Wednesday, March 4, 2015

My husband's family

Last evening we got the news we were expecting, but didn't really want to hear.  My brother-in-law is losing his vision.  Before I go much further, let me back up a bit.

My brother-in-law (T, for these purposes) was diagnosed with diabetes over ten years ago.  Until things began to get serious, he never did a particularly good job of taking care of himself.  However, about nine years ago, the complications began developing and it's gone downhill over time.  He's lost several toes, and in November, 2013 (the day after my father passed away) he had a paralyzing stroke.  As he was beginning to recover from that last spring, he fell out of his wheel chair and broke his femur.  He developed pneumonia and became very seriously ill at that time, but was eventually able to return to his home.  Last fall the doctors noticed a very serious wound on his foot.  It was decided at that time to place him in a care facility because he was not allowed to put ANY weight at all on his foot.  On the upside, that has gone as hoped and the wound is healing.

In early December, Andrew's parents began to realize that T wasn't seeing.  Because he'd had a virus, there was some hope/speculation that the eyesight would return.  I was (to myself) less than optimistic as I was aware that losing vision is often a complication of diabetes.  The specialist in December stated that surgery was not an option, but left some hope that perhaps another specialist would have an idea.  The fact that T had never been under the care of an eye doctor since his diagnosis with diabetes did not sound like a good thing, but I'm an in-law and keep my mouth shut.

Unfortunately yesterday's specialist confirmed the loss of vision is due to diabetes and not some other event, and because of that is very unlikely to return at all, although some small return is still possible.  As his wound is healing, the insurance wants to remove T from the care facility which is understandable.  At the same time, because he has been immobile for so many months, and also due to the fact that he is missing toes which affects his balance, he is a serious fall risk.  At this time he is unable to get in and out of bed himself or dress himself.  My father-in-law is going to be 80 this September and my mother-in-law is 75.  They can NOT take care of him.  Andrew was quite insistent about this with his parents last night, and they do seem to be in agreement...which as a parent I'm sure is a tough realization for them.  We aren't entirely sure what is going to come next for T, but we are sending up lots of prayers that things work out for the best!

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