Dad is Doing Better!

I arrived just before lunch to encourage Dad to eat; but he didn't eat a thing. I was not feeling too positive about how the rest of the day would turn out. But when Sylvestre & Jose used the lift to move Dad from the bed to the wheelchair, I noticed he did not complain about pain; I had also noticed that yesterday when they moved him from the transport gurney to the bed. His physical therapy today was with Zhanna again; and he did not complain about pain when she moved his limbs, especially his legs. He was also doing more during therapy and not making excuses for why he couldn't do it or trying to delay the next set of exercises. I also noticed that his eyes were not as red & irritated as they were before; perhaps he had an eye infection also.

Zhanna helps Dad try to stand; he did better today than he did before.

Upper body strength helps with standing.

We can help Dad do these exercises when he is sitting in bed.

Zhanna also worked on strengthening Dad's legs.

Dad was able to lift his left leg a lot higher than he was before.

After PT Dad & I spent a few minutes out on the patio, overlooking the lower parking lot. Maunalani is so high up the ridge that the clouds sometimes hang around the buildings. Today we saw some clouds floating through the parking lot, aka fog.


When we went indoors, I took Dad to the activity room to see what was going on. Some residents were working on a bead project. A handful of residents were watching a locally produced show called Under the Sea with Key where they were showing footage from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on an undersea research project looking for life on the bottom of the North Atlantic about 400 miles east of New York; it was really cool!


I met up with Suzanne & Manu when I left Maunalani this afternoon. We went for an early dinner at Zippy's and to catch up; we had a great time. Manu had oxtail soup with a side of macaroni salad, Suzanne had saimin and Korean fried chicken, and I had the Zip Min.

Manu says this is the best oxtail soup he has had here. (Photo by Suzanne)

Macaroni salad. (Photo by Suzanne)

Saimin. (Photo by Suzanne)

Korean fried chicken. (Photo by Suzanne)

The Zip Min, Zippy's version of saimin. (Photo by Suzanne)

And after we thought we couldn't eat any more, we had dessert. The previous night they had also been to Zippy's and Manu had the Fried Banana Fantasy; he convinced us to get the same today. As the name says, it is a deep fried banana, with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, whipped cream, chopped nuts , & a maraschino cherry.

Manu, Suzanne, and the Fried Banana Fantasies.

What's the real verdict about this dessert? (Photo by Suzanne)

One of the things we talked about was knee pains. Suzanne has had a couple of knee surgeries from damage caused by walking on concrete floors at work for 33 years. I had been feeling pain in my injured knee since getting the Fitbit and trying to do the 250 steps each hour by walking through the house that has a slab-on-grade concrete floor; when I felt the pain in my knee at Kaiser I was on concrete stairs. I think my knees are still okay because for much of my job I was walking outdoors mainly on natural ground and lived about 2/3 of my life in homes with wooden floors.

Dwayne, Jackie, & their kids Kaleo, Kawaiola, & Nalani were supposed to have been here yesterday but baby Nalani started having breathing problems with asthma and got sent to the emergency room while they were on a layover in Dallas. On Sunday they were supposed to come to the Maunalani family Easter Egg Hunt. Nalani is all better now, but they will be arriving after the egg hunt is over so they will miss it.

Kaleo and Kawaiola love the cats! time We're not sure if they will have time to come to the house to visit with the cats, so I sent Suzanne photos to share with them when they arrive.

Shiro.

Xander.

Chibi.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am going to have a difficult time losing weight while the freezer is having a problem. I did my weekly weigh-in this morning and found I had gained 0.4 pounds over the last week. The Fried Banana Fantasy isn't going to help my weigh-in next week!

Happy Birthday to Glory, Peter & Steven!

Dad Moves Back to Maunalani

Good News! When Dr. Schwab came in for rounds this morning he told us Dad has been fever-free for long enough that he was being discharged today! We had about 2 hours notice. Flo helped us set up the gurney transportation back to Maunalani; she also called Maunalani. I got a call later from Todd who does intake interviews for Maunalani; everything was set up when we arrived. They also found the other Purple seat cushion! Dad is in the same room he was in before, with the same roommates. The big change is that Dad's antibiotic is now Daptomycin and it has helped his white blood cell count go down.

Before we found out Dad was being discharged, Jennifer the occupational therapist came to work with Dad. She said he was actually helping with the exercises, she wasn't just moving his limbs for him.

Jennifer does assisted active range of motion exercises with Dad.

