May 13, 2006
After the physical therapist exercised Gary’s legs yesterday, she gave him a stretching program for his shoulders, so now he is supposed to do things like shrugs and arm circles and punches three times a day for three-four minutes. She also noticed his skin was drying out around his knees, and I told the nurse. She put in an order for skin cream. I imagine that, like the donut pillow for his head and the waffle pillow for his tushie, it will arrive a few months after we’ve left ;-). (I tried to find such pillows at Walmart yesterday, but they didn’t have them. I will pick up some skin cream at the health food store, having misplaced the cream Alex sent.) In a similar vein, we think the neuro people forgot about the staples in Gary’s back, because every medical staff person I’ve mentioned it to (and I mention it to everyone I see) says they should have been removed by now. It’s a question of getting that message to the right docs – the people I speak with all claim to be passing on my message. I’m thinking they might remove the staples this weekend, as Monday Gary is being seen by the Shepherd people, and I wouldn’t think the people here would want to be embarrassed to having it known that the staples have been in a week longer than they should have been. But who knows.
I thought it might have been my imagination that the nursing care is more lax in this unit, but yesterday I was stopped in the hall by a woman who has been here about as long as me and whose fiancee has been on about the same schedule as Gary in terms of the being on a ventilator in ICU and being moved to this step-down unit, etc. (her fiancee was in a helicopter crash and was badly burned), and she asked me if I was satisfied with the nursing. Her evaluation was that they took far longer to respond to calls, didn’t seem as helpful and friendly, and many didn’t seem nearly as skilled as those on the other side. I told her I agreed. She said she is not usually a complainer but had complained to the doctors about this when they were doing their rounds, and they said no one else had ever complained. So I am thinking of adding my voice to hers, though I will have to screw up some courage. She has been keeping a log of how long it takes the nurses to respond to their calls, saying that, for example, one time it took them forty minutes before coming to check on her fiancee. I forgot to tell her that it would never take that long with Gary, because if the nurse doesn’t come in about five minutes, I go out and corral someone else. (They will probably be glad when I am gone ;-)) This woman stays in her fiancee’s room all night long (one person is allowed to stay overnight with the patient on this side) because her fiancee is actually afraid to be left alone – he fears something might happen with the breathing tube or whatever and the nurses won’t respond in time. Naturally this shot my anxiety level up. When I got in Gary’s room I said the nursing on this side didn’t seem to be as good as where we’d been and I had been wondering if I should try to stay during the night. He spelled out “then you will crash and that would be a disaster for both of us.” I didn’t exactly voice my thought that if something happened to him, that also would be a disaster but said I worried about things like maybe this smaller tube clogging and the nurses not answering the call button, like they hadn’t when his bed had deflated. He told me I worried too much (ya think?) and that even if it got clogged completely he could still breathe through his mouth and nose, that it would be hard, but he could do it. I was mostly looking for this kind of reassurance, as I know I couldn’t really tolerate being in there overnight with the activity that goes on – baths at weird hours (like 4am), vital signs check, breathing treatments, turning from one side to the other, all done every two hours (and not done simultaneously).
When I came into his room this morning, he made a face, saying they’d fed him grits for breakfast. He asked if I’d brought him a banana as I had offered to do yesterday. I reminded him I hadn’t cleared that with the morning nurse – there is a sign at the entrance which says no fresh fruit or flowers should be brought into the unit. So I went and asked her. She said he could have a banana if I mashed it up for him. She put in a request for it and asked if he wanted anything else in particular. He said applesauce and juice. She said to be sure to remove the banana from the room the same day if not eaten – they don’t want gnats, etc., to be attracted to things in this unit as the critters would get in the burn patients’ wounds. Definitely not a good thing. Just to make sure he got his banana I put it on my list of things to get (along with paper cups, straws, and plastic spoons as they are very stingy with such objects here, and some canned peaches as he also requested). I had asked him yesterday if he wanted me to get veggies and make him some homemade soup in my crockpot or to juice some apples in the juicer the chiropractor loaned me as soon as she heard Gary was eating a little. But he said to wait on that until later. He may soon change his mind as last night’s dinner menu was essentially identical to the previous night’s: cream of potato soup, jello, juice, tea.
