Food for Thought From McDonald's
My father-in-law was moved yesterday from the Univ. of MD Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore to a rehab facility in Easton to undergo physical therapy for the next two weeks. He seems to be recovering physically and looks a little better each day. Today his color was good and he was no longer on oxygen. When he was in the hospital they had him on a breathing tube one night, and between that and the injury to his neck, his throat was swollen and they gave him oxygen for the next few days to help him breathe easier.
Before my husband and I went to visit him, we called the rehab facility (really a nursing home with rehab facilities) to confirm that his clothing had shipped with him in the ambulance. The staffperson told my husband that they had looked in his father's room but didn't see any clothes. While my husband played "pass the buck" with hospital bureaucrats to see if they actually sent the clothes ("I'm sorry, the manager's not here and only she can help you" or "you'll have to call back on Monday"), I called the nursing home in Easton and asked them to re-check Dad's room for a garbage bag with his belongings (my husband failed to mention the garbage bag). When they looked again, they found it.
Since his injury Dad is unsteady and has a high risk of falling, and we tried to reiterate that to the nursing home. However, last night he slid out of a chair and had a minor fall. Since the facility cannot provide one-to-one night supervision, my husband and his brother decided to hire a "sitter" (a nurses' aide from an agency) to come in and be with Dad at night for the rest of his stay, because he usually has to go to the bathroom a few times and might try to get up on his own. Since the sitter can't start until Monday, Dad will spend the next two nights in a chair near the nurses' station where they can keep an eye on him. We are not entirely sure what happened to cause his initial injury, but we think he passed out and fell when he was getting ready for bed, maybe because he took a sleeping pill, didn't go to bed right away, and fell when it kicked in. Or maybe it was some other unknown cause. Either way, we want him watched carefully for the next couple weeks while he is receiving physical therapy. His lack of short-term memory is also a concern. He gets confused and sometimes agitated when he is in the hospital, moved from place to place. In the hospital we told him where he was and why he was there, and 15 minutes later he would not remember.
We quiz him to see if he knows where he is. Sometimes he gets it right, sometimes he doesn't. He knows people who visit, but doesn't remember when they last visited. Dad values his independence and the goal is to get him well enough to go back to living in his cottage in his retirement community, with extra help for a while, because he will be wearing a neck brace for the next couple months. The hope is to put off assisted living as long as possible. My brother-in-law helps Dad with his day-to-day routine, and an aide at the retirement community comes in to help him with his medications, but the worst-case-scenario is needing assistance 24/7. When he hurt his neck it was about 9 in the evening and he went back to bed until 4 a.m. before realizing he needed help.
Today when my husband and I visited, we brought him his favorite meal from McDonald's: a cheeseburger, parfait, salad, two apple pies, and coffee with 2 creams and 2 sugars. His face lit up at the sight of the bag. We set aside the lunch they had served him at the nursing home and he dug into the cheeseburger. The conversation went like this:
Us: "Do you know where you are?"
Dad: "I'm in Easton."
Us: "Good! Where are you in Easton?"
Dad: "I'm at McDonald's."
He finished his lunch and fell asleep.
P.S. I should note that the nursing home allows pets to visit as long as they are leashed. Bringing pets for visits to senior communities has been shown to boost their spirits and promote healing.