Feels Like A Hostage Situation

Really, it does.  I'm writing this Wednesday night, so those of you following this saga will read it Thursday, at some point.  Maybe. Really depends when you come around.  I don't want my venom spewing off onto my FO Fiber Friday post. 

*Banging my head on the wall* ARGGH!!!  *deep breath* Ok, so last week they said, this past Monday or Tuesday.  Then they changed it to Friday.  When I spoke to the care provider case manager, he said the weekend.

Today, as in Wednesday, shortly after I posted, back up to the nursing home.  I'm told they are in conferences all day.  I'm a persistent sneaky little shit.  When I headed to the bathroom, I saw the social worker coming down the other hall.  He saw me and stalled like he was going to change direction.  So I turned around and went back to D's room.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the social worker head into his office.  When he came back out, guess who he ran right into?

I cornered him, expressed I'm a very patient person, but my patience have worn thin and I'm sick of feeling like I'm being avoided and brushed off.  He said, they were starting the next conference but they would see me afterward.  I said, I hope so, because if not, tomorrow won't be pretty.

Let me explain the course of his day.  He wakes up between 5:30 and 6am.  At my insistence he has a CNA come stand there while he gets up, walks to the bathroom with his walker, comes out, washes his face and hands, brushes his teeth.  Then gets back into bed to do his bed exercises.  It's at my insistence because I told him if does it by himself, falls and crack his damn skull, I'll come to the hospital and crack his skull a second time. Safety first.

He dresses himself. Sweats or shorts, t-shirt and footies. Then at some point he goes down to the gym for PT and OT.  They don't have a set schedule.  Maddening.  All the nursing homes I worked at had a schedule.  He does leg exercises with 5 lb weights.  He can now walk 150 ft with the walker and 20 feet without before he desats. (His blood oxygen lowers to a dangerous level). He then goes back to his room for lunch and wait for me to call to let him know when I'm leaving to come up.  He then has a CNA watch while he gets out of bed into the wheelchair and pushes himself out to the front patio to wait for me.  My friend is so impressed on how he's out there for the past week, every day.

We go back in and I'm the spotter for all his moving abouts.  Dinnertime, we go out in the dining room and sit with the other couple.  The wife took me back and forth these past couple days while my friend was in San Diego.  Since I found out I could, I get a guest tray and have the yucky, nursing home dinner with him.  Maybe the cause of my bad stomach last week, could be nerves, possibly a virus.  I just know it hurt so bad, I was tempted to call an ambulance when the pain woke me from a sound sleep for several nights.  I'm all better now, thankfully.   

So, we're sitting in his room, waiting for the three stooges.  The case manager from the provider calls on my cell.  He said he had just spoken to the nurse case manager there at the home and it's set up tentatively for Tuesday now.  They don't do discharges on the weekends and PT supposedly hasn't released him yet.  D has spoken to everyone at PT and they tell him, he is ready to go home.  I'm so pissed, I can't contain it.  I tell him I sick to death of the double talk I'm getting and well a few other things, I can't remember, but it wasn't nice.

So, I tell D the news and head outside to have a smoke.  Sometimes, I just got to lest I do something...... and prison orange just ain't my color.   I see the social worker out there on his cell phone.  He comes over to tell me the stuff was supposedly finally ordered and he will come home tentatively on Tuesday.  I told him how, I just talked to the other guy and frankly, I mad as hell about their double talk and hem hawing around.

I went back into the room and D had me give his shoes, which he put on himself.  Then got himself up to the chair and wheeled himself down to the nurse case manager's office to confront her about her double talk. She ducked into a patient's room and he waited for her outside.  When she came out, if she thinks he let her have it, I'm telling you, he held back.  If he's still there next Wednesday, she'll find out what kind of fit he can throw. He did let her know on no uncertain terms how pissed he is and how much he hates feeling like a hostage. It's all arbitrary nonsense and double talk.  He feels like a prisoner and doesn't know what his crime is, much less the sentence.

There is a few beds empty there at the nursing home.   When we first arrived to the nursing home, the guy in the next room was bed ridden, had to be fed all his meals.  He was scheduled for discharge to home on a Friday, but it was delayed until that Sunday morning. Back when D was in ICU, one of the nurses told me it was feast or famine.  That is was the season of feast, because no sooner did a patient leave when another one was taking their place.  However, come summer, it's famine and the nurses hardly get regular hours much less overtime, because there are so few patients.  They are slower to release them to the regular floor.  Read into that what you will.  I think I've made my suspicions clear.

If you've read my rantings this far, well, bless your sweet little heart.  Thank you for dropping by.  I think I'm going to write next Wednesday's post on Monday night and just have it scheduled to post Wednesday morning.  If you don't see a "He's Home!!!" post on Tuesday and a pre-written scheduled post on Wednesday, you'll know I'm probably sitting in the Pima County Jail.  You know if any of you want to take pity on me and raise and post my bail.  That or I'll be sitting in a corner, rocking and pulling my eyelashes out.

I told D, I've done all that I can, I've pushed and pushed.  I throw my hands up. That dead mule came to life long enough to dig a hole in the ground, pour in quick drying cement and sticks it's feet in.  For me to push anymore, would be, well.... beating a dead mule, stuck in cement.  He's going to have to take over from here and do the pushing with people who need it.  Show them, he's ready and wants to come home, NOW!

He said the first thing he's going to do is go back to the last of my blog posts he's read and catch up.  He's already preparing his guest post in his mind, after he catches up with all he's missed with himself.  He wants to be home and use his own computer to do that.