Sep. 14th, 2016 12:35 pm
Increasing normality
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muckefuckA couple days ago, I wrote:
So some of the bad stuff I foresaw is happening, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. We had to take him to the ER yesterday to have the drain looked at and the surgeon decided just to go ahead and remove it. In a week, they'll check to make sure that's working out. We're still hoping to get better dressings that will be less prone to problems. We had a running battle with the nursing home, which kept trying to substitute a much cheaper wound pouch for the proper fistula management system his surgeon wants. Now that he's out of their care, we're hopeful the home health agency might succeed where they failed. (Mom kept bargaining with the ER resident for a more precise wording of the surgeon's orders in the discharge instructions.)
Last night I also served the Old Man notice regarding managing his care with the words, "If you're well enough to read all day, you're well enough to start doing this for yourself again." I can barely stand to make appointments and deal with providers for myself, so I don't think he quite realises what a royal pain it's been to have to do all this for him as well. I was willing to give him a pass when he was in the home--who can concentrate with all those interruptions and distractions?--but it annoys me to think of him idle at home all day and still expecting me to take time away from work to make calls to people.
As I suspected, he was up to the challenge (which is how it is he's now scheduled to see the surgeon again in a week). Now I'm beginning to wonder how much longer before he can take back some of the work of running the household. His excuse before was the lack of a secure connexion, since he was reliant on unsecured institutional wifi. But at home, his phone is no more or less secure than any of our other devices. Moreover, we could easily bring him a laptop to do the finances. He hasn't said he's up to it, but I'm tired of waiting for him to volunteer so it's time to force the issue.
I know there will be setbacks. We still don't know if his nutrition is adequate. At some point, his dressings will probably fail catastrophically. He might scald himself or catch his tube on something or even fall.Later that day, he did fall--sort of. And in doing so, he did catch his tube on something and pull it out more. And today his dressings failed, though we caught it before it got out of hand.
So some of the bad stuff I foresaw is happening, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. We had to take him to the ER yesterday to have the drain looked at and the surgeon decided just to go ahead and remove it. In a week, they'll check to make sure that's working out. We're still hoping to get better dressings that will be less prone to problems. We had a running battle with the nursing home, which kept trying to substitute a much cheaper wound pouch for the proper fistula management system his surgeon wants. Now that he's out of their care, we're hopeful the home health agency might succeed where they failed. (Mom kept bargaining with the ER resident for a more precise wording of the surgeon's orders in the discharge instructions.)
Last night I also served the Old Man notice regarding managing his care with the words, "If you're well enough to read all day, you're well enough to start doing this for yourself again." I can barely stand to make appointments and deal with providers for myself, so I don't think he quite realises what a royal pain it's been to have to do all this for him as well. I was willing to give him a pass when he was in the home--who can concentrate with all those interruptions and distractions?--but it annoys me to think of him idle at home all day and still expecting me to take time away from work to make calls to people.
As I suspected, he was up to the challenge (which is how it is he's now scheduled to see the surgeon again in a week). Now I'm beginning to wonder how much longer before he can take back some of the work of running the household. His excuse before was the lack of a secure connexion, since he was reliant on unsecured institutional wifi. But at home, his phone is no more or less secure than any of our other devices. Moreover, we could easily bring him a laptop to do the finances. He hasn't said he's up to it, but I'm tired of waiting for him to volunteer so it's time to force the issue.
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