Mom was very combative this morning; she did not want to do anything with the aide and nurse. Curtis had to step in, but she wouldn't even listen to him. He ended up missing breakfast in order to keep her in line and give the nurse and aide a break. He went to have lunch after I got here. We think she was grumpy about being in the hospital.
This morning I spoke to Ken, the home healthcare coordinator from Kaiser. He has put the order in for Mom to get physical therapy at home to strengthen her legs, an aide to help with bathing 3 times a week, and a registered nurse once a week to check up on her and provide us with education on in home care. He said if Mom decides to go with hospice care it is easy to cancel everything. I also spoke with Monica from Ho'okele; she arranged for someone to be here for the next 3 nights to assist with Mom. She said they can also help with hospice care
I changed the way we will present the options to Mom. I am now using the same language to present the choices that we use for environmental impact statements since it makes it clear that even not making a decision is a choice. Thus it now says:
No Action Alternative: Continue with transfusions & do physical therapy to strengthen legs. If anything happens that causes a return to the ER, then start hospice care upon release from ER.
Alternative #1: Go in to in-home hospice care.
Alternative #2: Go in to hospice care facility.
Dad has already said several times that the decision is up to Mom. He has even told her this. We were going to sit down and talk with Mom & Dad this evening, but we had to get the oxygen equipment set up. We will do it tomorrow morning.
I checked with the ATC folks. They said that the 4 cats that I have photos of are not the cats they are feeding. They feed the cats near the emergency room entrance which is on the opposite side of the building from where I see these cats. Apparently there are a lot of cats around the Kaiser facility. If I were a cat I would like to roam around here. The garage was so full I had to park at the southeast end, so I got to see around that side of the property, it's very cat-friendly. I usually park at the northwest end; the arrow on the map below shows where I parked today.
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| Screen shot from Google Maps. |
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| Looking down at the stream exiting from under the parking garage at the southeasterly end. |
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| Looking northwesterly along the southerly edge of the parking garage. |
One incident of concern just before her release was that her blood oxygen level went down below 88% which sets off the alarm. The aide was there and since Mom had just returned from the bathroom she did not have the canula in her nose, the aide reinserted it; I think the aide thought that was the problem since she left after repositioning it. A short while later I noticed that the oxygen tube had become disconnected. Once I reconnected the tubing Mom's blood oxygen level slowly started increasing up to 100% and the alarm stopped sounding.
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| Monitor getting ready to start beeping. |
Dr. Thalody released Mom. She said she gave Mom the platelet transfusion this morning because her level had dropped so low since the last platelet transfusion on Saturday. Dr. Thalody wants the home nurse to do a blood draw to check her levels again; Ken set that up for Friday. She is also sending Mom home with another antibiotic as well as eliminating some medications that she says are not necessary at this stage, like the simvastatin to control high cholesterol. She made an appointment for Mom to see Dr. Pham in a week for a follow-up visit.
Mom was very glad to leave the hospital! We loaded the oxygen tank in the back seat and threaded the tubing around to the front seat. We did the reverse when we got home. Xander was sleeping on the family room couch when we got home; its where Mom sits as she is taking off her shoes whenever she returns from an outing. He was immediately all over her, but he didn't know what to make of the oxygen tubing and the tank.
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| Xander keeping an eye on that strange thing. |
Speaking of the oxygen equipment, Luke from Apria Healthcare arrived around 7 pm, about 5 minutes after Curtis arrived. He brought all the pieces in and gave us a tutorial on how everything goes together and how to operate the pieces. The concentrator is on all the time, it takes oxygen out of the air and "concentrates" it, hence its name; it is the one Mom will be hooked up to with a 50 foot long green tubing that attaches to the clear tubing with the canula. The compressor sits on top of the concentrator; it compresses the oxygen and fills the small tanks that Mom will be using when she leaves the house. Luke also brought a large cylinder of oxygen to be used in emergencies when the power is out.
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| The bottom one is the concentrator; the top one is the compressor, without a tank being filled. |
Here are a couple of photos from last night when Suzanne & Manu visited Mom. (My phone wasn't working so I had to get copies from Suzanne.)
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| L to R: Mom, Suzanne, & Manu. |
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| The 'Opu Brothers! |
Happy Birthday to Rachel! Happy Be Heard Day, Pancake Day, Cereal Day, and Crown of Roast Pork Day! To find out what I missed telling you about for yesterday's celebrations, click here.
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