Traffic was the opposite of yesterday; I made it to Kaiser in 20 minutes! Turns out Good Friday is a holiday in Hawai'i. When I got there Dad was asleep. On the way back I got a look at the bridge that was the cause of the back up yesterday. The missing section of railing in the lower bridge is the area damaged by the equipment; the concrete and railing parts fell on to the freeway below. Apparently several cars were hit but no one was injured. Apparently 2 of the cars hit were carrying foreign visitors who have asked to remain anonymous. Apparently the State will be billing the company that the equipment belonged to for the clean-up, bridge repairs, and car repairs.

Happy Birthday to Bob, Marisa, & Delaney!

Dad Moves to a New Room

Sometime last night Dad was moved out of the telemetry department on the 3rd floor and down to the 2nd floor; now he can have his coffee & iced tea again. As luck would have it he was moved to Bruce's room! But this time Bruce is not as agitated as he was the 1st time; he had a stroke that is affecting his behavior as well as his ability to stand. His sister stopped by on her way to work, she said he is being medicated to keep him calmer. Bruce is in Bed A which is the window bed, so this is Dad's new view.


I had breakfast at Sunrise Cafe at their breakfast bar. You can take as much or as little as you want; they charge by weight at the register. The offerings today were white rice, brown rice, fried rice, vegetarian fried rice, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with bacon & vegetables, stir fried vegetables, Portuguese sausage, Spam, bacon, & turkey bacon.


By the way, that's a reused disposable cup from the cafeteria. I had bought that one the last time we were here and was going to recycle it at home. In the meanwhile Suzanne sent me a vacuum insulated stainless steel bottle that said it kept cold drinks cold up to 24 hours and hot drinks hot up to 12 hours. Yesterday when I used it I found it really does stay hot, too hot for me to drink easily; so today I brought a regular cup to pour some hot tea in so it can cool down to drinkable temperature, while the remainder stays piping hot.

Curtis' father-in-law Mr. Nomura is also in the hospital; he is 3 rooms down the hall from Dad. I went to visit him when I first got here since Dad was asleep; Mr. N. was also asleep. Then when Dad needed his diaper changed, I went to visit Mr. N. I fed him part of his breakfast and he said he needed to pee also! I guess they're on the same schedule.

Dr. Schwab came by. Good News! Dad's white blood cell count went down to 17,000 per mcL, he was about 25,000 when he came in to the ER. Though it has come down significantly, it still needs to be lower; the upper level for normal is 10,500. Dr. Schwab said something grew in one of the blood cultures so they are trying to grow more to get a confirmed identification on it. Dr. Perera also came by. They are still waiting for the MRI results, but they assume there is an infection & are treating for it. She said they will continue with the Daptomycin and watch to see whether Dad has a reaction to it. They also want the white blood cell count to continue to go down, hopefully, back to normal levels.

Yesterday I wrote about the motion-activated door opener switch for the bathroom. The toilet flush is also motion-activated but the water at the sink and the soap dispenser are not. The paper towel dispenser is not motion-activated but you pull on the edge of the towel you will be using to dispense it. Although you have to touch both the soap dispenser & the faucet handle, the germy-link is the faucet handle since you have to touch it a 2nd time after you have washed your hands with soap and rinsed them off.

Curtis showed up around 1:30 p.m., I left about 2:10. I almost immediately ran in to a traffic jam. It took me about 40 minutes to go about 1 mile, which brought me to the Fort Shafter/King Street exit. I had decided to take the exit about 15 minutes earlier when I saw it as I was creeping along. In the meanwhile, while I was standing still, I checked the Hawaii News Now app to see what was slowing things down. It turns out a truck hit the Middle Street bridge about 2/3 mile ahead, dropping large chunks of concrete and other debris, and all the eastbound freeway lanes were closed; all traffic was being rerouted on to surface streets. I guess I'm lucky I got on the freeway so close to where the truck hit the bridge; the initial total standstill was probably caused by the police stopping everyone else while they had the cars stuck between the debris on the freeway and the King Street exit backing up to get off the freeway. Then they let us go.

The view, immediately after getting on Moanalua Freeway.

Heading for King Street.

Everyone starts heading for the exit.

Unmarked police cars redirecting traffic.

I took me nearly 2 hours to get to Maunalani to pick up the Purple seat cushion. Well, I didn't need to rush to get there. They had not found the cushion yet. They will try again tomorrow. In the meanwhile, the other cushion I ordered arrived today. It is the Royal Purple cushion, its 2" thick; I sure hope this helps keep Dad's butt from hurting so much.

Happy Birthday to Ern Dog, Kektadose, & Leigh!

