Life's turning into Saint Elsewhere
Friday, Sept. 12, 2008 at 8:09 a.m.
So the stuff�s been goin� on, I just haven�t been writing about it here. The biggest stress-inducer of the week is still the �rents, and the continued deterioration of Dad in general. He�s gotten so belligerent and mean. Apparently, he�s taken to refusing to take his pills, refusing to eat, refusing to get out of the car for doctor�s appointments, etc. He kept pulling out his PIC line for his antibiotic treatments. Well, you know, it�s like a little kid � there�s only so much he can control, so he�s going to do what he can. Today he has another appointment with the psychiatrist and I hope that doctor will give him a new script for something that will calm him the hell down.
Meanwhile, I incurred the wrath of Mom by taking over and doing some things long distance for her, like hiring the neighborhood ne�er-do-well to do some work for her, like cleaning out Dad�s old workshop it can be torn down. I also ordered a nifty transport chair that weighs only 14.5 pounds, so it�s easy to move in and out of their car. And it has a cup holder!
Isn�t that the shizzle? From Amazon. It arrived at their house yesterday. Dad went over the moon, seeing a HUGE parcel in the house. He was like a kid at Christmas. He got excited to see a neat wheelchair on the picture on the box. Hopefully he�ll be more open to riding around in that thing.
Also, I insisted on making a phone call to a home-health care company because the one Dad got sent home with from his last hospital stay wasn�t doing squat. He was supposed to get a Wound-VAC machine for his latest toe amputation, and it was three weeks later, and still no machine! So I called another company, one that my mom had heard speak at a symposium about Alzheimer�s. I had a nice chat with the guy and he told me that I needed to get an order from Dad�s PC doc. Well, Dad�s still with the Navy docs, but Medicare would pay 100% for an at home nurse. So I called Mom to get the PC doc�s number. Mom was like, �Well, you can call Dr. G, but it takes days for a message to get through, and then they send you the form, and not to the nurse�s office, etc, etc, etc . . .�
Mom, I think, doesn�t realize that I talk on the phone all day. To stupid people. So I called the Navy Hospital on Monday morning, and got a corpsman, and I told him what I wanted, and how I wanted it, and when I wanted it.
They sent the fax that day to the home nursing office, and the home nursing office called Mom that same day to set up an appointment.
Mom called me. �What in the world did you do?�
Simple, Mom. I called with my firm voice that promises whup-ass while being totally pleasant the whole time. Hee hee.
So Mom called the other nursing office and fired them, and on Wednesday, the new nursing office sent a social worker. Today, Dad�s supposed to have his VAC machine from this new nursing office. Mom�s excited. She�s seeing that this new office will be able to help her, and will be able to provide someone to provide respite care so that she will be able to get out and do things on her own!! Can you imagine???
Geez. Like I�ve been telling her for months! Oh well. Better late than never.
However, Mom was also miffed with Bubba, who is kind of a fink, because he lives right there in town but he doesn�t do all that much for Mom and Dad. Granted, he has his own set of problems, and he works full-time too, but . . . still. Anyway, I called him up to see what was going on and to let him know what I�ve been doing so we don�t duplicate efforts. Anyway, I found out that the SIL has been hospitalized since last Saturday. SIL has a host of health issues � she�s the one with the brain that was leaking out her nose, if you recall (which seems to be all fixed now, thank heavens!) � but she also has rheumatoid arthritis, for which she has to take Methotrexate (or Methopukesate according to our lovely kungfukitten) and Humira, both of which make her sick and cause her stomach cramping, so it went kind of unnoticed that she actually had a kidney infection due to e.coli, for heaven�s sake. Bloody hell, she makes me look like the picture of health! So he�s been dealing with that, actually spending the night with her every night at the hospital, which prompted this conversation with the Hubster:
Valkyrie: Would you spend the night at the hospital with me?
Hubster: It depends, I guess.
Valkyrie: I wouldn�t expect you to. I�d rather you stay home and take care of the animals and get some sleep. The hospital could always call you.
Hubster: Okay, since you say that, the answer is no.
I really shouldn�t ask loaded questions like that, though. Because I always know what the answers are. Not that Hubster is cold or unfeeling, not at all, he�s just really pragmatic.
Just like a Vulcan.