DME Delivery Day

Most of the day was spent either preparing for the delivery of the hospital bed that Hospice Hawai'i arranged for us, the delivery itself, or cleaning up after the delivery. Curtis, Lori, Brent, & Lori's dad showed up around 10 am. We started by reorganizing & cleaning the computer room since Mom wanted to put her bed in there so that there would be another bed for visitors. We found a very heavy box; upon examining it Curtis found a bunch of bottles. That's them in the photo below.

Obviously Mom & Dad don't drink much champagne or wine. Not sure who added the direction labels.

We started by moving some of Mom's boxes of stuff around, then removed the old carpet, and started cleaning. As we moved each row of stuff, we swept, vacuumed, and mopped. We finally moved the bed parts in to the room. There is still some rearranging to do and now I also have a bunch of things to sort through, purge, & reorganize. (We already have a small purge pile to go out on bulk pick-up day in a couple of weeks.)

The boogie board is keeping the bed from pushing up against the cord for the TV (which is out of the frame to the right).

I switched Mom from the concentrator to the portable oxygen tank so we could move her and the concentrator out of the bedroom. Once we got the bed out of Mom's room, we started moving other things out of there so that the technician could have enough room to set up the hospital bed and move the rest of the equipment in. We did the same procedure as in the computer room: sweep, vacuum, and mop; we didn't find any more big balls of cat hair like we did a couple weeks ago when we put the bed up on a frame. We also took the carpet piece out of the room so that there was one less thing for Mom to trip over (and make it easier for future clean ups).

Looking in to Mom's bedroom from the door after cleaning.

Looking at the future location of the hospital bed.

After we got everything cleaned up, Curtis & Lori went to Kim Chee 2 to pick up lunch. They couldn't find any parking in the Kaimuki Municipal Lot behind the restaurant so they parked elsewhere and called in an order for pick up! (There are probably a dozen restaurants that use this lot which is for the businesses on the block bounded by Waialae, 11th, Harding, & 12th.)

Clockwise from top left: spicy chicken, meat jun, bibimbap, inari sushi & maki sushi (from Friday lunch), and chicken katsu.

After lunch Curtis & his family left; Lori's Mom had a doctor's appointment. In the meanwhile Mom needed to go to the bathroom. At first she took off the oxygen cannula, but I made her put it back on. She walked about 15 feet and said she couldn't go any further. I made her sit down and realized she had been on the portable tank for a while. I checked, it was empty. I quickly switched to the other portable tank but made her sit still for about 10 minutes (which is how long it took her to get back to 100% saturation when she was in the hospital). It was an unplanned experiment but it showed that she really needs the oxygen in order to be able to just walk to the bathroom. When she was done Mom took a nap while we waited for the delivery.


Kimo from Stat Medical showed up with the durable medical equipment (DME) a short while later. He was alone; I was expecting 2 guys to set up the bed. The bed came in 4 pieces, he easily set it up by himself. He also brought a bed table, bedside commode, oxygen concentrator, emergency oxygen tank, & suction machine. Unfortunately there were no portable tanks. I called Hospice Hawai'i and Melody said 2 would be delivered tomorrow.

I moved the Subaru so Kimo would have more room for the delivery.

I had put Shiro & Xander in the cat run when Kimo arrived; Chibi stayed under the couch. Shiro was pretty chill about the whole thing. But Xander just wanted to get back in. I moved the sliding screen door so he could see the green "x"s, which tells them that the door is closed. Xander has not learned it means the same thing from the outside.

"Let me in!"

It was about 4 pm before Mom was able to try out the new bed. She was very pleased with the way that the head of the bed tilts so she doesn't have to deal with the pillows to keep her propped up; so pleased, in fact, she took a nap! The only problem I had was that the mattress is a couple inches longer than the normal twin bed. Fortunately, a month or so ago I found out 3 sets of Mom's sheets are a little longer than a normal twin bed; so I used one of those for the hospital bed. 


Xander and Shiro quickly accepted the bed. Later in the evening Shiro was once again at the back door looking for Momo.


Happy Birthday to Ratna! Happy Johnny Appleseed Day, Oatmeal Nut Waffles Day, Promposal Day, and Worship of Tools Day!