Spent a bit of time today with dad at the hospital. I feel bad that we can’t give him more attention. It must get lonely there without family around. Thankfully he gets human contact by way of the nursing staff and the doctors, but that doesn’t exactly replace the family. It is tough to spend a lot of time there though because life goes on outside the hospital. There are still appointments to get to and places to be. Mom gets tired after a while and the hospital isn’t exactly a relaxing environment for mom to be in, not to mention I try to limit her time at the hospital for fear of her picking up some illness.
I had a doctor appointment today and mom had stuff she needed to do so I went to the hospital after my appointment. He was looking pretty good. Although the pneumonia still has not gotten better, they have started him on physical therapy to strengthen his body and his lungs. They also want to see how his oxygen saturation responds to physical activity. Now we aren’t talking about jumping jacks or going for a jog or anything like that. Today’s big accomplishment was almost sitting up on the edge of the bed, so that gives you an idea of his physical limits after seven days in the hospital.
We talked about various things, mainly I tried to avoid topics that would emotional upset him. I almost made it all the way through, but just before I left I had asked him if one of the guys from the gym had come by to see him. He said that he hadn’t. I told him I was just curious because that was last Friday that this guy asked for his room number and said he would stop in. Dad said that it couldn’t have been on Friday because he didn’t get into the hospital until Saturday. I told him that he went to the hospital on Thursday and went through a couple timeline events that would jog his memory. He started the waterworks because he didn’t realize he had been in there for that length of time. I think the panic of how much money it was costing might have played a part in his reaction, but he was also upset because his memory wasn’t that great and he couldn’t figure out how he could have forgotten how long he’d been there. Whatever was going on in his head, I feel bad that he gets so upset over things. He has never been an emotional man and for the emotions to come so easily now is not only odd, but heartbreaking.
Mom is doing pretty good as well. She is on a streak with her relatively good days. There are little aspects that pose issues for her, but overall she is upright and lucid and that is wonderful. She has been experiencing acid reflux lately. Something that she does not recall ever having had before and so the effects can be a bit scary. That burning in your chest and throat, the bad taste in the mouth, the general feeling that something isn’t quite right. It’s probably the pain pills causing that and upsetting her stomach so she has needed her anti-nausea pills a bit more than she has in the recent past. Her pain hasn’t been too bad lately either which is good. Her appetite is up and down, some days she eats quite a bit and other days she just snacks on little things.
She has been working on the household finances for the past two days. I have let her be and let her have at it. At first I thought that perhaps I should ‘help’ her by keeping her focused, but I realized quickly that just annoys her. I also realized that even if she doesn’t make great progress, the activity is good for her emotionally and mentally. She feels more in control and she is giving the cogwheels in her cranium a good workout. My mother was an accountant by trade, so she is all about her books. Something that people probably don’t know about my mother though is that she keeps track of the littlest of details. Yesterday she spent quite a bit of time and energy trying to find a receipt. She keeps every receipt and there is a least one spreadsheet for every receipt. When it comes to medical receipts, there is two spreadsheets. I am sure that being that thorough has saved their hides in the past, but the majority of people get by in life just balancing their checking account. Not mom, she balances everything and in more ways that one. She could give you a corporate style balance sheet and expense report for her household finances. We had a little talk about the receipt she couldn’t find. I told her that since she had the original bill, she had (in this particular instance) the check’s carbon copy and she had a photo copy of the bill as well, that if she did not find the receipt it would not be the end of the world. She could confidently create her own receipt from the documents she already had. She explained that while what I was telling her made sense, it was now how she works. That she needed the receipt. It was a good thing she found it then.
When she gets to the point where she feels like she can show me how to do it correctly, I will take over the task. I can tell you though that while I will do my best to follow her way, I am not going to drive myself crazy over a missing receipt. If she knew that she probably would not let me take over, but oh well, she doesn’t have much choice. For now, I know what they have to work with and I know what is due and when, so I will continue to let her work at her pace for now.
Gosh, I might have to end today’s blog soon. I had a flu shot today and this time it is really sore. The nurse that did it went really deep into my shoulder. I don’t remember it being that high up the shoulder and that deep last time. Then again last time I had one, I probably had less muscle in my shoulder and more fat. I was probably thirty pounds heavier then. A year and a half ago I was two hundred ninety-eight pounds. Today, on the scale in the doctor’s office, I was two hundred forty-five pounds. I can’t wait until I reach my goal of two hundred pounds. In any case, the nurse is a really nice guy and normally I have no worries about whatever he does to me, but for some reason he got me good on this one. So typing is causing a bit of pain in that shoulder.
Oh one thing I almost forgot to mention. My sister had surgery today. She had the cartilage in her knee removed because it was damaged beyond repair. She has order to stay off it for a couple of days and then since she has a week off from work to recuperate, she is going to come down here to get well. That will be good for her and for my dad. My poor sister is a daddy’s girl and it is driving her nuts being so far away. She calls dad multiple times everyday to see how he is doing. I hope she can lift his spirits enough to get him on the road to recovery.
Well I think that sums up the day. We shall see what fun stuff tomorrow brings!
PS.. My apologies if you get ads when visiting this blog. Being unemployed, I don’t have fund to spend on things like premium blog accounts that don’t show ads. Though it would be nice if I’d get paid for ads showing up here.