(no subject)
Happy Groundhog Day! If we had groundhogs here, they'd fershure be seeing their shadows, as it's sunny but blowing gusty Santa Ana winds (do gophers work instead?). And by the way, Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies.
Dad has moved a few times since I last posted about him. He spent a rather frustrating week in a convalescent/rehab home, which had been recently renovated but was still rather cramped. At least the kids could visit him there, but apparently they weren't doing much on getting him out of bed - his doctor told me he was sending therapists away, saying he was too tired. He's also not eating much, because he says everything tastes like cardboard (I make him eat a few more bites if I'm there when he has a meal, but I'm not always). The fourth or fifth day he was there, John's mom and grandmother visited him for a bit, then stopped by our house and told us he was incoherent. We went over later, and while I wouldn't call it incoherent, he was more out of it than usual - whether it was some combination of drugs he'd been given or we just woke him up, I don't know. After a week, someone ordered a chest x-ray and found he still had some fluid in his lungs; so he went to the emergency room at the hospital about a block away - different place than where he had the surgery. They admitted him and gave him a test for whether he's swallowing properly, or for some sort of leakage from his chest cavity - but I don't think they found anything physically wrong. His doctor said it could even be post-nasal drip going down the wrong way when he's sleeping, because of his general weakness. His kidneys have lost some function as well, although they had stopped using a catheter. He had a course of IV antibiotics, and the pneumonia improved enough for him to be sent last night to a "step-down" hospital - the same one he'd been in before after his gall bladder surgery a couple of years ago. Kind of a notch above a convalescent place, for people who need less care than a surgical hospital but more than a rehab place. The set-up is more like a regular hospital but they don't do any surgery or have an emergency room.
I've talked to his primary care Dr. and he says it's slow, but he is continuing to improve, however, he was being a bit of a bed potato. Part of the reason he was moved is that the staff in these places will make him do what he needs to do (like move around and EAT), where the convalescent place wasn't pushing him to. He spent a week there, and improved enough to be sent back to the rehab place. I think he's finally seeing that the end may be in sight, and he seems a bit more motivated now. During one mealtime I spent with him, he ate a whole half a turkey sandwich and a fruit cup with a cup of tea, which doesn't sound like much but it's more than I've seen him eat in one sitting since before the surgery. He told me he was actually craving some shrimp, so the next time Doug came down, he stopped by the Crab Cooker in Tustin and got a couple of skewers for him, as well as some Manhattan clam chowder - he ate about half of them and a small cup of the soup, and thought it actually tasted good. So things are improving there.
This morning he called and told us they wanted to give him a shower (also, probably the first he's had since before the surgery), and asked us to bring over some clean clothes (warm!), to put on afterward, as this place allows you to wear something besides a hospital gown.
He's also finally expressed a bit more interest in reading - so far, he hasn't wanted to, but did like it when Doug and I read short stories to him. My brothers and I had talked about going in together on a Kindle for him since he's been complaining that books, especially hardbacks, just start getting too heavy to hold up and start hurting his hands. I decided to go with a Kindle rather than a Nook because of its text-to-speech feature. If he gets tired of holding it, it can read to him. We got our tax refund recently, so I went to Staples at lunch yesterday and grabbed one for him. This is actually a really nifty gadget! Does all kinds of things besides e books! If he decides he doesn't like it, I'll keep it myself. Man, the accessories are where they get ya, though. It doesn't have a backlight, so if you want to read where it's dim, you need a light for it and also a cover to keep it from getting wrecked. It was about the same price for all of them separately or a nice leather cover with an integrated light that actually runs off the Kindle battery ($60). And I suckered for the extended warranty, too. John always tells me they're not worth it, but we're hard on batteries and we're hard on gadgets.
I played around last night, looking for some free James Fenimore Cooper to put on it for him, and also found I could forward Word and PDF documents to it, so I tested that out with the thresher sampling plan proposal I need to make comments on. Pretty cool!
Apropos maybe: Seven Ways Electronic Books Can Make Us Better Readers. by the CEO of Levenger (I like to drool over their pens). I seem to be what he calls a preservationist - but I don't write in my books so much because I can't bear them being marked up, but more because when I'm reading, I'm in an absorbent mode. I might think of questions or notes later, but not usually during.
