Dad Should Be Out of the Hospital Today

Dad was moved out of ICU back into a regular hospital room. His pneumonia has cleared up so he doesn't have the rattling in his chest, although it is still somewhat hard for him to breathe and he continues to cough up phlegm. That's probably due to the lung tumor. To keep his blood properly oxygenated, he still has the tube in his nose. That has made his nose sore and he doesn't like it. He still has the catheter as well, which he hates. These will both be removed when he is discharged. He has eaten very little the entire time he's been hospitalized, and they are no longer hydrating him with IV liquids. He's yellow from the jaundice and has some sores in his mouth. Both arms are completely purple from bruising after repeatedly being jabbed and poked for the past 10 days. Mostly he talks about wanting to go home and sleeps. Poor guy. He's quite miserable.

Tuesday, Gina & I arrived after work to take Mom to the funeral home for Betty Bynum's wake. There were so many flowers and plants in the room it looked like a florist shop! She was certainly loved and will be sorely missed. In the corner of the inside top of the casket was a small corsage with 2 roses from her great granddaughter, Aubrey, and her great grandson-to-be. Touching... It was wonderful to see my niece Lisa & her hubby Arthur again. They came all the way from Minnesota. And Jessica & Ken brought Aubrey, who actually reached out for me to hold her when I first saw her. I was delighted since the first time I met her, nearly a year ago, she was scared to death of me :-)

Before we went to the funeral home, my youngest sister Shari, brother-in-law Mark, Mom, Gina & I met with the hospice AMED reps and got him signed up. After 2 hours of talking about all the options and signing all the paperwork, Mom decided it would be best to have Dad in either the Harbor View nursing home (directly across the street from her apartment complex) or in a personal care home about 7 miles from her apartment on FM 518. I got permission to take a half-day off work Wednesday so that we could go and visit these 2 facilities and allow Mom to sign him up since Shari wanted to attend Betty's funeral Wednesday afternoon with my older sister and her family.

As I was on my way down I-45 to meet Mom & Shari for lunch, my younger sister Lori called and said she had found someone to cover for her and she was going to meet us at the apartment. She decided to take a 10 day paid leave of absence to care for Dad in home hospice care. Mom, of course, jumped at the chance to have him return home. So, rather than visit the other facilities, Lori & Mom arranged the apartment to make room for the hospital bed and equipment that Dad will require, while I looked over the lease to see if there was any way to get Mom out of it without penalty. She won't be able to afford the apartment once Dad dies since her income will be reduced by over half. Unfortunately, the only "escape clause" was for military duty and you had to show them your transfer orders. The three of us went to talk to the apartment assistant manager and explained the situation. He seemed very willing to work out something with The Moorings management team - and since Mom & Dad have been good tenants there since 2002, I think it's the least they can do.

We then went to the hospital and awaited Dr. Kovitz to join us at 4PM so we could tell Dad the good news of his soon-to-be release. Although I have some misgivings about the change from our decision to have Dad released to a facility rather than home hospice care, Dr. Kovitz and Kelly (the hospice rep) seemed to be in favor of having him moved home. My concerns are what will happen if Dad continues to need care after Lori must return to work on 1/27/09 and what affect having Dad home in hospice care will do to Mom. And I did continue to voice my concerns throughout the day yesterday, but Mom held firm to the idea that Dad would want to be home and she could handle it. As for what to do after Lori goes back to work...we'll cross that bridge if/when necessary.

So Dad told Dr. Kovitz "I want out of your playpen." and Dr. Kovitz said, "OK I'm going to send you home tomorrow. Are we friends again?" And they shook hands. Shortly after Dr. Kovitz left, Dad motioned me to come to the bed and said, "Unplug me and take me home." I said, "Tomorrow Daddy." And he said, "NO! Now! The doctor said!" And I replied, "Dad, I was standing right here. He said tomorrow." He shooed me away from the bed and motioned to Shari and said the same thing to her about unplugging him and taking him home. She patiently repeated "Tomorrow." And he sighed and said, "Oh shit."

JD, Denise and all her kids (including Jacob, my nephew, who drove in from New Orleans - great to see him again, too!) came up to the hospital at 7PM and Denise told Dad about Betty's death and funeral. He showed appropriate concern and sympathy for them all. So, even though at times he seems out of it, and has said some crazy things, most of the time he's been lucid and self-aware. Making it just that much more difficult to watch him suffer so. He motioned me back to the bed and asked me if I had contacted the Living Bank and the funeral home that delivers donor's bodies to them as he had requested that 2nd day he was in the hospital. I told him that I had it all covered. We gave the information to the hospice rep so that they could make those arrangements when the time comes.

This morning, Shari worked her ass off cleaning the apartment and bought some shelves to hold all Dad's stuff. Around noon the hospice team moved all the equipment and hospital bed into the apartment and Dad should be home sometime this afternoon. I'll update again tomorrow. I'll be staying over there most of this holiday weekend to help out as I can since Shari & Denise are going back home.

Mom has repeatedly told all of us how much she appreciates what we have done to help her and that she never could have done all this without us. Of course, we're all doing exactly what we want to do - helping them as much as possible - and I'm so grateful that I have 3 other strong, capable sisters to share these duties with.