My mother in law's back in the hospital

[chrisinhouston]

Well just an update. Looks like my MinLaw will come home tomorrow. My wife got back from LA last Friday and we went over and visited mom on the way home and agreed she is ready to leave the "skilled nursing" center. Don't know what that term defines. It's basically like a nursing home where she gets some PT and OT each day, 3 meals served and assistance if needed.

When she arrived she couldn't get out of bed, in or out of a wheel chair or on or off of the toilet. Now she is classified as a minimum assist meaning she can get around pretty well. She still needs some help dressing and undressing, basically she wears these one piece floral print, the style is what is known as a muumuu. Because she never got the PT for her new shoulder that was put in last December due to this bout in the hospital and the gall bladder surgery her right arm is pretty useless and is always in a sling. Makes it harder for her to get up and down or to walk using a walker where one needs both arms.

Anyway, she is getting grumpy, a sure sign she is feeling better. She told me last week she hates physical therapy and isn't paying another nickle for it! She forgets that this whole thing is covered by Medicare. And the kitchen does their best but the food generally sucks. The food is always too salty and high in fat and usually meat based. I guess if you are a vegetarian or vegan you are hosed if you go into this stage of life. She absolutely hates poultry, always has and can't stand the sight or smell of it. So we told everyone when we registered her and they all say they know but since chicken or turkey are big menu items for hospitals and nursing homes they still bring it to her every few days only to have it sent back. Also she doesn't really like breakfast in general but will eat a pancake or waffle for the most part and doesn't really like their nasty scrambled eggs but every few days they send her a big plate of eggs. Mostly the dinner and lunch choices are meat loaf of any kind of over cooked meat, usually minced up or chopped up because I guess most of the folks don't have their teeth. Lots of mashed potatoes and gravy and soggy vegetables.

Speaking of teeth she only has 5 of her own left and wears an upper denture. She didn't have it when she got there as she was so sick in the hospital and on a liquid diet. So I brought her the denture I found in her apartment bathroom. She kept trying to fit it in but it would not work. Turns out it was the wrong one... like a denture from 10 years ago before she had some other teeth pulled so there is no way it would fit. "Now why would you keep an old denture" I asked her. "I paid a lot of money for it" she replied.

Besides the quality of the food the only other thing that bothers my wife is that 2 times when she came to see her mom she was lying on the bed with no sheets, just lying on the plastic covered mattress with a light blanket over her. She said she wet her self and the nurse changed her and stripped the bed but never came back. So my wife found a nurse and asked for some sheets another blanket and the bed comforter and the nurse was so confused and had to go unlock the linen room to get one and didn't bother to come make the bed, she just handed it to my wife. When we mentioned it the next day to the case worker (some kind of social worker) said that she must have gotten up and stripped her own bed as they would NEVER let a patient just lie there. This is the same woman that can only just now even get up on her own.

So Friday we told them we want to start the ball rolling to take her home this week. My wife is worried she will start getting depressed (she has some issues with depression) and loose hope and we think she will do better back in her own apartment with her little dog and cooking what she likes to eat. We met with the head of nursing and she read over the nurses notes and was pretty cool with our idea to leave. Then she called the head of therapy and she had a totally different attitude and couldn't believe we were taking her so soon and that she felt they could do so much more for her. She finally said they would need to do some assessments and that if all went well she can leave on Tuesday but she was kind of patronizing and we didn't really like her. I got the feeling she was also looking at the bottom line and that her leaving meant less money from Medicare.

We then met with the social worker and the lady in the business office and they were surprised we were planning to take her home but ok with it and had us sign some papers to be submitted to Medicare. We told mom what was going on and she seemed happier knowing her time there was limited to a few more days only.

My wife keeps telling me if she ever gets like this to just shoot her or push her out in the cold and leave her there to die. I keep reminding her that I plan to be long gone before she gets to that stage of life!

[glatt]

I'm glad she's getting out of rehab. I hope she has a better quality of life now.

I'm surprised they haven't pushed a visiting home rehab person on you yet. My FIL got that pushed on him. It's all paid for, but he wanted none of it.

[chrisinhouston]

Well we finally got her home on Tuesday. Last Friday we had told the nursing center we would get her at 10AM on Tuesday which was fine with them and also let the senior's apartment complex know she would be coming back and to please make sure they cleaned her apartment as we noticed not much was touched in the 6 weeks she was gone. We also asked once again for the bug man to treat for roaches. They told us it would all be taken care of in time.

So we stopped by on Tuesday at 9AM to drop off some things at her apartment and found everything had been removed from the kitchen cabinets and drawers for the bug man and no one had run a mop or vacuumed! My wife went to the main office and tore someone a new hole in their rear end and in 2 minutes we had the head of housekeeping and the director of the whole place there assuring us it would all be done quickly but they needed her to stay away until 1PM for the bug stuff to not be an issue for her or her dog. Not happy but we agreed and went to get her. Took her to our house where she had lunch and slept on our couch. Picked up her dog from the kennel, just under $1000 for 43 days boarding! Wonder if we can submit that claim to Medicare?

Finally loaded her and the dog in the car and took her home. She started crying when she entered saying she forgot all the things she had in the apartment! I said we should have cleared a bunch of it out and moved her into a smaller one if we had known she would forget. You don't understand but every square inch of her floor, walls, closets etc is covered and packed with stuff.

She seems to be doing pretty well so far. She is cooking a bit again and takes her dog out for walks while driving her electric wheel chair. Only time will tell, she turns 88 next month. I guess she is doing better than a lot of folks her age.