We
did manage to have a little fun the other day from Mom’s room. Ah, Mom’s room. She was supposed to be admitted to the tenth
floor, which is the A.C.E. unit – Accelerated Care for the Elderly. The rooms on that floor are beautiful. And quite large. Each one has a separate living area with a
couch. Quite impressive. Yep.
That’s where she was supposed to be.
Unfortunately all those rooms were occupied when it came time to move
her out of ICU. ”The Closet,” as we
affectionately call the tiny room on the ninth floor (so close, yet so far away. Sigh)
she has been living in since leaving ICU, is so small that the sleeper chair is
just about the only thing that fits other than the bed. There is another chair in there, but it is
supposed to be used as a desk chair for the tiny little cubicle space by the
door. Oh, I can’t forget the nifty
little folding chair they have hanging on the wall beneath the sign that
encourages patients to invite their doctors to have a seat and talk a
while. Cute little thing. Nowhere does it fit into the realm of being
remotely comfortable, but it is … cute. The
room does have one window, though, and it has an interesting view. It faces roughly east, so you can see
directly onto the top of the parking garage as well as the ground entrance and
exit of said garage. Onto the story …
Kel
and his family all came to visit MeeMaw.
They texted that they were almost to the hospital, so I was standing
watch at the window. I spotted their car
as they entered and alerted Chris. I
continued my stakeout on the chance that they would continue on and park on the
roof. Sure enough, they pulled just into
my view. Micah’s choice. Nice job, Micah. My inside man on this operation. As they got out of the car I started texting
Kel:
“I
see you.”He looked around, then responded, “Creeper.”
Boys
will be boys, and I noticed Jachin leading the younger ones over to the wall to
peer over the edge. “Jachin! Get away from that ledge”
I’m
sure they appreciated my grandfatherly concern.
At that point Kel went back to their car. “What did you forget?”
They
had stopped at Sonic and had Chris a cherry limeade slush from happy hour
drinks afternoon. He replied, “Mom’s
straw.”
As
they made their way toward the hospital we were interrupted by someone from the
transportation department. He was there
to pick up Mom for an ultrasound of her carotid artery, a test they ordered
back in the ER or ICU that they never got around to performing. Hastily I texted Kel, “Pause in the lobby,”
and turned to the issue at hand.
I
told Chris they were on their way into the hospital, so she asked how long the
test was supposed to take. The
transportation guy said, “Only takes about ten or fifteen minutes.” Never listen to the transportation guy.
As
they continued loading Mom onto the stretcher I checked my phone. There was another one from Kel: “Feel like I’m
in a spy movie. Trying to lose my tail,
track the bad guy, rescue the hostage.”
As
fun as this was, I decided to let them off the hook. Chris stayed with Mom, and I went downstairs
and met them in the lobby. They came on
up and saw the Closet, er, Mom's room. Nurse Erin came
in and said the test would be at least another 30-45 minutes, so they went on
to the library.
While
they were gone I got some more news. The
docs decided not to do a pic line after all.
New research says the antibiotic she is on, levoquin, can be taken as a
pill with the same effect. She had one
last levoquin IV, then pills. She also
has to have one dose of potassium IV, though.
The problem with that is that it burns when it is administered. Erin set it up to drip very slowly though to
avoid as much pain as possible. It will
probably take all night to finish.
Then
the social worker came by to tell us that Mom was officially accepted into the
Meridian under the 20 day Medicare window for rehab. They wanted the weekend to accumulate her
medications and complete all the paperwork, though. The transfer will take place Monday. We should be hearing from a Meridian
representative next.
They
all came back at about the same time, and the “smile warmly” moment of the day
came when Josiah crawled up onto the bed next to Mom and gently stroked her
arm. When she spoke to him, he got very
excited and animatedly proclaimed, “MeeMaw talked.” Leave to a three year old to rejoice in even
the smallest of gifts from God.
Matthew
11:29-30 says, “Take my yoke upon you and
learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Father, thank you for teaching us about gentleness and unrestrained joy through the mouth and actions of a three year old. Amen.
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