My mom was in late-stage kidney failure when she died, so be aware it can and will change their personality.
We don’t even know for sure where she is yet, because she has a fungal infection in the bladder. When it isn’t being treated, kidney function takes a dive, but improves when it is. For us, the taste disorder is the worst part. Everything has been tasting bad since December which has made pretty much everything worse.
But she *is* sundowning, which has been causing trouble for the night shift nurses. Medication seems to be helping so far. And yes, a lot of dementia patients seem to get very paranoid. My partner’s father went that route and started threatening his son with violence (and he has guns), so both kids cut him off and after multiple attempts at interventions, he is now a ward of the state.
Dementia is a terrible way to go, and our progress in understanding and preventing it has been dismal so far. Chasing after amyloid has been a fool's errand so far. Perhaps the tau protein assay will allow new progress.
Well, when you try to study an umbrella of issues with similar symptoms, progress will be slow. I expect it’ll be like cancer research in the long run.
Meanwhile, the hits keep coming. Cat went in for a CT scan to try to understand better why she isn’t eating well lately despite being hungry (usually her IBD eating issues include lack of appetite). She just had her regular bloodwork which showed nothing unusual, and an ultrasound gives us no suggestion that it’s related to her IBD or lymphoma. So we were looking for something else, possibly related to her smell. And instead we find a tumor (Meningioma) in her brain. This sort of tumor is right up against the skull, so can easily be removed surgically, and good odds of recovery. It’s also known to cause all sorts of symptoms as it grows. Smell, hearing, vision, and/or balance can be impacted depending on where it is and how large it’s gotten. Can also change behavior. So flip a coin on if this is why her eating issues are erratic, and it’s going to be expensive. They also took a nasal biopsy for a discharge in her left sinus which may give us answers.
This is getting expensive, but not sure we are at the place to draw the line of "we’ve done enough" yet. Need to talk with the neurologist and my partner to figure this out.
Considering how the last 6 months have been… I wish this was all a joke. If it is one, it is cosmic.