Hello. This information concerns my mother who is 64 years old.
About 2 months ago my mother had a heart attack. She was in the hospital for over a week. They sent her home on meds. A week later my dad took her back to ER because she said something wasn't right and she felt horrible. They then concluded she had congestive heart failure and needed a pacemaker for one side of the heart and meds for the other side of the heart. She also had over a pint of fluid in her lungs, which they removed.
For the last month she has been home until yesterday. At home she was at rest almost the entire day and sleeping. I know she was tired from all the tests and restless sleep in the hospital. Since she's been home, I've noticed she is eating less, more picky about food, easily anxious and is losing weight, she doesn't do any activities and sits upright in the chair.
Her symptoms include: Terrible cough, has trouble walking, is up at night coughing and has to have head elevated. Constipation, loss of appetite, nausea. Edema in her legs and the fluid in her lungs. She also seems easily confused and not her normal "sharp-minded" self.
I am very concerned. My dad is taking care of her and trying to stay positive and we are visiting every weekend. She had a dizzy spell the other day and she asked dad to take her back to the hospital. My mother doesn't like to be there and wouldn't ask to go unless she felt really bad.
I talked to her last night (she has been admitted again) and she said she was tired and they had her on oxygen but she had shortness of breath. The doctors said they were going to take more fluid out the lung that they found on a scan. They concluded her dizziness was a result of an A-Fib. So know they have doubled her heart meds.
My concern is that no one is staging the heart failure (which I believe it is) and they just give her a new med and send her home. We demanded yesterday that we receive a cardio-healthy diet routine so we could at least help her eat the right things to give her energy. I feel that the doctors aren't giving any outlook good or bad and just keep saying "I don't know". When I mention the CHF again, mom and dad act like they don't remember the doctors saying that. As my parents have been through so much I know it easy to get confused.
She has a lung doctor and a heart doctor. The heart doctor said a week ago that the pacemaker was great and tests came out good. The lung doctor keeps giving her new stuff for her cough. Last week it was antibiotic for the cough, this week he said he wanted to give her asthma meds. They keep giving her something new each week for each symptom.
What my husband and I want to know is: What is really going on here? Is she in bad shape so they just keep subsiding the symptoms to make her comfortable or do they really know how they can help treat her heart so she has some time left with us? I am very sadden and would like to have more information. But the doctors are literally saying - they don't know.
Thanks for any help :)