Home and Recovering

Dad is doing fine, recovering, still a bit sore and taking it easy, eating good. Poor guy, he had a hard time in the hospital. Before I brought him in Saturday afternoon he wanted to eat but I discouraged him from doing that because I knew the hospital would want to run tests.

I brought him to the ER and he was admitted that night. The bad thing was, they didn't feed him anything but broth and jello the whole time he was there, but they also didn't do the colonoscopy until Monday. They did a CAT scan of his torso in ER, but that's it! NOTHING until Monday---no tests, no food, no information, major STRESS. Because he also has Essential Tremor (which I hardly notice at home, and I didn't realize this until after it happened and I looked it up) going that long with no food and no beer (which suppresses it) and all the stress causes the tremor to really get bad.

Sunday night the night nurse brought the colon prep for him to drink. She said it would be best if he could drink the whole thing by midnight. He finished it at 11 pm and the nurse even checked to see that he had. A few trips to the bathroom and he tried to sleep.

Now, I had a colonoscopy in January, and although it's not as bad as some might think, the prep makes it so you can't sleep. There's just something about it that puts your body out of whack and gives you the jitters.

Dad couldn't sleep so they brought him something. Monday morning he called me bright and early at 7:30 am. He thought his test might be soon but he didn't know. I called the nurse and she said it was scheduled for 1 pm. After spending some time catching up on all the things I needed to do I got ready to go to the hospital. I called dad at 10:30 and I could hardly understand what he was saying...something about still being there. I told him the test was at one and he said no one seemed to know.

So I get to the hospital and he's in a weird way, not himself at all. He was grouchy, really grouchy. So I talked to the nurse. She said he was agitated that morning so she gave him something. They gave him a unit of blood. The IV was hurting so they moved it to the other arm. He said the IV had been pulled on three times.

While I was there he told me they wanted him to be seen by a neurologist because of the tremor. He tried to tell them he had already seen doctors about it in the past.

After the colonoscopy they brought him more broth and jello. They said he couldn't eat until a surgeon saw him because there is one large polyp they couldn't remove and he needed surgery. By then the wacko drug from that morning had worn off and dad said this is too much, he needed to go home and eat something. I mean, he hadn't eaten since Friday night for cryin' out loud! Plus that he doesn't have medigap insurance (yet) so we have to pay 20% plus whatever Medicare doesn't cover.

So I talked to everyone and got the discharge. It was very stressful and now I'm sick again. Sore throat. Anyway, I got him home and fed. He went to bed early.

Tuesday----all the drugs have worn off, so he has a clear head. The Tremor is calm, his color has returned, he's eating well and resting. So he starts telling me about the ordeal. Aside from the no food problem, he said they kept telling him different things. One person would tell him to get up to go to the bathroom and the next was complaining that he wasn't supposed to be up at all.

Then there was the thing with the colon prep. When the morning nurse came in she saw the empty jug of prep and said he was supposed to leave half of it for today (Monday). Now you have to understand his Essential Tremor was way out of whack and he hadn't had anything solid to eat since Friday night AND he was jittery from the colon prep AND no one seemed to know when the colonoscopy was scheduled or they didn't hear him ask or something. So he told her that the night nurse wanted him to finish it by midnight. Well, I don't know what happened because I wasn't there, but the nurse popped him with some kind of noo-nee noo-nee drug. She told me he was apprehensive about the test. Now I know men aren't the best patients but come on, he wasn't hitting anyone.

Then there was the IV. It went bad, stopped working. Why? Housekeeping tripped over the line and pulled on it. Then at two different times aides pulled on it, I'm sure accidentally because the noo-nee noo-nee drug made him flop around. So he was hungry, he hurt, he was drugged up, and he wanted to go home.

The large polyp? It was biopsied. As soon as I get over this stupid cold I'm going to chase down the results. My nurse friend in Missouri said a polyp is a polyp, though they can be pre-cancerous, but they grow very slowly. She said a mass or a tumor doesn't look like a polyp. So we feel there is plenty of time to get moved. There are plenty of hospitals downstate. One in Paoli, two in Bedford, one in Bloomington, Salem, several in Louisville, KY. We'll get through this. Now if I can only get over this crummy cold.

The good and the bad

I wanted to write about what a wonderful time we had, and all about talking to the nicest people, and finding such a beautiful area that we want to move to, that we have found our "somewhere" in Indiana, but tonight dad is in the hospital with internal bleeding. An ulcer maybe. So everything will have to wait. Here is a picture of us in Paoli. Dad looks happy and healthy. I'm sure he will recover just fine.

Hello from Southern Indiana!

It's beautiful down here! Spring is everywhere and the air is fresh!! We're in Bedford now but will head down to Paoli tomorrow.

Happy Easter!

We didn't want to cook our family tradition of ham (sometimes I react to the nitrites and nitrates) so we had roast chicken, dressing, veggie, mashed spuds and cranberry sauce. We invited our neighbor to eat with us. It was yummy and I'm stuffed.

Last night we watched the Changeling. What a great period movie! It takes place in 1938 and it is based on actual shocking events. Besides the fascinating yet sad story (I'm trying not to spoil it) I really enjoyed the details in the background. The house, the furnishings, even the ornate wooden screen door, it was wonderful. My mom was 17 in 1938 and her mom had passed away several years before, but I still felt like I was seeing a house and furnishings as she may have seen it. I have pictures of the house her dad built and it seems of that period.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. Dad is taking the car for an oil change and an alignment. I have shipping to prepare, and I need to tend to all of my plants, and start packing. Wednesday we are heading down to southern Indiana again! This time the search is more serious.

Trixie wanted her picture taken

And here's a neat one of Macey

What I've been doing---here's the mess in the equipment room

And here it is now - mostly cleaned

Last but not least, we have a Robin nesting in the pine tree

Here's a close up