Good
news: Stable. Breathing reasonably
normal, with the assistance of nasal cannula 10X. His breathing is rapid, but
he is maintaining his oxygen level without more invasive procedures: face mask
50%, or intubation. The respiratory therapist came in, checked his lungs, and
said he sounded good. This is the first
time I know of when they have not been concerned about the liquid in his lungs.
4 pm The RESPIRATOR just came into the
room to check on Mike again. He is
slowly reducing the amount of O2 he's getting to challenge his system. Since everything looks good, he reduced his
O2 volume to 35%.
He had another CT scan this morning.
This is routine; they do one a week just to check on his progress, make sure
there are no infections in there.
(Funny note: the imaging department wanted him to take a dye orally.
Duh!!! No food or drink is written all over his medical documents. What don't
they understand about No food, No water? They injected a dye.) No word on the
CT scan until tomorrow. I will post it
then.
-He complained
about back pain around 2 pm. I called
the nurse and asked when was the last time he was dosed with Tylenol; 9 pm the
night before, and he can have it every six hours. I think they only give him an
additional dosage when he asks for it or complains about pain. Now that was 16 hours?? Without pain
meds. Goodie, goodie.
-They gave him
more insulin today. His number was 127,
anything over 120 they give it to him.
At
some point, we will learn if he will be insulin-dependent for the rest of his
life unless he gets a pancreas transplant along with his kidney one.
Bad news: He is so much more confused today. Nothing about persecution, but about his
current situation. He says he doesn't
want dialysis because he wants to go to bed. Hey! You're in bed, bud. He admits
to being scared, not of dying, of merely being out of control. Yes, he says he can trust this staff, but
he's still frightened. They say it's harder for men to be this out of control
than it is women. He looks more alert, but it is a look of fear or worry. I have spoken to the nurse about my concern
about his confusion. However, when I
asked him where he was, he gave me a clear, complete answer: The Kaiser Hospital in Honolulu.
YES SEND
CARDs. Apparently, we can decorate the
room. I will buy some double-sided tape. We can postcards and pictures wherever
we can. Anything to stimulate him.
Anyone want to come in a do a vaudeville act?
-I had the nurse
tell the doctor about the confusion: I just got the feedback at 4 pm. Said he
knows who he is, where he is, and something about the time. The only thing he is confused about is the
circumstances. The doctor said this is
normal for people who have been in the hospital for a long time. Everything
seems the same, and they lose perspective.
This is especially true for older people.
-The doctor told
Mike that he won't be able to put anything in his mouth for at least another
week. At least!!
-The patient
coordinator came to speak to me. We're starting on the long term plans. Once he's released from here, he will have to
be able to sit at least 4 hours before he can take a regular plane home to
Kona. Otherwise, he will have to be in a nursing facility here in Honolulu. She
also advised me to check on our long term care insurance to be clear about what
it covers. Oh, we are in for a
ride. The who knows what tomorrow will
bring.
Sorry I haven't done anything earlier
today. Yesterday, I felt like my old self and not a neglected ashtray in a
seedy bar. My heart didn't feel leaden. The spring was back in my step, and I
didn't feel I looked like one of the homeless of Hawaii – and there are many,
many of those.
My housing situation is settled for the time being. The place I'm
staying, the shabby one with the surround louver windows, agreed to let me stay
till the 10th. I assume my hostess wanted to get someone else in. I didn't get the message soon enough. Also, I
was feeling sufficiently fragile still as to be devastated by being 'thrown
out' a day earlier. Since I feel better,
I also feel more flexible, more able to deal with the unexpected. However, the
delay has bought me the original arrangement. I actually got to speak to my
'hostess' today to confirm.
I now have long term arrangements
in place, which I took care of on my own.
Who says you can't teach old dogs new tricks? Shivani, my niece, and Judy, my friend in
Kona, were looking up possible locations through Airbnb. Because I can't control the App, it just
popped this option up. A single room
with a private bath in a meditation center with a beautiful garden for $89 a
night. Hmm! Grabbed that from the 10thto
the 16th without batting an eye. Figured I'd move again after the 16thbut that
would buy me more time to look. You're invited to write something to your
potential host, I suppose, so they have some idea who you are.
I wrote that my husband was in
Kaiser and very ill. The host can
actually reject you. I thought, "Oh, no. They're not going to want to deal
with a hysterical female in a meditation center. "On the contrary, they got back to me immediately and told me
that it would be cheaper as a long term deal." He said, "By the way,
breakfast, lunch, and dinner are included for all our guests." OK!! I'm
thinking they will give me a cell in their dormitory with the other meditators.
I've done meditation retreats; I'm familiar with those accommodations. I will have to get myself a bathrobe, so I
can run down the hall several times a night to go to the bathroom. I'll
manage. I said to the guy, "I
assume I will be sharing a bathroom." He said, "No. You will have a
private bath. This is an offer for one
of the guest rooms for $73 a night, including meals. Phew!
