Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Helpless at 4 am

Luther is sitting in his chair.   He's been there for about 20 minutes.  I'm blogging. This feels wrong.

I was staring at him, huddled over but that seemed wrong too.

I've played 100 questions with him but that was futile.  The best thing is to leave him be.... I think.

He's coughing.  His nose is super stuffed up so he can't breathe through his nose.  The coughing is always an issue in ALS. 

It's because the throat has muscles.  ALS weakens and eventually paralyzes involuntary muscles.  Right now, Luther doesn't swallow as much as you and me.

Spit (mucus) builds up on the back of his throat causing him to cough. 

He'll cough a ton after eating.  Doctors say it's because food gets trapped in wrong place.

Anyways,  at night, when you lie down, all that spit mucussy (?) gunk builds up more and his nose gets really stuffed up.

Every night he wakes up and coughs a little.   We got Benadryl and that seemed to help.  But tonight, not so much.

It's really hard to sit here and do nothing.  It sounds like he's choking.   I'll rephrase.   He is choking.  

I gave him another Benadryl.   It's been 10 minutes...it seems to be working. 

This has been the longest cough/choke episode so far.   I hate this.

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