Flabbergasted

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Monday afternoon I received a call from my brother who said, 'Sometimes you are in the right place at the right time...' He had been to visit dad, and had gotten out to the parking lot when he realized had left his sunglasses behind in dad's room. Upon arriving back in the room, he found dad 3/4 the way out of his bed, where he had been having a rest. He managed to find the nurses and get dad settled back into bed.

On Wednesday, I stopped in to visit. I found dad in his easy chair in his room, seat restraints undone and in his hands, legs off to the side. A few more minutes and he would have been out of there... I've no doubt we would have had another dad-pancake on our hands. And the last thing I want to do in the remainder of this year is spend any more time in a hospital!

I ran to grab the nurses - and they couldn't believe that he'd skipped out of his restraints! He's always sat down and figured out how things go together - and it's no different now. He sat there, worked out how the restraint worked, and slipped himself out.

He was upset and complaining that he felt caged up. I told him I understood... but that the restraints were for his own safety. His legs no longer cooperate. When he goes to stand up, they give out and he falls - and could injure himself.  I took him outside for a short walk and to sit in the sunshine for a change of scenery.

This morning I had an appointment at the care home with a wheelchair supplier. Dad has been using a borrowed wheelchair from the home which is heavy and cumbersome. It has little wheels, so he has been unable to move himself around. The wheelchair we were looking at getting had been out of stock, then there was the break over Christmas. So today was the first day we had a chance to take a look at the chair. The therapist got him out of one chair and into the new one. As he was sitting in it, he asked if it was self-propelled. Sorry? What does he know about self-propelled chairs? The supplier didn't even get a chance to change the foot pegs before dad had grabbed onto the wheels and was off!! A quick fix to the foot pegs, removed some plastic off the wheels and he was gone again. The supplier, the therapist and I stood there flabbergasted.  None of us had expected that. Dad wheeled himself into the activity room to show off his new wheels. He had even figured out how to turn around... hold one wheel still and turn the other. Let me tell you... he was pretty pleased with himself... and looking at the rest of us as if to say, 'No duh - that's what I've been trying to tell you all along. Dummies.'

Don't I feel like the bad daughter for not getting a wheelchair organized sooner. In the space of 2 minutes, he got some of his independence back.

I went to take a picture of him in his new chair, but he had wheeled his new chair up to the table for morning tea and was chatting to his friends. Not so much as backward glance to me, or a 'thanks for my new wheels.' Like a parent who worries about their child settling into daycare, and the child takes off without a backward glance ... there went dad back to his new friends. Oh well... there's a coffee shop down the road with my name on it.

Always being 3 steps ahead of me, I have no doubt that I will soon be receiving a call that dad has rolled his wheelchair or such.