What a high! But this high was followed by a crash. I find with age, I
have less tolerance for the highs and lows. Enough with this interesting life
routine!
Another up and then down. I thought I made long term reservations at
the ashram, but they are just scattered days throughout February and all of
March. The guy at the ashram thought I
was making reservations just for March. I wish I could choose when my husband
had to spend a month in the hospital.
Think of all the preparations I could have made to have a good time.
Maybe I could even have chosen what he was in for; plastic surgery? Now to be
fair. This guy works 17 hours a day
trying to keep the ashram afloat, and he's 67 years old. I can appreciate all
those problems.
My friend, Judy, who lived in
Honolulu for 30 years, says she thinks this a probably the Hare Krishna
group. I am familiar and comfortable
with Hindu and Buddhist ashrams, have spent time in both. The Hare Krishna's
have a significant presence in Honolulu. I am stuck with a less than positive
image of this group. For me, it
represents a cult. I'm reasonably sure they are not going to lock me in a
closet and convert me, or their Airbnb rating wouldn't be very good. Of course,
if I have to, I can always make a run for it.
Talking about being locked in a
closet. I have the funniest image of the
Rapid Response Team (Code B, Code A, and whatever else they call themselves). I
imagine them all store in cupboards just waiting for the call. When the call
comes in, the doors fly open, and they spring into action. Very sci-fi.
It was the Rapid Response Team that was called in twice on Tuesday morning,
once in the early morning and once around 10 am when he was finally transferred
up to the ICU. I actually asked where
they store these employees. They
obviously can't be regularly assigned. They can't just abandon their posts. The
answer is that they serve as extra staff all throughout the hospital. They are
free of fixed assignments. They just help out and fill in.
I bought my 10 pack parking tickets
today. This allows me to pay $3 for
parking ten times instead of a larger sum.
It won't be by much. The max
amount of the KP parking garage is $10.
For my Bikram buddies: I found a studio. The first week I was so exhausted, all I
could do was go home and go to bed. I
finally felt well enough to drive over to find out how to get there. I didn't want to be in a position where I was
frantically running around before class, trying to find the location. It was closed when I got there, as I
expected. It is a second-floor small
studio with one window wall looking out over a park. Nice.
When I went the second time, I arrived shortly after 6 pm before the
6:30 class. Something was going on
inside the room, but I assumed it was some sort of warm-up. Nope, this lady
runs her classes back to back. Folks
were sitting outside, waiting for the class to end. It's not a large room: they
said it is never more than 5 or 6 people in a class. I don't have my walker with me. I asked about holding on to the bar. There is none; I should use the wall. That doesn't feel comfortable to me. Maybe I can find a walker somewhere. Then, will the teacher let me in with
it? I don't know how strict she is. I have been doing some yoga on my own: the
opening breathing exercise, half-moon, and working on stretching my hamstring.
Mike got a Heparin shot while I was there
today. These shots are given directly
into the abdomen. OW! I tried a distraction trick by tapping on his toes and
asking him to focus there. It still
hurt. I thought maybe I should have
flashed him. That would have done it.
I got some illuminating information
on Mike through a mutual friend. This relates to what I thought might be the
source of his nightmares. He told her the following story: He came home from
school one day when he was six or seven and announced that he had told someone,
or everyone in his class, that his parents were Communists. Panic ensued. His
parents frantically ran through the house, finding every piece of paper that
related to their work with the Party and destroyed them. They were afraid they would be sent to
jail. She said you could see as he told the story, that the experience was as
vivid for him at that moment as it had been on the day it happened. His mother
at least would have been screaming at him the whole time for being so stupid to
do such a thing. He was six; what did he
know about real danger. Boy, does that ever confirm my theory.
I had a similar experience with my
mother, turned down about 100 degrees.
During the McCarthy era, I found a copy of the Communist Manifesto on a
park bench. I picked it up and brought
it home. I told my mom, now we can find out what all the fuss is about. She grabbed it out of my hand and ran for the
incinerator. She didn't even yell at me,
her usual modality.
When she lived in Germany during
the Nazi regime, she came home one day to find her parents shattered. Policemen had come and torn their apartment
apart looking for Communist material. My
mom had befriended some folks who actually ran a Communist newspaper in Berlin
before the Nazis took over. As a matter
of fact, my parents met at their engagement party in 1927. Someone must have ratted her out. The men had found nothing in the apartment to
incriminate anyone, and that was the end of it. But the fear stayed with her.
-I'm enjoying the mountains of
Oahu. They ruggedly jut up out of
nowhere in the distance at the end of some flat street. We don't have mountains on the Big Island, we
have hills. One of these hills happens
to be 14,000 feet high, but it is shaped just like a hill. It doesn't look like a mountain. The only
time you have relatively flat roadways is when you are going parallel to the
ocean. Otherwise, you're either going up
or you're going down.
Fr. Lio stopped by today. Mike recognized him but was hardly up for a
chatty visit.
This is the
worst I've seen him for a while. Don't like it!
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