Bye Dadi - I love you always!

Dadi - I love you and will miss you forever.

Love,
your daughter,
Angeline Dadelion

My Dadi

Dad is back from the hospital. He was chauffered by an ambulance and wheeled to his bed on a gourney. He's not struggling to get out of the bed, he's not fussing about the healthcare system or talking about the mistakes Americans made that led to World War II. He's just lying there on his hospital bed, silent, very sick, very distant.

I'm without words.

Dear God

Dad comes home from the hospital tomorrow. On hospice.

My Broken Heart

They put the dialysis port back in yesterday and dad had dialysis. He was so quiet during the entire four hours which is unusual for him. Usually, we're trying to keep him from pulling at the tubes or from trying to get up and "go home". But this time he was very still. Lisa had a friend bring her by the hospital, which was nice. I learned Jean dropped by a little after I left. I was at home when Vickie texted me to say his temperature had creeped back up and his oxygen was a tad low so they gave him some tylanol and put a oxygen mask on him.

I decided to go back to the hospital and camp out by dad's bed. He'd dose off, then moan and groan and look at me with such intensity and sadness in his eyes. He looked to be in such a state of misery. I asked the nurse to give him something for pain and she did. Then they adjusted him in the bed to make him more comfortable. He seemed more settled after that, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Tommorow I'm meeting with the Paliative Care doctor to discuss some things I'd rather never in my life have to discuss. Dad's going home for sure, it's just a matter of sending him home with hospice or paliative care. Dad's suffering. And I'm heartsick.

Dad Update

Last night dad had some problems. Dialysis didn't go well, his heart rate spiked again. Also, after the dialysis was completed and dad was left alone, the nurse found him choking on his own vomit, his fever was up again and his heart rate. When I walked in at round 9:30pm they'd gotten him cleaned up and he was laying in bed moaning in pain. His arm, that supposedly was not infected, says Colonel Sanders and the infectious disease doc, looked painful and swollen. He was able to relax a bit after the nurse gave him some paid meds. I put on some of his classical Andre Reiu dvds and left once he'd fallen asleep and after planting a kiss on his forehead.

Today dad was very sullen. When he spoke you really couldn't understand what he was saying, except when I asked him if he was ready to go home he said under his breath and without hesitation, "uh huh". He looked so sad though. "Okay" I said. "Then it looks like you're going home." I would not send him back to that facility. That...I'm sure of. But my heart hurt so bad.

Dialysis was cancelled today due to dad's fever and heart issues and they're taking the temporary dialysis port out for 48 hours to see if it is the cause of the fever, then once it's put back in they hope to resume dialysis on Tuesday.

After leaving the hospital Debbie I went to dad's house to meet up with the rug cleaner. Our 1st step to getting the house cleaned up and ready for dad's return after being away for over a month.

Our neighbor Doug, got his weed wacker out and cleaned up the shrubs in front of the front door and the lawn was already looking nice thanks to our lawncare service.

Just need to keep on keepin' on. God help us do what we need to do. Amen.

This is Hell!

Dad's back in the hospital. His toe was getting worst; he had a fever of 103, and infections throughout his body. On Monday, I was on the phone, while I at work, most of the morning with the facility trying to get them to get a doctor in to look at his toe. After several hours of talking about it, I got frustrated and said, "Have the doctor call me to assure me I'm worrying about nothing and dad's infected, black toe, and the fact he has a fever, isn't a big deal and I'll stop pushing (I wouldn't have stopped)." She said she would. Next thing I knew she was calling me back to say the doctor had looked at Dad's foot, saw that it was swollen and decided he needed to go back to the hosital. Really. Yesterday, we learned the cause of dad's infections was not the toe, but the fistula in his arm. His right arm is twice the size it should be, red and hot to touch. One of the doctors attending him sat us all down and explained that dad's situation was pretty dire and soon family would have to make a decision on whether to continue aggressive treatment. She also said that if they have to reopen the site of the fistula dad may not survive the procedure in his current state. She further added that the surgeon may not want to do the surgery due to the risk to dad. So we needed to wait for the vascular surgeon to examine dad.

So Debbie and I are sitting in dad's room when this guy that looks like Colonel Sanders walks in. He introduces himself, bends over and checks out dad's arm, then says, "So who did the surgery?" Huh?

I said, "You did. Last Thursday."

While we're still trying to figure out if he's joking or not he says, "So he's pretty sick huh?"

"Um, yeah" I say, "Because he has an infection going through his body caused by the fistula site." He continued to astound us.

"Yeah," he says. "Well, everything's okay. It's not infected." And then colonel Sanders started to walk out of the room.

Debbie stood and caught him before he made it to the door. "Why did the infectious disease doctor tell us the infection started with the fistula?"

Sanders says, "Because it's swollen and he's wrong. It's not infected."

Debbie and I say, "But the other doctor said it was."

Sanders said with a bit of impatience, "Well, I say it's not."

Today, the infectious disease doctor stopped by, checked dad's arm and recanted yesterday's diagnosis and said with purpose that he was in agreement with Colonel Sanders. The area of the fistula is not infected, he explaned, and the swelling is typical with a fistula procedure. O-kay.

And this is what we've been dealing with. One professional says this, the other says something completely different and they're all looking at us like we're purposely trying to be difficult. For what it's worth, we put in a complaint with regard to Colonel Sander's weird bedside manner. And again, for whatever it's worth, which is probably a whole lot of nothing, four different people have tried to convince us that Colonel Sander's is a brilliant surgeon but just has a bad bedside manner. For us, their assurance isn't worth a damn thing at this point.

And dad's toe is getting really ugly, and the infectious disease doctor said the tip of the toe will definitely need to be surgically removed, however they need to wait for the gangrene to stop spreading otherwise they will need to keep taking off pieces. Ah hell!