Before lunch I left and walked to the store to pick up the things then returned to his room about noon. His lunch was delivered shortly after that: cream of vegetable soup, jello, juice, tea, vanilla pudding. So much for his requests. His appetite is good and he says the stuff is tasty, but I suspect the tastiness comes from additives and not herbs and spices and so reminded him I could make stuff for him. He put me off, maybe trying to save me from the extra work, which, to tell the truth, is why I am not insistent. Right now I’m using all my energy to be there with him – he has much more energy now than he did in ICU, no doubt helped by the fact that he is sleeping better (even with all the nursing disturbance that goes on now, it is much less than when he was in ICU), so I’ve been over there on my feet with him longer, especially the last couple days. We “talk” some, I read from Carter to him, we watch some DVD (we just finished Walk the Line this afternoon), or I just stand there in silence stroking him. I may have overdone being with him this afternoon, though, as I was feeling tired and a bit antsy. On the other hand I keep thinking of how I would feel if I was in his situation . . .
He sat up in his special chair for an hour and a half this morning, twice as long as he’s gone before. I worry a little about his sitting up that long and how it affects his bed sore – the staff claim it’s looking better, but to me it and the area surrounding it looks awful (raw) – but the nurse said his sitting that long was good for him. She’d better be right.
He can now also tolerate wearing the speech valve for a much longer time but only for breathing, not speaking. That still feels like quite a strain to him, so he only speaks a small amount.
In the evening I fed him some supper (ice cream seemed to be the biggest hit; he also had cream of chicken, jello, juice, and I mashed him some banana). We listened to “My Word,” and talked a bit. He said maybe the blog, which he hasn’t seen yet (I told him I wasn’t going to give him the URL), would be turned into a movie starring Tom Cruise and Reese Witherspoon. I told him I’d seen a headline in U.S. Today that Cruise was losing his popularity with women so we would have to get someone else to play him. He suggested Pierce Brosnan. I then said Salma Hayek should play me because we look so much alike (for those not in the know, the two of them co-starred in “After the Sunset”).
After the physical therapist exercised Gary’s legs yesterday, she gave him a stretching program for his shoulders, so now he is supposed to do things like shrugs and arm circles and punches three times a day for three-four minutes. She also noticed his skin was drying out around his knees, and I told the nurse. She put in an order for skin cream. I imagine that, like the donut pillow for his head and the waffle pillow for his tushie, it will arrive a few months after we’ve left ;-). (I tried to find such pillows at Walmart yesterday, but they didn’t have them. I will pick up some skin cream at the health food store, having misplaced the cream Alex sent.) In a similar vein, we think the neuro people forgot about the staples in Gary’s back, because every medical staff person I’ve mentioned it to (and I mention it to everyone I see) says they should have been removed by now. It’s a question of getting that message to the right docs – the people I speak with all claim to be passing on my message. I’m thinking they might remove the staples this weekend, as Monday Gary is being seen by the Shepherd people, and I wouldn’t think the people here would want to be embarrassed to having it known that the staples have been in a week longer than they should have been. But who knows.
I thought it might have been my imagination that the nursing care is more lax in this unit, but yesterday I was stopped in the hall by a woman who has been here about as long as me and whose fiancee has been on about the same schedule as Gary in terms of the being on a ventilator in ICU and being moved to this step-down unit, etc. (her fiancee was in a helicopter crash and was badly burned), and she asked me if I was satisfied with the nursing. Her evaluation was that they took far longer to respond to calls, didn’t seem as helpful and friendly, and many didn’t seem nearly as skilled as those on the other side. I told her I agreed. She said she is not usually a complainer but had complained to the doctors about this when they were doing their rounds, and they said no one else had ever complained. So I am thinking of adding my voice to hers, though I will have to screw up some courage. She has been keeping a log of how long it takes the nurses to respond to their calls, saying that, for example, one time it took them forty minutes before coming to check on her fiancee. I forgot to tell her that it would never take that long with Gary, because if the nurse doesn’t come in about five minutes, I go out and corral someone else. (They will probably be glad when I am gone ;-)) This woman stays in her fiancee’s room all night long (one person is allowed to stay overnight with the patient on this side) because her fiancee is actually afraid to be left alone – he fears something might happen with the breathing tube or whatever and the nurses won’t respond in time. Naturally this shot my anxiety level up. When I got in Gary’s room I said the nursing on this side didn’t seem to be as good as where we’d been and I had been wondering if I should try to stay during the night. He spelled out “then you will crash and that would be a disaster for both of us.” I didn’t exactly voice my thought that if something happened to him, that also would be a disaster but said I worried about things like maybe this smaller tube clogging and the nurses not answering the call button, like they hadn’t when his bed had deflated. He told me I worried too much (ya think?) and that even if it got clogged completely he could still breathe through his mouth and nose, that it would be hard, but he could do it. I was mostly looking for this kind of reassurance, as I know I couldn’t really tolerate being in there overnight with the activity that goes on – baths at weird hours (like 4am), vital signs check, breathing treatments, turning from one side to the other, all done every two hours (and not done simultaneously).
