{"id":7793,"date":"2024-09-19T08:17:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-19T12:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/?p=7793"},"modified":"2024-09-19T08:17:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T12:17:01","slug":"wading-through-the-challenges-of-weeping-edema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2024\/09\/wading-through-the-challenges-of-weeping-edema\/","title":{"rendered":"Wading through the Challenges of Weeping Edema"},"content":{"rendered":"

After my mother\u2019s second broken hip, she began sleeping in her recliner in the living room. It was easier and she was small, so she slept just as well. I slept on the couch less than 10 feet away, but we argued about the temperature so much (she liked the room like a sauna) that I eventually moved into the vacant bedroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

One very early morning, when I was helping her to her feet for one of her thrice-nightly walker-walks to the bathroom, we heard a slosh before we noticed that the carpet beneath her feet was soaking wet. It wasn\u2019t blood or urine, it was water leaking like a loose faucet from her shins.<\/span><\/p>\n

Water trailed her wherever she walked, and either I or her daytime aide had to follow behind her with towels, drying the path, so she wouldn\u2019t slip. I placed large bath towels on the rug in front of her chair to sop up the excess. Where was this water coming from? She was leaking more than she drank. <\/span><\/p>\n

Weeping edema, the visiting nurse called it. Fluid buildup in the lower extremities \u2014thanks, gravity\u2014that burst through Mom\u2019s aging, dry skin as if a dam had broken.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enter the Unna boot. The visiting nurse wrapped my mom\u2019s calves in a sort of zinc-infused cast that works to dry out the moisture and to improve blood flow with compression. The problem with the Unna boot, however, is that it only masks the problem and doesn\u2019t solve it. Her legs would dry out, but the nurses couldn\u2019t put on a new boot if there was no moisture. Each time, the weeping would start again within days.<\/span><\/p>\n

I began taking Mom for weekly visits to the wound clinic at White Plains Hospital, where they would unwrap her legs, wash them (she loved that) and then rewrap. It was difficult enough getting her to the hospital, but that became even more challenging when COVID hit. After a few visits, the hospital thought it would be safer to stop the trips and have the visiting nurses return. But while her legs were dry, the visiting nurse wouldn\u2019t put on a new boot.<\/span><\/p>\n

I pleaded for more preventative care\u2014to let the legs air out for a few days and then put on a new boot before the carpet got soaked. Nope. Can\u2019t do it if the leg isn\u2019t \u201cweeping.\u201d Medicaid wouldn\u2019t pay for a visit if there wasn\u2019t a cause (although they had already sent a box of boots), even if that cause was only a day or two\u2014like clockwork\u2014from reoccurring. So one of the nurses came up with a different idea: they would put Mom on palliative care, as that would require a weekly nursing visit. <\/span><\/p>\n

The next week, the palliative care intake nurse showed up and chatted with Mom for about a half hour. As she was leaving, she called me over to talk in the hall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe doesn\u2019t have dementia,\u201d the nurse said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI know,\u201d I replied. \u201cWho said she had dementia?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what it says on the application.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, the application is wrong,\u201d I said. \u201cWe\u2019re getting palliative care so she can get weekly visits to treat her weeping edema.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a reason for palliative care,\u201d the nurse said.<\/span><\/p>\n

I explained what had been happening for the past few months and, thankfully, the nurse got it. Nurses are the best.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll change the reason on the form from \u2018dementia\u2019 to \u2018malnutrition,\u2019\u201d she said. I thought that was going to make it sound like I wasn\u2019t feeding Mom, but I held my tongue. It turned out to be a prescient change that I\u2019ll write about soon.<\/span><\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t be until a few weeks before she passed that Mom\u2019s legs would stop leaking, mostly because by then she had stopped drinking. There was not enough water left in her body. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>It made me long for the puddles.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After my mother\u2019s second broken hip, she began sleeping in her recliner in the living room. It was easier and she was small, so she slept just as well. I slept on the couch less than 10 feet away, but…<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more Wading through the Challenges of Weeping Edema<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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