Can't Shake This Feeling

Monday, October 24, 2011

I walked in the door a short time ago from a busy day working on all the details that are involved with an international move times two.  I feel sad and cannot shake the feeling.  Slowly, I am recalling a conversation I had with someone at the hospital this afternoon.  We were discussing how to transport/transfer dad from hospital to airport to airplane.  I asked her if she thought dad might be able to walk on his own again.  She paused before saying, "It's hard to say.  The wheelchair is probably the safest place for him.  The pill mix up in the beginning really set him back."

You may recall the post about the continual pill mess up in the Sinemet dosage as described in More Disappointment.  Where I had to tell the hospital three times about the correct Sinemet dose and time until they got it straightened out.  And how dad went from sitting up eating his dinner on the first two nights after he had been admitted, to being bedridden for days on end because he was receiving the Sinemet dose three times a day, instead of four.  How they gave him quick release Sinemet instead of slow release Sinemet.

I had taken care of dad for three years and we managed fairly well.  Now the hospital undid in three days what I had worked on so hard for for three years... that the Sinemet be on time, every time.  I hired nursing support to come in and assist dad once he started to struggle with it on his own.  I have the right to be sad over everything dad has had to put up with in that hospital.  I cannot wait to get him out of there... only one week to go.

On that front, he is improving with each day.  In chatting with him today, he commented that he had really wanted to go shopping for some new clothes.  (Shopping... did someone say shopping!?)  I told him he did have some new clothes... I had ordered a few things a while ago.  I was saving them for him at home so he wouldn't have them ruined in the hospital.  I told him I have his outfit ready and waiting to go at his place... it may not be the suit he first travelled in when he left Australia... but it is clean and it matches!  His clothes are probably a bit too big... but that cannot be helped for now.  We will have to do some more shopping in Sydney.  There is far too much going on now to be messing around, shopping for clothes.  (Shopping for the elderly holds none of the joy that it does for oneself.)   I also asked him if he wanted me to pack his Aussie hat, to which he replied a hearty, "Yes!"