June 14, 2006 (12:07pm)
Mail call: more tapes from the Vaughans!
I got a little hurried the other day and didn’t put down who the group card from Gary’s relatives was from. So I’ll do that now: the card was from Faith and Steve, Seth, Claire, Luke, and Chris, and Jo, and Aunt Dorothy.
When I got to Gary’s this morning, I found there had been a conference around his bed, the attendees being the bivalve person and various and sundry nurses and techs. The conference concerned Gary’s feet – when his bivalves had been taken off in the morning, there were red areas again. They’ve decided that it’s not a problem with the bivalves or how they’re being put on – he just has sensitive feet. So they’re hoping the other methods of keeping his ankles stretched out will avoid any problems of contracture.
His flap was doublechecked, and apparently it is fine – the changes I saw were due to the scabs falling off along the one side that hasn’t healed as seamlessly as the others; their falling off revealed the heretofore hidden tissue underneath.
Gary’s other bit of news for the morning was that they’ve finally removed the peg tube. Even though he hasn’t been fed through it since Birmingham, they said they were keeping it in “just in case.” We noticed that they decided to remove it a day after one of the nurses we hadn’t had before came in to flush it, saying that it was supposed to be flushed twice a day; we pointed out that this was the very first time it’d been flushed since we’ve been here, and she said “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Evidently the twice a day flushing was then entered as an order into Gary’s chart. If I were more cynical (who, me?) I’d say the fact that removing it means they don’t have to flush it has something to do with why it came out now.
I left Gary for a bit to go down to the gym to see about the membership the doctor had said I could get. I told the person at the desk the situation (Gary is a patient here, a paraplegic; I have back problems and want to do whatever can be done to minimize them in order to be able to give him the help he’s going to need), and she said that although they were not supposed to give advice to nonpatients, that if I came tomorrow afternoon, she would give me suggestions for exercises to do for my back. She then happily took my money; I hope it’s not a waste.
Joe called during lunch, and we talked about flooring and then about getting rid of clutter and debris. Along that line, if anyone is interested in having one or more 5 gallon glass bottles, we have some free for the taking (I’ve given up on the ex-distributor of Mountain Valley Water ever coming to pick them up and on anyone else ever taking on the distributorship in our area). Just leave two bottles, as Gary’s roommate wants them.
After lunch, they wheeled Gary down to a counseling class. The counselors need further training, IMNSHO (you remember IMHO, don’t you?). They just let the conversation drift, whereas I thought they should have been at least a bit more directive. Several times they passed up opportunities to explore emotions that had been brought up, instead letting people turn the conversation to what pieces of gym equipment they’d tried out.
After that class, for the first time in several weeks the nurses started to change Gary out of his hospital gown into some clothes, in preparation for his “big event” of getting to sit in his wheelchair again. While they did this, I went down the hall to talk to our case manager, who had poked her head out of her office as we’d passed by on the way to class and told me she wanted to talk to me. It turned out she had information about Gary’s discharge. While not set in stone, it is scheduled for July 14th! That’s much sooner than we expected. They have him enrolled in the day program for the two weeks after that, but that may not be necessary. (The day program is essentially the same as the inpatient rehab program, except instead of going back to his hospital room at 4pm, he is bussed to some nearby apartments of Shepherd’s. Insurance usually covers the day program.)
She also said my two remaining family training days are scheduled for July 6 and 7, but that since I am always here, I can talk to his principal nurse and to his OT and PT therapists to ask them to spread out the training instead of trying to do a two day marathon. His principal nurse was the one getting him into his clothes, and when I went back and talked to her, she agreed to set up convenient times to do the bowel and bladder training with us.
Next came the big event. Gary was hoisted through the air and put into his chair. He had expected that the first time he wouldn’t feel so great – that had certainly been the case in Birmingham – but other than a brief spell of dizziness that was relieved by doing his side weight shifts, he felt reasonably good. Not as good as just before the flap surgery, when he’d been regularly up, but all in all, pretty good. He thinks the binder they put around his middle really helps – they never used that in Birmingham, and there he always felt “weird” for at least the first half hour of his sitting, because of changes in blood pressure.
He wheeled himself partway down the hall and back but the rest of the time just sat in the chair – that was enough for a start. But this was better than he expected, so he was really pleased.
He is also being allowed to lay on his back for two hours as part of his turning schedule (so it goes: left side 3 hours, back 2 hours, right side 3 hours, then repeat). He is really happy to be on his back some – it makes a big difference when you haven’t been able to lie on it for so long! But he is getting muscle spasms that start in his abdomen and run down his legs. He can’t feel the actual twitching, being below the level where his feeling stops, but he knows his whole lower body is jerking, and I can see it doing that. As this has never happened before, we’re hoping it is a temporary thing until he gets used to lying on his back again. We noted it stopped as soon as he was turned to his side.
For his reward for successfully sitting in his chair ;-) I got him some Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream as an after dinner treat (I also got him a baby greens and herb salad, some mixed berries, and some mixed nuts to make up for a dinner they claimed was salisbury steak but Gary claimed was a hamburger they’d done something unexciting to).
