I'd like a do-over for today.
I don't know where to start today.
We picked up Carlos from the hospital yesterday. We were gone all day, and it varied from 94-104 outside. Fun. I got there a little after 1 (we left the house at 11:30), because that was the discharge time, and then sat in the room for two hours while they went through discharge paperwork, prescriptions, his walking plan, how to get in/out of beds and chairs, called for a wheelchair, and someone to help transport him. Yeah, fun. It was another 2 hour drive home, stopped to pick up his meds, helped him up the stairs (yay for living on the third floor?) and took a few minutes to rest and have something cold to drink because Joel and I were burning up. Joel took his car to get the tires aired, and I went through all his old and new medications, threw out everything that wasn't on the list for him to take now, filled his weekly pill holder thingies, and then wrote out all the numbers he has to call for follow up appointments and home care.
After that Joel and I went to the grocery store for him, stopped and grabbed some tacos for lunch/dinner because we hadn't eaten all day, brought all *that* upstairs, put it away, then collapsed and ate. My whole day felt like a continuous run on sentence, done in boiling heat, with no a/c in sight.
Of course, Carlos is cut from collarbone to below his ribs, but he's also got 3 small incisions in his abdomen from camera ports and ex vivo procedures, a pretty big cut in his groin from where the catheter for the balloon pump was inserted, a large puncture in his right armpit from where a kind of central IV line was, and his right leg is all cut up from mid thigh to his ankle from where they harvested veins. ALl in all, he ended up having triple bypass, mitral valve repair, a MAZE procedure to hopefully cure his atrial fibrillation, and pulminory vein isolation.
I could go on about how long recovery will be, about how I'm worried that he will overdo his exercise, or how I'm going to make time to take him to some of his follow ups, but what's the point? I was working on that, trying to really figure out and lock into my head how I'm going to stay really on top of my shit so that I can still get out to see mom and take her grocery shopping and then find a way to drive the 5-6 hours needed to get Carlos to his visits, but I can't right now.
Mom just called me from Provenia St. Joseph's hospital. She's there right now, and they are keeping her for at least tonight. I don't know what to say. I will find time to get her to the surgeon she just told me she needs to see, and the cardiac specialist as well.
Also, did I mention that I also feel terribly guilty that I didn't go see my Grampa yesterday since he's just 10 minutes from Carlos' house and I haven't seen him forever? No? Well, add that in too then.
We picked up Carlos from the hospital yesterday. We were gone all day, and it varied from 94-104 outside. Fun. I got there a little after 1 (we left the house at 11:30), because that was the discharge time, and then sat in the room for two hours while they went through discharge paperwork, prescriptions, his walking plan, how to get in/out of beds and chairs, called for a wheelchair, and someone to help transport him. Yeah, fun. It was another 2 hour drive home, stopped to pick up his meds, helped him up the stairs (yay for living on the third floor?) and took a few minutes to rest and have something cold to drink because Joel and I were burning up. Joel took his car to get the tires aired, and I went through all his old and new medications, threw out everything that wasn't on the list for him to take now, filled his weekly pill holder thingies, and then wrote out all the numbers he has to call for follow up appointments and home care.
After that Joel and I went to the grocery store for him, stopped and grabbed some tacos for lunch/dinner because we hadn't eaten all day, brought all *that* upstairs, put it away, then collapsed and ate. My whole day felt like a continuous run on sentence, done in boiling heat, with no a/c in sight.
Of course, Carlos is cut from collarbone to below his ribs, but he's also got 3 small incisions in his abdomen from camera ports and ex vivo procedures, a pretty big cut in his groin from where the catheter for the balloon pump was inserted, a large puncture in his right armpit from where a kind of central IV line was, and his right leg is all cut up from mid thigh to his ankle from where they harvested veins. ALl in all, he ended up having triple bypass, mitral valve repair, a MAZE procedure to hopefully cure his atrial fibrillation, and pulminory vein isolation.
I could go on about how long recovery will be, about how I'm worried that he will overdo his exercise, or how I'm going to make time to take him to some of his follow ups, but what's the point? I was working on that, trying to really figure out and lock into my head how I'm going to stay really on top of my shit so that I can still get out to see mom and take her grocery shopping and then find a way to drive the 5-6 hours needed to get Carlos to his visits, but I can't right now.
Mom just called me from Provenia St. Joseph's hospital. She's there right now, and they are keeping her for at least tonight. I don't know what to say. I will find time to get her to the surgeon she just told me she needs to see, and the cardiac specialist as well.
Also, did I mention that I also feel terribly guilty that I didn't go see my Grampa yesterday since he's just 10 minutes from Carlos' house and I haven't seen him forever? No? Well, add that in too then.