Sunday, May 27, 2012

Mom’s back to the rehab facility and hopefully will be home in a few weeks.  Her skin graft took extremely well and her leg looks amazing.  I am in awe and bow to modern medicine when it comes to her kind of treatment.  We gifted the Burn Unit Doc and team with a candy machine full of Skittles. 

The PT gals at mom’s facility diagnosed and are treating mom’s right hand and it is nearly 80%!!  Why I couldn’t get any doc interested in that hand is a mystery.  It is the #1 block to mom’s full recovery.  I see Skittles in another’s  future.

With mom starting to use her right hand and her legs becoming stronger, we are getting excited to have her home.  Of course, now, we’ve begun thinking about her life going forward. 

Things will not change I am afraid.  She has no desire to make any lifestyle change.  Therefore we will be going through all of this again relatively speaking, and next time she may actually break a bone or something that will land her permanently in some sort of facility.  This is infuriating to me because I rabidly cling to higher expectations for her……but….

I watched a TED talk the other day about optimism. (www.TED.com). And in a nutshell the presentation proved that as humans we are wired to be overly optimistic about ourselves – not for others, only for ourselves.  So, the, “it won’t happen to me” syndrome is not just the invincibility of youth.  And my mom is somewhat justified in her thinking as she is human and wired that way.  And I am still pissed.

I have perched myself on the periphery of dad’s life at home, watching how he gets along.  I am not cooking for him.  I am doing his laundry, cleaning once a week or so and will daily clear and sanitize a swath through the kitchen.  He appears to be getting on just fine.  Here’s a typical day:

Dad gets up between 9 and 10 am, gives the dogs a treat, makes coffee, dons his blue work/jump suit (the same one he has worn all week) and sits at the kitchen table reading the newspaper with his illuminated magnifier.  He may eat a bowl of cereal.  Then he disappears.  He may be in one of four of his workshops/garages here at the house or he may go somewhere. 

He leaves the back door wide open so the dogs can let themselves in and out. (Enter leaves, bugs, sticks, hot air, live birds and once, when the dogs were sleeping in the back bedrooms where it manages to stay cool, a curious squirrel.)  He leaves the downstairs stereo blaring an oldies station or his new favorite Mariachi CD my sister gave him for Xmas (which I can recite by memory.) 

Sometime after dark he reappears, dirty faced, head bandana’ed with the mail in hand.  This time he has a Manhattan in hand  when he sits at the kitchen table to read the mail. Dad keeps the booze on the cabinet in the dining room.  He concocts his sugary libation there and spills it through the room to the kitchen table.  Oh, I forgot to mention the ANT problem.

He turns on his living room TV set that he can view from the kitchen.  He says he doesn’t have a hearing problem.  I beg to differ.  And this is where he spends most of his evening.  Reading materials galore, sports blaring, many, many moths joining the party (the door is still open) and eating his dinner.  This particular night dinner consisted of a half bag of sun chips, trail mix, canned tamales and ice cream.

He eventually ends up on the couch or in front of his computer for his evening nap.  I can’t tell you when he actually goes to bed.  I can tell you he doesn’t tidy up a thing beforehand.

Friday, May 18, 2012

Few people know this; my dad was the inspiration for the “Pig Pen” character in Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic. I know this because through the smoky haze I see the driveway, front porch and every kitchen surface is perfectly set for the taping of the next episode of “Hoarders, Buried Alive.” Dad has arrived home safely. 

Evidently the trip home with my brother was a success because instead of disappearing immediately, my brother installed the FL purchased big screen TV as dad’s new computer monitor…to alleviate some of his Macular Degeneration sight impediments.  He also inadvertently unplugged the main phone jack as was discovered the next day.

“JESUS CHRIST LORI WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE PHONE?”

“Beats me, dad, it rang off the hook while you guys were gone.”

“DID WE FORGET TO PAY THE GOD DAMNED BILL?”

“I don’t know, dad, I don’t pay your bills.”

“WHERE’S THE GOD DAMNED PHONE BOOK?  CALL THE GOD DAMNED PHONE COMPANY!”

Me, being plugged in just looked up “QWEST GOD DAMN IT” on line and dialed their customer service number.

Five dials to five different Quest numbers (I’m sorry to inform you, ma’am, your parents left us for Cox last year) and three dials to Cox later, the nice IT guy on the phone leads me to our main house connection where the cord is unplugged and laying on the floor.

I can understand why dad was a bit stressed because “THESE GOD DAMNED CELL PHONE COMPANIES AND CELL PHONES ARE USELESS!”

Seems dad cell phone was dead and the phone charge connector was damaged...unable to properly connect for charging.

“Dad, take the phone to Verizon and get it checked.”

“I ALREADY DID GOD DAMN IT– THEY SAY I NEED A NEW PHONE AND WANT TOO MUCH GOD DAMNED MONEY!”  I feel like I’m George Costanza on Seinfeld in a conversation with his dad.

