4/29/10

4/29/10

We brought Dad home today!!! We almost didn't get to – we were all packed up and ready to leave, but when the EMTs showed up to transport Dad home, they were alarmed by how much he was wheezing and one of them insisted that the doctor come re-evaluate him. Ultimately, I wound up having to make the call – the doctor felt he was OK to go home, but was willing to keep him, and the EMT definitely thought he should stay. I asked the doctor what they would do for him in the hospital and the answer was nebulizer treatments. Since they had already ordered us a nebulizer, I figured we could do those at home, and I felt pretty strongly that every day he stayed in the hospital, pretty much trapped in bed, he was losing muscle, not to mention getting increasingly agitated. So I opted to bring him home.

It was definitely the right choice – this team of EMTs, another pair of women, was much more confident carrying him up the stairs and Dad didn't fuss at all, and when they put him on his own bed, he sprawled out and looked totally relaxed. Marie had had her relative clean the house from top to bottom, and his room was nicely arranged.

It's a huge relief to be home, but we have a lot of obstacles to negotiate – Dad is definitely quite a bit more compromised than he was last wednesday. He's trying to stand, but can't manage it on his own yet, let alone walking. He's still wheezing, and has to be propped up so he can breathe better, and we have to encourage him to cough up the mucous clogging his chest. The hallucinations aren't as bad as before, but he's still having some, and his speech is less clear, partly because he's not breathing well. He developed a urinary tract infection in the hospital, so when he says he has to piss, we have a matter of seconds to grab the urinal and get him set up. He can eat simple things that are placed in his hand, like banana pieces and slices of bread, but he's too weak and shaky to really feed himself or hold a beverage, so we have to feed him. We now have a nebulizer, a humidifier, antibiotics, geezer vitamins, a nose-clearing device and stuff that has to get mixed into his fluids to thicken them so he doesn't choke. At this point, at least until he gets stronger and we get more experienced with all this, caring for him is a two-person job. JD and Jaelynn have both been heroic about giving up their time to be here to help, and the discharge planner at the hospital said she was going to get us a home attendant, who I hope can be back-up for folks like Marie, who is so uncomfortable with this level of caregiving that she opted to give Jaelynn most of her shifts this week (not that she admitted it – she claims to have dental problems).