More Tests

When I got to Kaiser this morning, Mikah was doing an echocardiogram on Dad. Dr. Eron wanted to check for infection in his heart valves.

Mikah does an echocardiogram of Dad's heart.

I was supposed to originally help out-of-town friends with a walk through with their manager & the contractor for repairs to their condo in Waikiki; but when I went to get the keys this morning I couldn't find them. I called Curtis, he had forgotten to return them. So we had to switch places, he raced back home to get the keys, then race back to Waikiki; I went up to Kaiser Moanalua to help out with Dad. This all happened before breakfast; I had a package of Trader Joe's Simply Almonds, Cashews, & Chocolate Trek Mix for breakfast while sitting in Dad's room.

My breakfast this morning.

Dad's room has a view of the lawn area in front of the entry to the Moanalua facility. When Mom was in this wing last year, the area outside was bare dirt with lots of construction. I would occasionally see feral cats walking through the area. It also has a view of the parking garage & parking guard shack.

In the background is the 5-story parking garage, between there and the lawn is a drop off.

After breakfast, Occupational Therapist Marcia came to work with Dad. At first he wouldn't do it, but she persisted with humor and he finally did his OT.

Marcia leads Dad through his occupational therapy.

When I went to get lunch I decided to get more exercise and use the stairs to go down to the 2nd floor where the Sunrise Cafe is located. (Dad is on the 3rd floor during this hospital stay.) I found that Kaiser has posted inspirational sayings in the stairwell for their Kaiser Thrive program. Unfortunately, my knee is still a little sore so it was hurting by the time I got to the 2nd floor; I took the elevator back up. Speaking of elevators, there are also inspirational sayings on the elevator doors; I'll try to get photos of those tomorrow.

Don't know who the dude is, he thought it was funny that I was taking a photo of the sign.

Kaiser also makes it easy to keep your hands sanitary. There are hand sanitizer dispensers liberally located around the facility; in the patient hospital room areas there is a dispenser just outside every room as well as inside the room. There are also dispensers in the elevator lobbies. For ADA-compliance, places like hospitals need to install door-openers at the restroom doors. Most of the time you need to press the large metal button to open the door, making it a great place for germs to gather; at Kaiser Moanalua they use a switch that responds when you wave your hand in front of it, no touching required!


For lunch I went to the Sunrise Cafe instead of the Farmers Market down in the entry way. I picked up Beef Roast with 'Ulu Mashed Potatoes. It looked really good! When I returned to Dad's room, Wayde the clinical dietician was there. We talked about how well the Boost Breeze and Boost Plus he recommended a year ago worked for Dad. And how Dad started using the Magic Cup on his last hospitalization. Wayde is going to leave notes for Dr. Schwab to have these products added to Dad's approved diet. After he left I remembered what else I was going to ask him when I first saw him: Why is the cafeteria serving an entree with more than 1 portion of protein? The meal I bought looks like it has 3 portions of meat! Nurse Donovan agreed with me; next time I am going to order it in a to-go container so I can eat just 1 portion and take the rest home. By the way, it was good; I will order this again.

Beef Roast with 'Ulu Mashed Potatoes, with 3 servings of protein.

Flo, the Home Health coordinator, also came by. She asked how Dad liked Maunalani; he really liked it and so did we. She said she would have their facility coordinator contact Maunalani and request that they try to hold a bed for Dad for when he gets out of Kaiser. That would be great if he can go back there.

I went to Dad's MRI session and stayed in the waiting area, just in case Dad got upset by the machine. I met a nice couple who were waiting for their 8-year old son who was also in the MRI; they were also there just in case he got upset by the machine. Dad did great! I hope their son did, too.  

The MRI waiting room looks out at the helipad and the Moanalua Golf Course, which is around 3 sides of the hospital.

Dad has been lying on a mat that just looked like it was made with handles to assist with transferring him from the bed to a gurney & back again. It turns out it is more special than that; it's an inflatable transfer mattress with channels that are inflated so there are less sharp bumps during the transfer. It did seem like Dad had less complaints about pain when he was transferred. It is also designed to be for single-patient use for infection control.

L to R: Kevin, Shayna, Dad, & MRI technician getting ready to transfer Dad from the MRI table to the gurney. Kevin is hooking the blower up to inflate the transfer pad.

L to R: Nurse Donovan, Hospital Aide Jorden, Dad, and Shayna finish transferring Dad from the gurney back to bed.

