Dad is out of hospital & at our house.

He is doing good during the day for the most part.

He walks with his walker. We go around the neighborhood in his wheel chair.

Night is the problem…

The first night (Friday night) he pulled his PICC line out while sleeping.. I know he did it while sleeping because I was checking on him every 30 minutes all night long. I had a lot of blood to clean up.

Doctor said as long as he seems ok, and the one pill he is on does what it is suppose to do, the PICC line not being in will be OK.

The main problem is, he wakes up ever 30-45 minutes. He is either confused & thinks he is alone so he yells for us, or he tried to get up & walk around because he thinks it is morning. Tries to go around turning on lights.

I wouldnt be overly worried about this except - he still has catherter in & he doesnt carry his "bag" with him when he walks off, and the other worry (well one of the other worries) is he is on blood thinner. They said we even have to be careful brushing his teeth, if he cuts his gums it could be bad.

The other concern is when he wakes up he tells me he needs to go out & get his newspaper. He thinks it is morning.

This happens starting about 10pm. He wakes up every 30-45 minutes trying to do something or go somewhere. Then he gets mad at me & it takes about 10 minutes for him to go back to sleep.

I have slept approx. 2hrs over the last 3 nights.

Mom just got a sleeping pill prescription called in. Hopefully it works for tonight.

Good News-

Dad is being discharged tomorrow & has been cleared to come to my house for physical therapy. They will be sending home health aid & a nurse to my house to assist with him. We are also getting Medicare to pay for the majority of rental for wheel chair, walker, bedside toilet, etc…..

Bad News-

These home health care companies are driving me crazy…

We had told the case worker from the hospital that we already had an account with Lincaire for oxygen for mom, so we wanted to go with them for oxygen for Dad.

When Genteva called me about the home health care products they said they had been told to deliver the oxygen. I told her no & she politely said "Ok".

I then got a call from the case worker that Genteva had been chosen to do the oxygen.

We straightened that out & then Genteva called me once again stating they would do the oxygen…

Lincaire & Genteva both showed up at the hospital with portable oxygen units.

Lincaire said "Ok, well call us if you change your mind"…. All Genteva said was "you will owe us $150 copay"…

When Lincaire came out to do my mom’s oxygen they were all concerned about how we could get it so we didn’t have to pay them anything.

So I have called Genteva & told them to forget the oxygen & I was tired of hearing about it. She then tries to tell me they had worked it out where we didn’t have to pay a copay. I told her I appreciated it, but once again was tired of hearing about the oxygen.

SIGH………………

Things have gotten better since my last post (except for my use of the english language).

Dad was on IV antibiotics over the weekend & this seemed to clear up whatever was causing his chills.

His breathing is getting a lot better. They have started reducing the amount of oxygen he is receiving.

He has started having bowel movements. WOOHOO. After 3 weeks he is finally going!!!!!! It sucked being in the room the first time……. ok enough of that

Hopefully he will be getting out soon. We have decided he will move in with Michelle & I during his rehab process. We will get all the equipment needed & make sure he does all his exercises. Once he can get up, move around & care for himself, he will go back home.

Unfortunately Medicare & Medicaid do not think sending people back to their homes or loved ones homes for rehab is a good idea. They would rather stick them in nursing homes. Dad would only be receiving 1-3hrs of rehab if he goes into a nursing home. The other 21hrs a day would be spent sitting around looking at the nursing home surroundings. This would kill his spirit.

But since Medicare/Medicaid, the nursing homes & poloticians are all tied together, the system would rather pay $6-10,000 a month for nursing home services. They will not pay for an RN to come in & check Dad’s vital signs. Medicare won’t hear of it. Medicare will pay for a home health aide to come in 3 times a week & help bathe him, but that is about it. Medicaid says my parents have to much income to qualify for any assistance. They do not care how much of that income is spent on bills & how little money they have for food. It only matters that they make to much money. HELL they hardly have any kind of income.

Medicaid will place Dad on a waiting list to be approved for someone to come in, but the list is 6 months to 1yr long.

We are meeting with the social worker from the hospital tomorrow. She is going to try & get something lined up. I have a long list of home health care items I want them to write Dad a prescription for. They are things that he will need to recover, but since Medicare/Medicaid will not do any reimbursing hopefully the hospital will prescribe them.

To me these items are a minor request. He needs a wheel chair & bedside comode. Once he is getting around better he will need a walker. We will need a bathtub transfer bench for bathing him. Once he is able to use a normal toilet he will need a toilet "cage". This is a device that looks similar to a walker. It surrounds the toilet & gives him grab bars to balance his weight so he can stand up off the toilet. Also, since the main concern will be his oxygen saturation levels, I have asked for a finger tip oxygen sensor.

