Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Wednesday, March 9, 2022

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2007. This dock was right outside the place we were staying near Key West. You can see Mattie's humor, as he had his hands and arms up as if he was holding up the dock. When I look at this photo, it is hard to believe that about a year later Mattie was diagnosed with cancer. 

Quote of the day: A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. ~ Christopher Reeve

This was my morning where I thought I could start the day an hour later. My goal was to get to the hospital after 10am. However, by 8:30am, my phone was ringing and it was the hospital. My dad's occupational therapist to be specific. He had a ton of questions for me about my dad's abilities and when he called a second time he suggested I get to the hospital before 10am to meet with the physical therapist. Now if they told me this the night before, I would have been there. But I was told that it was important for the therapists to work one on one with my dad to get to know him. Obviously that did not go well because they see they are NOT working with a patient who is fully rational or cognitively intact. 

My mom wanted to go to the hospital with me, so I hurried her along, packed her breakfast, and got to the hospital before the physical therapist showed up. Before she came in, my dad told me he did not sleep last night. That instead he fell asleep at 5am, so he was tired. He proceeded to tell me he had ONE DREAM AFTER THE OTHER. The first dream was about the rehab program he is in and the patients in the program. Apparently he was in a patient group and while trying to talk with them he noticed that when they answered him no one made any sense. He then thought.... what is this program doing? How can they accept people who make no sense and can't communicate? His next dream apparently had to do with his ceiling tiles in his hospital room. He said that every tile was a TV and lights were blaring and it was scary and also annoying. While tracking him, he then said, I had to "CLOSE MY EYE IN HOPES IT WOULD GO AWAY." 

Hearing this alerted me of course to the fact that this sounds like a delusion, hallucination, you pick the term! I suspect that that his dreaming isn't really dreaming, but he is kept up at night because he has visions of things that make no sense to him. It now makes sense as to why for the past two weeks at home he has been getting up between 2-4am and my mom finds him in the bathroom. 

Though my dad's physical issues are significant, for me it has always been the dementia that makes his situation critical. All day today he was over the top, irrational, and down right difficult. I stayed at the hospital from 10am to 7pm. So this was another full day on top of many previous FULL days. 

Now you might now like this photo, but I am contending with this issue too. My dad has had a bad allergic reaction to all the adhesive material placed on his body from electrodes to pads to prevent pressure sores. It is a down right nightmare. If you touch my dad's skin, he is on fire, like a sunburn. My dad is uncomfortable and VERY focused on itching all day long. There isn't enough cream to manage this and tonight I asked the program manager what we can do about this! So wound care is coming in to consult. Mind you I told my dad's treatment team about this problem since SATURDAY!

This was my dad's treatment schedule today. I think it was a very full day for him and he is exhausted, which isn't helping his mental state. 

This is tomorrow's schedule. I have been told that we will have a family meeting with the treatment team on Friday. Lord knows what they will tell me. All I know is the PT today told me that my dad won't be here long! I would like to suggest she take my dad home and see just how EASY he is to take care of. 

Tonight after I gave my dad dinner (on a side note, I have no idea who helps patients eat, if family members are not around), he looked tired. So I suggested we get him into bed. 

At that point he became truculent. He said he wasn't getting into bed because he was coming home with us. He felt he finished his therapy for the day, and there was NO REASON to stay in this bed. I tried hard to get the point across that this was an inpatient facility, that therapists wanted to work with him on getting out of bed in the morning and dressed (therefore that meant he had to stay overnight), and that this program would last several days and today was ONLY DAY ONE!

We went around and around on this for close to an hour. I then alerted the staff that I needed to get him into bed and about the issues we were facing. At which point my dad's nurse said I couldn't leave for the night until he was actually in bed. I get it, because if he isn't in bed and was left in the chair, he could easily try to get up and fall. No matter how many times we have explained the rules to my dad...... (you can't get up from a chair or bed without someone from the hospital around, you can't put pressure on your left arm) they just don't stick.

All I know is yesterday he was hyper, extremely alert, and talkative, not to mention inappropriate from a sexual standpoint. While today he was combative, very confused, and difficult. It is hard enough managing his physical rehab, but it is the emotional and cognitive component to all of this that makes the situation much more volatile and draining.