First Day Home

Hi all my friends. I was very upset today. Not with any of you, not even with the facility. I was upset because I had to pay family gas money to bring Al home. Maybe I shouldn’t have been but I was.

With me getting over that quickly I was calmer than I thought I would be. It took me no time to gather Al’s belongings and get them in the car. By the time my helper arrived, there was only one shelf to take off the wall and a three drawer plastic cart left.

Coming home was very warm and I knew Al was paying the price when I looked at him but once we got inside the house the air was on. He wanted to take a nap immediately. I got him settled and then started to put his belongings a way when the Hospice nurse knocked.

She and I spoke for a couple of hours. She wanted to rid some of the extra medications. Believe it or not he is on 18 medications. But when she went through them one by one each one was in three categories. They were either for pain, heart, or blood pressure.

It is amazing at what we put in our bodies to be able to live a while longer when we are ill. I was shocked at how much he was taking but sad that we couldn’t take him off any of them.

Instead of calling 911 to take him to the ER I now have instructions to give him pain medication from here, one of them every hour for two hours, call the nurse on call and wait. In a way it is nice to have your very own nurse involved and at your beck and call, and in another way, it eats at me a little that I won’t be able to take him to the ER in case he is having a heart attack.

But the truth be known, as I said before, the ER trips are for the internal tremors. And we all ready discussed the pros and cons at this point in his life.

The nurse and I discussed routes to go now that they are in charge. I won’t be taking him to the family doctor any longer. Hospice will get all of his medications. It is nice to have someone on my side.

I bet the company that brought the wheel chair and bed yesterday is perturbed. I didn’t realize that when Hospice is in charge they get the medical equipment,  bed, wheel chair, briefs, gloves, and bed pads. Now tomorrow the old company is coming to take back the bed and wheel chair and the new company is doing a pretty good job at being here at the same time setting up their equipment.

Al ate a small supper but did finish it. He had a cut-up in tiny pieces  burrito, cottage cheese, and get this, a donut, one of those dunking stick types. He did pretty good. He didn’t want to go to his room.

It made me feel good that he wanted to stay out in the living room with me. He had me put him in front of the TV and although it was very difficult to hold his head up, I think he listened, but I have to be honest, most of the time he slept.

I finally talked him into going to his room about 9:45, and he is sitting in his new lift chair, which by the way, it made it real easy to get him in it. He is drinking his diet coke, but when I peeked in a second ago, he was asleep. He sure does sleep a lot.

It sure is good to have him home again. I don’t care how sick he is, he is where he is loved and between Hospice and me he will get the best of care. Monday morning he gets on the bus and starts Day Program.