You can count on me to mess it up,
You can count on me to let you down again,
And in time you'll see that I'm your only friend.
But I don't want y'all to think I'm feeling down on myself at this very moment, hence this wordy over-explanation.
Remember that one time about a year and a half ago when I was blogging from my parents' house because I was staying with my mom because my dad was staying at a skilled nursing facility temporarily for short-term rehab after having been hospitalized for generalized weakness? Deja vu! That is exactly where I am right now, and for the same reason! I was hoping to not make a habit out of that, but at least this time my mom isn't also recovering from emergency hip surgery, so that's a huge bonus.
The short-story-long version is that in late May, my Dad spent a few days inpatient at a local hospital for exacerbation of CHF. He was basically refusing to get out of his recliner so my mom eventually ended up calling the paramedics to transport him to the local hospital for evaluation. They ended up putting him on IV lasix and getting about 10 pounds of fluid off of him before deciding he should go to transitional care for rehab before going home. I'm leaving a lot out on purpose. My mom begrudgingly agreed. He hadn't been getting around so well lately, prolly on account of all the fluid in his legs and feet making it hard to move. (Again, I'm leaving a lot out. They're in the process of getting home health care set up but the people who have been coming out to see him don't really know his baseline yet, so, IDK. Bad timing I guess. IDFK. I can see both sides of this argument so I'm going to stop myself right here.) So for the last 2 weeks he's been at a...a...a nursing home. Not the VA one where he was last time; this one is actually closer to home, and it's about a 6 minute drive from my office. How handy!
And, we're not in the midst of a pandemic, and my mom is completely ambulatory and mobile, and there isn't a COVID outbreak at said facility -- so unlike last time, we can actually go and visit him all we want. Unlike last time when we had to go a whole month without even seeing him, and I was sure that was going to be the death of both of my parents.
Not that this has been what I would call "easy". If what we went through before was an 80 on a scale of 1-100, with 1 being the easiest and 100 being the hardest, this time is a solid 55 on a good day, and 65 on a bad day. The worst part was when my mom realized that "TCU" and "short-term rehab facility" were just synonyms for "nursing home". The second worst part was me seeing my dad in a nursing home. I still haven't cried about it yet, but I'm going to, one day soon. I used to cry about it, when I was a CNA working in a nursing home, taking care of people just like what my dad is like now, praying to God that my parents would never, ever, ever be in that situation. Because, while I knew I was a caring, kind, respectful, empathetic CNA who treated people with dignity and compassion and talked to them like they were people and not just "work to get done", I worked with so many others who weren't like that, and it broke my heart.
But I digress, for now. In case I haven't mentioned it yet, my dad has dementia. So he doesn't make his needs known very well. He's slow to answer and people get impatient and frustrated with that. He doesn't understand what's going on or why. My mom has anxiety and doesn't do well being away from my dad, nor does she really understand a lot of the things....well, a lot of the things that I understand. IDK how else to say it.
And I have to get back to work for a second. TTYL.