I do not feel any of the above is out of line. Actually I am sure I have left off some items that we will actually need. I do not see what the harm is in providing the elderly with the equipment, services & staff to recover from major surgery. If you add the cost of all the above items together you do not even come close to 1/5 of the cost of 1 month in a nursing home. It may be more like 1/8 the cost. But that doesn’t matter. Why would it make any sense to choose the option that would be better for the patient & cost less…… that would be such a useless idea……

Medicaid/Medicare/Politicians = JACKASSES

Well lets see…..

Tuesday the 16th was a good day. Dad seemed to be doing good. He was coughing stuff up like they wanted. He was doing his physical therapy & everything.

Wednesday well…sigh… Wednesday was kinda crappy.

I woke up late for work & had a severe headache. I had not slept well the night before.

Betsy got up early (7am or so) and went over to the hospital. While I was getting ready to go to work she called me & asked me to come to the hospital. She said Mom was being rude & obnoxious to everyone and so was Dad.

By the time I arrived, Mom was already gone. She had made rude comments to Dad’s nurse & then on the way to the cafeteria she stopped in front of the United Way charity table & proceeded to say all kinds of rude things to the man working it. Telling him he was stupid for volunteering for them & all kinds of mean things about people donating money to the organization.

I know a lot of people that do not agree with what the United Way corporate organization does & that is fine. You still should not personally attack someone because they do believe in the organization.

So after this, Betsy sent Mom home.

Dad had been very mean & rude to Betsy also. When I got there, she decided to go back to the hotel & get some rest.

Dad cussed me out, called me all kinds of names & pretty much argued with anyone that walked in. He refused to do any physical therapy or breathing treatments & tried to tell me he was not doing anything when he got out of the hospital.

He finally wore himself out around 8pm & slept all night.

Yesterday he was pretty good all day. He walked a couple times & did all his breathing treatments. I told him if he kept doing that, he may not have to go to short term rehab. He could come live with me & michelle for a little while instead.

Then this morning at 3am I got a call from his nurse. He had got out of bed, taken his oxygen off & ripped his PICC line out again. When they tried to get him back in bed, he fought them. He hit the one nurse twice in the arm. They called me to try & calm him down over the phone.

All he would say was they had him tied up & "these kids" wouldn’t leave him alone. He would not listen when i told him they were nurses & doctors & he needed the medicine & oxygen.

We got to the hospital about 5 minutes later & he was calmer, sitting in his recliner with his oxygen on. There were 2 female nurses, 2 security gaurds & 1 Concord city police officer in his room. He understood he was in the hospital and needed all the wires, tubes & oxygen.

He did not remember waking up & fighting. The nurse said when he was fighting with them he did not even look like the same person.

Today he walked a little.

His oxygen is low again. His white count is up, red count down & he has chills. They think he is getting pneumonia. He still has not had a bowel movement (been a couple weeks). He has been eating solid foods for over 4 days now.

My sister said he is being very needy right now. No matter what you do, its not good enough & you have to redo it. She said he is also starting to get very obnoxious again.

The hospital said they would try to get a sitter for tonight to make sure he doesnt do anything again. Well they did. She will be in his room from 7pm until 11pm. What the hell good is that? He is fine at 11pm. It is 1a-6am that he has problems….

I do not mean to sound angry with my Father. I am just starting to get disgusted with the entire situation. I know I shouldnt be, but I am.

Yesterday was Dad’s 78th birthday. They moved him out of ACCU & back into a step down room on Sunday.

We were hoping he would be able to eat his favorite foods for lunch & dinner in celebration. Unfortunately yesterday morning he started having difficulty breathing & they took him off of food & water in case they had to operate again.

The difficulty in breathing seems to be a combination of congestive heart failure (fluid build up around the heart) and anxiety. He has started getting panic attacks. I can’t really blame him after everything he has went through.

They said between medication & getting up & moving around, the fluid build up will hopefully go away.

On Thursday they had done an MRI on Dad’s head to see what all was going on up there. They found a tumor. The surgeons have determined it appears to be non-cancerous & looks like it has been there for a long time. As of right now it is nothing to worry about. They said to bring him back a month after he gets out of the hospital to have it looked at again, just to verify it is not growing & then every six months to keep an eye on it.

Well, I am at work & have 8hrs of training each day through Thursday. As long as nothing happens, I will not be updating the blog until Friday-ish (maybe). How is that for not committing to anything?

