Moa, Moa, Moa

Curtis brought lunch over today to start out our discussion with Mom & Dad about the next steps. But before we started he told me how Mom was acting on Tuesday morning at the hospital. He said even if we give her a choice in how she wants to proceed she will forget what she agreed she wanted to do and get belligerent about having the home health or hospice people in the house. He said we should just make the decision and move forward. So we have decided to have Mom assessed by the nurse from Kaiser home healthcare. If she would benefit from physical therapy for her legs, then the physical therapist will come and work with her to get her stable; then she would transition to in-home hospice care. If she would not be able to handle physical therapy, she will transition directly to in-home hospice care. (She can’t have physical therapy if she is in hospice care.) The assessment is scheduled for tomorrow.

Lunch from Moa, Moa, Moa. There is garlic chicken, chicken katsu, and teriyaki chicken, as well as macaroni salad & rice. (Moa means chicken.)

Later in the evening I was surprised by a phone call from Dr. Chan, Mom's oncologist. He had reviewed the chart for Mom's most recent hospitalization. He also knew from the chart that we had arranged for home health care. He said continued transfusions would not provide any further benefit to Mom. I told him our plan to use physical therapy to increase her stability, if possible, and that the assessment is tomorrow. I told him the objective of the physical therapy was to give her more stability before she moves in to hospice care; and if she couldn't do it she would go directly to in-home hospice care. Dr. Chan said it sounded like a good plan.

The big benefit of our plan is that Mom will not need to go to the hospital again. She hates hospitals! The No Action Alternative would have meant one last hospital visit. And there is a higher likelihood that she would have to do that one in an ambulance. With hospice there are registered nurses on-call 24/7 that we could access; they would come to the house so we would not need to transport her.

At this time Mom is strong enough to handle visits from friends and family. However, her immune system is weak so we have masks available for visitors; she also cannot have fresh flowers in her room or raw fruits or vegetables to eat. Please let us know when you would like to come and visit so we can make sure she does not have any hospice services scheduled that would interfere with her being able to fully appreciate you. FYI Smokers - Mom is on oxygen so we are asking people to refrain from smoking at any time while here.


Happy Birthday to Dave, Alejandro, & Anastasia! Happy Peanut Cluster Day, Proofreading Day, & Registered Dietitian Nutritionist Day!