Dad has moved a few times since I last posted about him. He spent a rather frustrating week in a convalescent/rehab home, which had been recently renovated but was still rather cramped. At least the kids could visit him there, but apparently they weren't doing much on getting him out of bed - his doctor told me he was sending therapists away, saying he was too tired. He's also not eating much, because he says everything tastes like cardboard (I make him eat a few more bites if I'm there when he has a meal, but I'm not always). The fourth or fifth day he was there, John's mom and grandmother visited him for a bit, then stopped by our house and told us he was incoherent. We went over later, and while I wouldn't call it incoherent, he was more out of it than usual - whether it was some combination of drugs he'd been given or we just woke him up, I don't know. After a week, someone ordered a chest x-ray and found he still had some fluid in his lungs; so he went to the emergency room at the hospital about a block away - different place than where he had the surgery. They admitted him and gave him a test for whether he's swallowing properly, or for some sort of leakage from his chest cavity - but I don't think they found anything physically wrong. His doctor said it could even be post-nasal drip going down the wrong way when he's sleeping, because of his general weakness. His kidneys have lost some function as well, although they had stopped using a catheter. He had a course of IV antibiotics, and the pneumonia improved enough for him to be sent last night to a "step-down" hospital - the same one he'd been in before after his gall bladder surgery a couple of years ago. Kind of a notch above a convalescent place, for people who need less care than a surgical hospital but more than a rehab place. The set-up is more like a regular hospital but they don't do any surgery or have an emergency room.
I've talked to his primary care Dr. and he says it's slow, but he is continuing to improve, however, he was being a bit of a bed potato. Part of the reason he was moved is that the staff in these places will make him do what he needs to do (like move around and EAT), where the convalescent place wasn't pushing him to. He spent a week there, and improved enough to be sent back to the rehab place. I think he's finally seeing that the end may be in sight, and he seems a bit more motivated now. During one mealtime I spent with him, he ate a whole half a turkey sandwich and a fruit cup with a cup of tea, which doesn't sound like much but it's more than I've seen him eat in one sitting since before the surgery. He told me he was actually craving some shrimp, so the next time Doug came down, he stopped by the Crab Cooker in Tustin and got a couple of skewers for him, as well as some Manhattan clam chowder - he ate about half of them and a small cup of the soup, and thought it actually tasted good. So things are improving there.
This morning he called and told us they wanted to give him a shower (also, probably the first he's had since before the surgery), and asked us to bring over some clean clothes (warm!), to put on afterward, as this place allows you to wear something besides a hospital gown.
He's also finally expressed a bit more interest in reading - so far, he hasn't wanted to, but did like it when Doug and I read short stories to him. My brothers and I had talked about going in together on a Kindle for him since he's been complaining that books, especially hardbacks, just start getting too heavy to hold up and start hurting his hands. I decided to go with a Kindle rather than a Nook because of its text-to-speech feature. If he gets tired of holding it, it can read to him. We got our tax refund recently, so I went to Staples at lunch yesterday and grabbed one for him. This is actually a really nifty gadget! Does all kinds of things besides e books! If he decides he doesn't like it, I'll keep it myself. Man, the accessories are where they get ya, though. It doesn't have a backlight, so if you want to read where it's dim, you need a light for it and also a cover to keep it from getting wrecked. It was about the same price for all of them separately or a nice leather cover with an integrated light that actually runs off the Kindle battery ($60). And I suckered for the extended warranty, too. John always tells me they're not worth it, but we're hard on batteries and we're hard on gadgets.
I played around last night, looking for some free James Fenimore Cooper to put on it for him, and also found I could forward Word and PDF documents to it, so I tested that out with the thresher sampling plan proposal I need to make comments on. Pretty cool!
Apropos maybe: Seven Ways Electronic Books Can Make Us Better Readers. by the CEO of Levenger (I like to drool over their pens). I seem to be what he calls a preservationist - but I don't write in my books so much because I can't bear them being marked up, but more because when I'm reading, I'm in an absorbent mode. I might think of questions or notes later, but not usually during.