“GO ON LINE TO EBAY AND SEE WHAT THEY WANT FOR A NEW VERIZON COMPATIBLE PHONE!”

“How will I know if it is a Verizon compatible phone, dad?  How much do you want to pay?  Do you want a plan-less phone or one that comes with minutes?  They don’t state of they come with batteries or not – do you think that brand-new-in-the-box means they come with a battery?”  I must have lost my mind there for a minute…

“JESUS CHRIST, GOD DAMN IT, HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW?!”

I knew this. *sigh*

Dad stormed out to Wal-Mart and they set him up nicely. (Thank you Wal-Mart!!) In retrospect I should have accompanied him to check my blood pressure.

Mom and dad have two miniature schnauzers, Duke and Daisy, who last summer were infested with fleas from the backyard.  To save money, the folks applied OTC flea remedies that did nothing and consequently the poor things suffered until the first freeze.  That the house did not get infested is beyond me.  Dad returned them to Omaha re-infested, way overdue for a haircut and with poop stuck to their butts.  I might have missed the poop part except that Duke laid down an impressive three-foot long skid mark on the light blue carpet in the family room.  If it were not for that, I would have SMELLED him.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

LESSON #9 mom’s can sometimes say the weirdest things….just keep moving along….

When I left the hospital yesterday, mom suggested I buy a copy of, “Fifty Shades of Gray,” and read it to her.  I turned fifty shades of red and thought to myself, “this woman didn’t even give me the sex talk and she wants us to read this book together???”  Oh, HEEEEEELLLLLLLL no, I told her.

This request was an indication she is well medicated and I am so very thankful for that.  Mom has been through some crap these last few days.

One of my sister’s BFs who is a nurse (sort of a half sister to me) came to visit mom in rehab over the weekend and told us to RUN, do not walk, to the nearest burn/wound doc to get some attention for mom’s burn.  She also vehemently demanded we get an MRI performed on mom’s painful and useless right hand/wrist.   First thing Monday I made a call to the Burn Unit at UNMC Clarkson and got an appt for that day.  The doc took one look at mom’s leg and said, “I want to admit her a few days.”  Gulp.

The wound hadn’t really been well cared for – the PA and nurses scraped mom’s leg and got piles and piles of dead skin, dried medicine and gooey burn guts off of it – when they were done it was all bright pink like a good sunburn.  I couldn’t bring myself to look at the craters.  Mom felt nothing and that sacred me cuz that likely meant much of her leg is dead.  They started immediately with Bariatric Chamber treatment.

Seems we are at the right place and Clarkson UNMC is the only place in Nebraska with one of these 30,000 leagues under the sea machines.  It simulates the pressure of something like 3,500 feet under sea level and is proven to promote tissue rejuvenation by way of encouraging capillary growth and increasing tissue oxygen levels.  Mom was a bit wary. 

“Mom,” I explained, “Michael Jackson used one of these machines.” 

“And you know what happened to him,” she retorted.

Whatever, I am very curious to know what it is like in the chamber and mom can’t tell me because she falls asleep in it.

Yesterday the doc took mom into surgery to do some serious wound debridement and consider a skin graft.  Serious wound debridement means make the wound much larger and deeper than it is to get to viable tissue – they want the bloody, oxygenated hamburger meat because this is the material that knits together and heals quickest and best.  The doc wasn’t able to do the skin graft.  The damage is too severe.  She elected to toss in some cadaver skin to see what happens over the next few days.  If the cadaver skin takes, she will take mom back in to surgery and perform a graft with mom’s own skin.  So, for now, it is more scuba diving for mom.  Oh, and we will begin diagnosing her hand/wrist.

LESSON #10 – it is imperative to take full responsibility and control of one’s healthcare.  I don’t know if it is generational, that they were out of their element, or what, but my folk’s behavior was impotent…to the point of negligence… with mom’s healthcare in Florida.

Dad and Mike should be home tomorrow I think.  Yesterday they had breakfast in Memphis and I haven’t heard from them since.  Maybe they’re touring Graceland.

I have begun health insurance reconnaissance.  Seems Humana has no record of mom being transferred from Cape Coral Hospital to the rehab facility.  According to Josh the Admissions guy at the rehab place, he called for a pre-auth – numerous times – was told no, mom was out of network.  He kept calling, even had his corporate gal call and no one called them back.  He is writing his report for me and I am sending it and my GREIVANCE LETTER TO Humana.  Here we go……

I am caring for my brother’s two mini Dachshunds while he is away.  They are hilarious and I adore them.   Dewey is old and deaf.  Molly is old, very fat and blind. We are all sleeping together and Molly serves as our 7:00 alarm clock. I call them the Frisky Friskerson’s because they have spurts of happy dance between all their sleeping and laying around – it is so unexpected it makes me laugh.  My little silver linings……