Ok, let me start with a partial retraction from yesterday. Mom did not see a psychiatrist. It was a case worker.

Before mom’s little stunt with security Dad was taken down for an MRI of his head. Come to find out he has a tumor in his brain. They said they are sure it is nothing to worry about & it has been there for a long time & doesn’t show any signs that it has grown any in years. They still want him to have another MRI about a month after he gets out of hospital just to make sure nothing new has happened to it.

Soon after Mom’s incident with security, Dad started complaining he did not feel right & he was having trouble breathing. They came in & listened some & then did another chest xray. They decided he had flem building up in his left long & thought it may be collapsing. So they rushed him to surgery.

They found out the flem in his lung was so thick, it was like rubber cement. The doctor said it had clogged his airway into left lung & the lung was no longer filling up with air. They tried to suction out as much as possible & put a drain tube in.

They moved him back to the ACCU unit (ICU for heart patients).

This morning (Friday), he seemed back to his normal self. Physical therapist came in around noon & walked him around the room. Then the nurse removed the chest drain tube around 1pm.

Around 3pm he started getting really confused again & he agreed to lay back in the recliner & take a nap for about an hour. Michelle & I went out to the waiting room so he would actually sleep.

After the hour passed, we started to go back into ACCU. I saw his nurse walking towards dads room with a bunch of towels. I asked what was wrong.

While he was sleeping, Dad had a dream he was in a fight. When he woke up, he got startled. He slammed the recliner shut. Then he realized he had been dreaming. But he forgot he was in the hospital. He stood up to use the bathroom & that is when all hell broke loose.

When he slammed the recliner down, the catheter tube from his bladder got caught in the foot rest & his PICC lines (the ones he has ripped out 2 times before) were caught on the back of the recliner. When he stood up he pulled the PICC line out of his arm & pulled the catheter out of his di*k little man. Blood went everywhere. All over the floor & the chair.

We stayed out while the cleaned him up, bandaged where the PICC line was & put in a new catheter. This took around 20-30 mins.

When we came back in one of the nurses was getting him warm blankets. When she went to adjust Dad’s hospital gown she saw some more blood. Dad was bleeding out of his "little man" all around where the catheter was inserted. I mean A LOT of blood.

It took about 15-20 mins for this to stop.

During all of this, his oxygen count became very low.

They had Xray come in & take some pics of his lungs. They were suppose to have someone come in & check out if everything was ok "down south".

Since he is back in ACCU they have restrictions on what time you can be back there, so we had to leave after all this happend, but they waited until the situation was calmed down.

We returned around 8pm and Dad was doing fine. We left him around 10pm. Hopefully everything goes ok tonight, like it did last night.

The nurse said they may want to go back in on Monday & suction out his lung some more. We will see what happens.

I have to give my Dad credit. If I went through half of the shit he has been through in the last 2 weeks, I would be grouchy as hell, cussing everyone out constantly. He is still very pleasant & polite with everyone.

Not a lot has changed.

Wednesday morning he woke up confused again & tried ripping all the wires & tubes off of him. He did not recognize my sister when she was trying to stop him.

Even when he isn’t confused Dad doesn’t feel any better. He said he is getting tired of dealing with this. I can’t blame him. It has been going on for 2 weeks.

They have reduced the amount of oxygen they are giving him (which is a good sign) & they have decided that the fluid around his lungs & heart appears to be decreasing so they will not be putting a drain tube in.

The results of his EEG came back & they show slow brain wave signals. They said this is nothing to worry about. It could be from the medicine or the low level of oxygen that he had in his blood.

The psychiatrist came & saw him yesterday. They put him on an anxiety/depression/stress/dementia medicine. Hopefully this helps with his morning episodes.

Mom had some problems with hospital security this morning. What is it about my family that none of us can go into the hospital without another one of us getting into an argument with hospital staff, or being kicked out of the hospital? I thought this was finally going to be the one time it did not happen.

Mom drove around for 15 mins trying to find a handicap parking space in the parking garage & could not find one on any of the floors. So she parked in one outside of another building. The security guard came over & told her if she parked there they would tow it. Well this escalted about the way you can imagine. The head of security came over to try & calm down the situation. Well during mom’s discussion with him she said some things that made him think she was suicidal.

What??? My mother crazy & possibly suicidal??? What would make you think that??

So he called a head nurse & she came out with a psychiatrist. Wow so between yesterday & today I saw a therapist & my mom & dad both saw psychiatrist. Never thought this would happen. Surprised it took this long.