Dad Is Doing More Today

Curtis said Dad got up early today and was very alert. He ate a banana and drank a box of Boost Plus for breakfast. Around mid-morning, PT Julie and Nurse Fono got Dad out of bed and sitting in the chair; he stayed there for about 30 minutes. Later he drank a box of Boost Breeze; although he did not eat anything at lunch for dinner he ate about a quarter of the beef stew & about half of the Magic Cup. Dad is doing much better now that all the antibiotics have been stopped and they are clearing out of his system. If Dad remains fever-free overnight, he will be discharged sometime tomorrow. Then the real test begins.

Mmmm, good!

We talked with Dr. Collis, Dr. Kim, & Dr. Perera today. The bottom line is whether Dad can remain fever-free after being discharged to a skilled nursing facility (SNF) or an intermediate care facility (ICF). The current plan is, if he has another fever he will go to the Kaiser emergency room. Before administering any antibiotics, they will take blood for cultures. During the 3-day incubation period for the blood cultures he will be given antibiotics. What happens next will depend on whether they are able to culture the causative organism. If they fail to culture anything, as has been the case for the 7 or 8 cultures that they have done over the last month, we will stop the antibiotics and put him in hospice care. The bottom line for both Dad & Mom has been quality of life. For Dad, the antibiotics caused him to sleep all the time and not have an appetite; stopping the antibiotics this time has made him more alert, active, and able to interact with visitors.

I did laundry this morning, so I checked on the papayas again. (I need to get better about checking on the produce, I seem to only do it when I have laundry to hang.) There was another papaya with some orange color beginning; several others have light green streaks. In a few days I will have to pick a lot of papayas!

I picked the one on the right today.

When I picked up the mail today there was a manila envelope from Deep Blue Merchants; one problem: I hadn't ordered anything from them. I opened it and found it was a bag of Simply Almonds, Cashews, & Chocolate Trek Mix from my friend Janice! She had read in the blog that I liked this variety. I sent her a Mahalo text and told her to save her money and come to visit me instead!

There was a spotted dove (Streptopelia chinensis) checking out the strawberries this morning; the doves can't fit through the holes in the chain link fence like the bulbuls can, so it didn't stick around long. Chibi was not in the cat run this morning.


When I went to load up the car, I found a moth on the ground near the car. Some people believe moths are omens of death; others say it is a loved one returning. I have not identified this one yet.

I haven't figured out what this one is yet.

Over lunch today Curtis and I discussed Dad's future treatments. I can't remember what Curtis' entree was called, I think it was some sort of roast pork; I had salad again. (We'll see how helpful it has been tomorrow when I weigh-in.) 


For the last week I have not been able to make my 250 steps each hour for each of the 14 hours that I have my Fitbit programmed for that activity, but I did it today! 14/14! For 4 of the previous days I got 13 of 14; for the other 3 days I got 11 of 14. I also made 14 of 14 on February 21st & 27th. The maximum you can set the Fitbit for is 14 hours.    
Happy Birthday to Shawn! And Happy 32nd Anniversary to Bo & Barbara!