Dad had a lot of doctors visiting him today. Today was the day the doctor in charge for the floor  changes; Dr. Schwab is replacing Dr. Lim for the next week. He came to check in on Dad; we also talked about Dad's problem with passing urine this morning. Nurse Donovan used the ultrasound and found Dad had about 130 ml in his bladder; the protocol at that level is to wait & watch. About an hour later Dad was able to pass the urine, but with a lot of pain. So they will stick to the wait & see protocol.

Later Dr. Baragi & Dr. Perera dropped in to check on Dad (Dr. Eron is off for a few days); they are the infectious disease specialists. They will be checking on how Dad does on the new antibiotic (Daptomycin) and whether the echocardiogram and MRI are able to provide insights in to potential infection sites.

Jodi, the in-patient social worker, also dropped by. She noticed that Dad was back in the hospital. I told her we were very satisfied with all the assistance that Kaiser has been providing to support Dad in his healing process.

After Curtis arrived, I left and on the way home I picked up Dad's things from Maunalani. Well, most of them. They forgot to grab the Purple seat cushion off of the wheelchair, which was not in the corner of the hall where they had been parking it. Nurse Lenie and Community Life Director Czarina will coordinate tomorrow with Geldy the maintenance supervisor to track down the wheelchair and get the Purple cushion back; its a good thing it is so unique because I forgot to mark it.

Here's Xander doing his usual evening activity, snoozing on his PurrPad.


I got a text from Curtis tonight. Its now his turn to be at the ER a lot. They had to take Lori's father in this evening due to a fall, he also has a fever. If he stays overnight in the ER with his father-in-law we might meet for breakfast in the cafeteria tomorrow morning! 

Happy Birthday to Lenny & Jon!

ER #19/#3

This morning at 2:17 a.m. I got a call from Nurse Sharmayne from Maunalani; Dad had a fever of 101 degrees F. Per their protocol, they were calling for an ambulance to take him to the emergency room. This is the 19th emergency room visit that I have made since June 12, 2016, and the 3rd for this year.


Nurse Sharmayne called me after the ambulance left Maunalani. I got to Kaiser Moanalua before the ambulance did, partly because the freeway was so deserted and partly because the ambulance had to make its way down the hillside. In all my visits to the ER at Moanalua, I have never seen an empty ER waiting room. Dad arrived about 10 minutes after I did; I was able to get in to sit with him about 10 minutes later after he was settled in.  

I had called Curtis shortly after Nurse Sharmayne's first call and later sent him a text about what room Dad was in and what tests they were starting. He brought breakfast to the ER for our Tuesday morning breakfast! He had the Sausage Burrito, I had the Sausage, Egg, & Cheese Biscuit with a side of Hash Browns.


Dad had more blood drawn, including for another blood culture, a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia, and an EKG; he is also scheduled for an MRI. Dr. Eron, from the infectious disease department, came by with Dr. Perera, to see how Dad was doing. Dad's white blood cell count had gone down from 40,000 units when he was initially admitted in early March, to about 25,000; while it was closer to normal, it was still too high. Dr. Eron is going to check for an infection in Dad's heart, in the meanwhile they are changing his antibiotic to Daptomycin, they think the fever might be a sensitivity reaction to the Ceftriaxone.

There were so many people who had come to the ER that needed to be admitted to the hospital since Dad got there, that they were opening up another wing and were busy calling in more staff so they could get set up for patients; by 3:45 p.m. he had been moved to a hospital room. I had left about half an hour earlier to go home and sleep. But before I could get to sleep I got a call from Cynthia at Maunalani. Because we have no firm date that Dad will be released, he will be officially discharged. She said when he is ready to come back, they will take him in. I will go in tomorrow to pick up Dad's belongings.

The Ikaika 'ohana landed this afternoon & got the news that Dad is back in the hospital. Depending when he gets out, some of their Easter plans might change; they were planning on visiting him at Maunalani.

Happy Birthday to Andreas!

Dad Runs a Fever Again

When I got to Maunalani at lunch today, Curtis told me that Dad had a low fever; they had given him Tylenol to bring it down. They also gave him an ice pack. A couple hours later CNA Mario found Dad's temperature was back down to normal. Apparently if the fever goes to 102 degrees F or higher after they have given the resident Tylenol and the ice pack, the protocol is to send the resident to the hospital. I checked with Nurse Susan; she said Dad's labs from last week showed a lower white blood cell count than the previous lab and that nothing has been cultured from his blood. His flu swab also came back negative.

CNA Mario taking Dad's temperature, blood pressure, & blood oxygen level.

