hoarse

I went to visit my brother today with my husband. We decided around 8 am to go visit him in time to take him out to breakfast.  I spent 45 minutes on the phone trying to get in touch with the nursing home so I could tell him not to eat, but no one answered the phone at any of the nurses desks the whole time.  When we got there he had already eaten, but we took him out anyway, he had coffee with us while we ate breakfast.

He was in ok spirits, but looked kind of tired and he was hoarse.  He said he thought he was getting a cold.  Then a strange thing happen he kind of either had a seizure or was  beginning to pass our or something, but then he jerked back to normal.  This only took a second or so.

Last week, I remarked to my family that something didn't look right.  At that time, I spoke with my brother about it and he said he wasn't sleeping well because they were waking him up to change his diaper.  He said the same thing again today.  Now I'm not sure this is only because he has a cold and he's not sleeping.  Or maybe this cold is going to turn into congestive heart failure troubles.  I really trust my sixth sense about him and his health, I have predicted pretty accurately every time he is about to get into a medical crisis.  Basically what happens is that you have to wait for his condition to get bad enough for someone to be able to figure out what the problem is, because he can't articulate what he is feeling.  (or maybe he just doesn't feel it, who knows?)

Or maybe I am just obsessing.  I stopped by to tell the nurse to keep an eye on him, but it was one of the well meaning ones who doesn't speak English very well and I'm a little concerned she didn't understand what I was saying.  I left a message for the patient advocate, who has been very, very helpful in the past, but she hasn't called me back yet.  Oh well, at least he's not by himself and I don't have to run over there twice a day to keep an eye on him.  That is very good.

I have arranged for him to be able to sit outside on his own if he wants, but they haven't found his missing clothes yet.