something is out there waiting in the wings for this 90 year old.  

Kay got a bad pain this evening after dinner but I cant figure out what it is.  At first she seemed to point to the spot in front where the shingles were so bad about 10 years ago.  Before she got so bad she could not actually tell me what it was she occasionally had pain in the shingle area and I would give her a Oxycontin  pill.  It seemed to work so that is what I did today.  But in a few minutes she came back pointing down her throat which might have indicated she was sick to her stomach.   I might have done the wrong thing but I gave her a sleeping pill hoping she would go to sleep.  If it doesn't make her throw up maybe she can go to sleep and sleep it off.  Somewhat later she is back asking if I can help  her.  As I have run out of ideas I told her I could not help her so go to bed and try to sleep.  Just try that with some one with dementia.  So her demeanor now turns to I don't want to help her.  Now I decide again to ask her were she hurts.  This time she points to her ears so I deduce she might have an earache.  This I can usually do something about by giving her ear drops a couple times and perhaps taking an antacid pill.  Hoping she will drink some water too to reduce the acid in her stomach. 
Right now she is quiet so maybe the one ear drops will do the trick.  I pity her if I die before she does and she has to rely on someone in a rest home to take care of her pains.   It could have been her ears all along. It has been a long time since I gave her any pain pills. 


I now hear her in the other room groaning which is one of the most exasperating things to put up.  I know from experience she is about the most sensitive to pain person I know of. Just start to touch her in some circumstances like cutting toe nails or other minor things she just falls apart.  So I never know how much pain she is actually in.  But if she says she is in pain I do what I can.  I will give her an antacid pill and have her drink some water to wash the stomach acid from here throat. .  Sometimes it takes two  times. Sometimes even that isn't enough but she can at least relax when I just flat out tell that is all I can do.  She has never failed to be OK later. Hopefully the sleeping pill will get her to sleep and she will be OK when she wakes up.


All surplus antiques, collectibles and everything not needed for daily living will be disposed of. We want to save our kids from having to decide what to do with it when we die. That is a time of chaos. I am listing everything at http://realancient.blogspot.com free for family and small price to non-family memberss