When I came into his room this morning, he made a face, saying they’d fed him grits for breakfast. He asked if I’d brought him a banana as I had offered to do yesterday. I reminded him I hadn’t cleared that with the morning nurse – there is a sign at the entrance which says no fresh fruit or flowers should be brought into the unit. So I went and asked her. She said he could have a banana if I mashed it up for him. She put in a request for it and asked if he wanted anything else in particular. He said applesauce and juice. She said to be sure to remove the banana from the room the same day if not eaten – they don’t want gnats, etc., to be attracted to things in this unit as the critters would get in the burn patients’ wounds. Definitely not a good thing. Just to make sure he got his banana I put it on my list of things to get (along with paper cups, straws, and plastic spoons as they are very stingy with such objects here, and some canned peaches as he also requested). I had asked him yesterday if he wanted me to get veggies and make him some homemade soup in my crockpot or to juice some apples in the juicer the chiropractor loaned me as soon as she heard Gary was eating a little. But he said to wait on that until later. He may soon change his mind as last night’s dinner menu was essentially identical to the previous night’s: cream of potato soup, jello, juice, tea.
Before lunch I left and walked to the store to pick up the things then returned to his room about noon. His lunch was delivered shortly after that: cream of vegetable soup, jello, juice, tea, vanilla pudding. So much for his requests. His appetite is good and he says the stuff is tasty, but I suspect the tastiness comes from additives and not herbs and spices and so reminded him I could make stuff for him. He put me off, maybe trying to save me from the extra work, which, to tell the truth, is why I am not insistent. Right now I’m using all my energy to be there with him – he has much more energy now than he did in ICU, no doubt helped by the fact that he is sleeping better (even with all the nursing disturbance that goes on now, it is much less than when he was in ICU), so I’ve been over there on my feet with him longer, especially the last couple days. We “talk” some, I read from Carter to him, we watch some DVD (we just finished Walk the Line this afternoon), or I just stand there in silence stroking him. I may have overdone being with him this afternoon, though, as I was feeling tired and a bit antsy. On the other hand I keep thinking of how I would feel if I was in his situation . . .
He sat up in his special chair for an hour and a half this morning, twice as long as he’s gone before. I worry a little about his sitting up that long and how it affects his bed sore – the staff claim it’s looking better, but to me it and the area surrounding it looks awful (raw) – but the nurse said his sitting that long was good for him. She’d better be right.
He can now also tolerate wearing the speech valve for a much longer time but only for breathing, not speaking. That still feels like quite a strain to him, so he only speaks a small amount.
In the evening I fed him some supper (ice cream seemed to be the biggest hit; he also had cream of chicken, jello, juice, and I mashed him some banana). We listened to “My Word,” and talked a bit. He said maybe the blog, which he hasn’t seen yet (I told him I wasn’t going to give him the URL), would be turned into a movie starring Tom Cruise and Reese Witherspoon. I told him I’d seen a headline in U.S. Today that Cruise was losing his popularity with women so we would have to get someone else to play him. He suggested Pierce Brosnan. I then said Salma Hayek should play me because we look so much alike (for those not in the know, the two of them co-starred in “After the Sunset”).
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:02 PM
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