All for today.
Mail call: more tapes from the Vaughans!
I got a little hurried the other day and didn’t put down who the group card from Gary’s relatives was from. So I’ll do that now: the card was from Faith and Steve, Seth, Claire, Luke, and Chris, and Jo, and Aunt Dorothy.
When I got to Gary’s this morning, I found there had been a conference around his bed, the attendees being the bivalve person and various and sundry nurses and techs. The conference concerned Gary’s feet – when his bivalves had been taken off in the morning, there were red areas again. They’ve decided that it’s not a problem with the bivalves or how they’re being put on – he just has sensitive feet. So they’re hoping the other methods of keeping his ankles stretched out will avoid any problems of contracture.
His flap was doublechecked, and apparently it is fine – the changes I saw were due to the scabs falling off along the one side that hasn’t healed as seamlessly as the others; their falling off revealed the heretofore hidden tissue underneath.
Gary’s other bit of news for the morning was that they’ve finally removed the peg tube. Even though he hasn’t been fed through it since Birmingham, they said they were keeping it in “just in case.” We noticed that they decided to remove it a day after one of the nurses we hadn’t had before came in to flush it, saying that it was supposed to be flushed twice a day; we pointed out that this was the very first time it’d been flushed since we’ve been here, and she said “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” Evidently the twice a day flushing was then entered as an order into Gary’s chart. If I were more cynical (who, me?) I’d say the fact that removing it means they don’t have to flush it has something to do with why it came out now.
I left Gary for a bit to go down to the gym to see about the membership the doctor had said I could get. I told the person at the desk the situation (Gary is a patient here, a paraplegic; I have back problems and want to do whatever can be done to minimize them in order to be able to give him the help he’s going to need), and she said that although they were not supposed to give advice to nonpatients, that if I came tomorrow afternoon, she would give me suggestions for exercises to do for my back. She then happily took my money; I hope it’s not a waste.
Joe called during lunch, and we talked about flooring and then about getting rid of clutter and debris. Along that line, if anyone is interested in having one or more 5 gallon glass bottles, we have some free for the taking (I’ve given up on the ex-distributor of Mountain Valley Water ever coming to pick them up and on anyone else ever taking on the distributorship in our area). Just leave two bottles, as Gary’s roommate wants them.
After lunch, they wheeled Gary down to a counseling class. The counselors need further training, IMNSHO (you remember IMHO, don’t you?). They just let the conversation drift, whereas I thought they should have been at least a bit more directive. Several times they passed up opportunities to explore emotions that had been brought up, instead letting people turn the conversation to what pieces of gym equipment they’d tried out.
After that class, for the first time in several weeks the nurses started to change Gary out of his hospital gown into some clothes, in preparation for his “big event” of getting to sit in his wheelchair again. While they did this, I went down the hall to talk to our case manager, who had poked her head out of her office as we’d passed by on the way to class and told me she wanted to talk to me. It turned out she had information about Gary’s discharge. While not set in stone, it is scheduled for July 14th! That’s much sooner than we expected. They have him enrolled in the day program for the two weeks after that, but that may not be necessary. (The day program is essentially the same as the inpatient rehab program, except instead of going back to his hospital room at 4pm, he is bussed to some nearby apartments of Shepherd’s. Insurance usually covers the day program.)
She also said my two remaining family training days are scheduled for July 6 and 7, but that since I am always here, I can talk to his principal nurse and to his OT and PT therapists to ask them to spread out the training instead of trying to do a two day marathon. His principal nurse was the one getting him into his clothes, and when I went back and talked to her, she agreed to set up convenient times to do the bowel and bladder training with us.
Next came the big event. Gary was hoisted through the air and put into his chair. He had expected that the first time he wouldn’t feel so great – that had certainly been the case in Birmingham – but other than a brief spell of dizziness that was relieved by doing his side weight shifts, he felt reasonably good. Not as good as just before the flap surgery, when he’d been regularly up, but all in all, pretty good. He thinks the binder they put around his middle really helps – they never used that in Birmingham, and there he always felt “weird” for at least the first half hour of his sitting, because of changes in blood pressure.
He wheeled himself partway down the hall and back but the rest of the time just sat in the chair – that was enough for a start. But this was better than he expected, so he was really pleased.
He is also being allowed to lay on his back for two hours as part of his turning schedule (so it goes: left side 3 hours, back 2 hours, right side 3 hours, then repeat). He is really happy to be on his back some – it makes a big difference when you haven’t been able to lie on it for so long! But he is getting muscle spasms that start in his abdomen and run down his legs. He can’t feel the actual twitching, being below the level where his feeling stops, but he knows his whole lower body is jerking, and I can see it doing that. As this has never happened before, we’re hoping it is a temporary thing until he gets used to lying on his back again. We noted it stopped as soon as he was turned to his side.
For his reward for successfully sitting in his chair ;-) I got him some Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream as an after dinner treat (I also got him a baby greens and herb salad, some mixed berries, and some mixed nuts to make up for a dinner they claimed was salisbury steak but Gary claimed was a hamburger they’d done something unexciting to).
All for today.
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:34 AM
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