Vascular dementia and Trump

[hedda_foil]

30. A close friend of mine had at least two multi focal strokes in early May.

Concurrent with the strokes, her entire abdominal cavity was septic, with a burst appendix, necrotizing pancreatitis, infected gall bladder and an abdominal thrombosis. Who knows what set what off, but this all went down in one night.

After four months of hospitalization and nine endoscopic necrosectomies to remove her dead pancreas from the inside, and every antibiotic imaginable for the septicemia, she's in a nursing home, with almost no short term memory, almost completely paralyzed on one side, incontinent, and with most of the behaviors you guys have mentioned.

She has no immediate family, so I wound up with her medical power of attorney. It's been a nightmare, as she's refused meds, food and therapy more often than not, but is able to sound perfectly rational for short periods (even though she's confabulating and perseverating like mad). The formal diagnosis isn't vascular dementia yet, but it sounds like that's what it is.

The most positive thing is that I got the nursing home to order a full -psych evaluation, which was able to pick up on all of her cognitive and behavioral problems and detail the areas of her brain that are involved. The neuro-psychologist confirmed that she can't make considered decisions about her well being. Thankfully, we found a cousin in a nearby state who was willing to sign on as her financial power of attorney. Between the two of us, we're barely hanging on. But at least she's not the President!