We discovered there is a microwave in the activity room that is available for guests to use. Since the main freezer is only able to keep a few items frozen and the secondary freezer is full, I have been sorting through things and pulling out meals that just need to be heated up to take for my lunch. (Subsequently it will be highly unlikely that I will meet my weight loss goal for the next 2 weeks.) I have never seen a microwave like this one, it has braille on the control panel.

The Panasonic NE-1054F.

As I was leaving the activity room, Jody approached me and asked me if Dad could eat ice cream and chocolate chip cookies; I told her, Yes. It turns out that was nearly the only thing Dad ate today. He refused almost all of his lunch and dinner, he ate only a couple of spoonfuls of his Magic Cup. Other than his occupational therapy in the morning, he spent most of it sleeping; most likely reacting to the fever.

Yum! Ice cream and cookies!

Maunalani is high enough that you can see over the top of the rim of Leahi and look down in to the crater. Well, not all the way to the bottom, just over the rim to the other side.

Looking in to Leahi from Mr. Izon's window.

I opened up the Cougar Gold canned cheese tonight. This is actually the cheese I gave Curtis & Lori. However, he did not keep it in the refrigerator; he had it in the cabinet instead. The top of the can was slightly puffed up; so he gave it to me. As I was opening it tonight I remembered when we bought it that I was told it would still be okay if it puffed up because of the process that the cheese goes through in the canning. There was no mold or other funny things going on with it. And it tastes great! It's good to know that the canned cheese will still be edible without refrigeration. (The flyer says it can be stored indefinitely if unopened and kept at 70 degrees F or less. So it would do fine in the malfunctioning refrigerator.)


Happy Birthday to Brian & Todd!

Mom's 1 Year Anniversary

Mom died 1 year ago today; I put a lei up at her niche. Which was a real stretch for me; the top edge of her niche is at the upper limit of my reach, even on my tiptoes. While I was stretching, a nice older lady asked if I needed help, I told her I was a little too short; she said she wouldn't be able to help on that part. When I said that I should bring a stool next time, she remembered she had one in her car that I could borrow! It was just what I needed!

I picked up one of the brownies that Lori made for Dad and headed up to Maunalani. Curtis helped Dad with his physical therapy this morning and also eating lunch. Dad only took a couple bites of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I stayed with him through dinner; he didn't eat much dinner either, he kept nodding off. All he really ate was Lori's brownie!

Yesterday I did a lot of stuff but didn't get to write about it last night because I was busy and then tired. I started out by writing a memo to the Maunalani director of rehab, requesting a regular schedule for Dad's physical & occupational therapy to provide him with therapy every day and allow us to schedule to be present during therapy. I went up to Maunalani in time for Dad's lunch. I followed a bus up the hill; it was exciting watching it navigate the narrow roads and picking up passengers, all during a very rainy morning.

The #14 is the bus line that goes up to Maunalani.

Later in the afternoon Curtis came up with Lori & Brent; Dad and I were in the activity room watching Pitch Perfect 3; I'm not really sure what that movie is about. It had stopped raining, so we went out to the lanai to see if we could find Popokilani; she was around the corner by her food dishes.

L to R: Lori, Curtis, Dad, & Brent.

Brent plays with Popokilani.

While we were outside playing with Popokilani I got a call from Alan. Oh, no! I forgot it was Saturday, the night of the KHS Foundation Dinner! He was sitting at the house in the driveway, I told him to pick Lois up 1st and I would be there as soon as I could; I went straight down Wilhelmina Rise and made it back in 7 minutes! (Usually it takes 15 minutes on the Sierra Drive switchback route.) The dinner is a fundraiser for the KHS Foundation which provides grants for various projects at our old high school. This is the 16th year for the fundraiser dinner; it starts with a Silent Auction, then a dinner catered by a local restaurant, ending with live entertainment by current and/or former Kaimuki High School performers. This year is the 75th anniversary of the founding of Kaimuki High School. Last year I was supposed to go but called Alan and excused myself since I could tell Mom was going downhill; it turned out it was the night she died.

We were wondering why they gave each of us this reusable shopping bag; it was to carry the 2 bento boxes of dinner & 1 of Leonard's malasadas.

The one on the left has (top to bottom): Assorted Sushi, Tossed Salad, & Potato Macaroni Salad. The one on the right (clockwise from top L): Chicken Nishime, Okinawan Shoyu Pork, Braised Beef Shortribs, & Rice.

The entertainment was provided by Ben Vegas & Maila Gibson. This is why its called a phone, not a camera!

Happy Birthday to Vivian, Glenn, & Jose!