Saturday, January 15
I had a nice visit with Dad today around noon. Mom is staying home, at least for today, to recover from her cold (the same one that has plagued the rest of us for the past few weeks) and avoid giving it to Dad.
While I was visiting, one of the pulmonologists came by. He hasn't seen a chest x-ray for a while, and we think that it may have been most of a week since they last did one. They've been basing his recovery on how his breathing sounds. The pulmonologist said that Dad's lungs sound great and his breathing is strong and even. He'll order an x-ray at the beginning of the week to see how things look. Because of the strength of his lungs and lack of complications since the bleeding around his trache tube last weekend, he thinks that after the stomach peg surgery tomorrow, they should be able to start weaning him from the oxygen and trache, first by cutting back his oxygen (currently at 40%, where it's been for quite a while) and then by plugging up his trache tube for progressively longer periods of time.
Dad is getting frustrated with is inability to communicate well with some of the nurses. Today's nurse seemed particularly dense, to put it bluntly. When she came in in the morning, Dad indicated with hand signals that he wasn't able to hear well and would communicate better if she put his speaking valve in place. She looked at the valve in its container, then put it down again. He again tried to get her to put it in place, so she looked at it again, said something about it needing to be changed and that she'd get someone who knows more about it to take a look. Huh? This isn't rocket science. You pick it up, put it over the tube, and that's that. So when I arrived hours later, he still hadn't gotten it in place and consequently hadn't been able to talk to the nurse about getting warm washcloths for his eyes, about his scheduled surgery for tomorrow, about needing to be changed, or anything. So I set Dad up with a series of notes, placed prominently on the box of rubber gloves, that start with "put my speaking valve on so we can communicate better." He and I came up with a number of things he regularly requests--eyedrops, warm washcloths, bed flattening, stopping the "galloping bubbles" sound from his oxygen tube, etc. Dad also requested that we move his bed to cut down on the glare from the window and to give him a view into the hall, but the bed is pretty much in the only place it CAN be in the room, so we rearranged the blinds instead. I think it's a great sign that at the moment his biggest concerns are about his comfort. He has all sorts of ideas for how to better design hospital equipment!
Emily and the kids are coming back into town tomorrow, so Dad is excited to see her and maybe the kids as well. It'll make up for Mom's absence, as it sounds like she's being hit hard with this cold.
While I was visiting, one of the pulmonologists came by. He hasn't seen a chest x-ray for a while, and we think that it may have been most of a week since they last did one. They've been basing his recovery on how his breathing sounds. The pulmonologist said that Dad's lungs sound great and his breathing is strong and even. He'll order an x-ray at the beginning of the week to see how things look. Because of the strength of his lungs and lack of complications since the bleeding around his trache tube last weekend, he thinks that after the stomach peg surgery tomorrow, they should be able to start weaning him from the oxygen and trache, first by cutting back his oxygen (currently at 40%, where it's been for quite a while) and then by plugging up his trache tube for progressively longer periods of time.
Dad is getting frustrated with is inability to communicate well with some of the nurses. Today's nurse seemed particularly dense, to put it bluntly. When she came in in the morning, Dad indicated with hand signals that he wasn't able to hear well and would communicate better if she put his speaking valve in place. She looked at the valve in its container, then put it down again. He again tried to get her to put it in place, so she looked at it again, said something about it needing to be changed and that she'd get someone who knows more about it to take a look. Huh? This isn't rocket science. You pick it up, put it over the tube, and that's that. So when I arrived hours later, he still hadn't gotten it in place and consequently hadn't been able to talk to the nurse about getting warm washcloths for his eyes, about his scheduled surgery for tomorrow, about needing to be changed, or anything. So I set Dad up with a series of notes, placed prominently on the box of rubber gloves, that start with "put my speaking valve on so we can communicate better." He and I came up with a number of things he regularly requests--eyedrops, warm washcloths, bed flattening, stopping the "galloping bubbles" sound from his oxygen tube, etc. Dad also requested that we move his bed to cut down on the glare from the window and to give him a view into the hall, but the bed is pretty much in the only place it CAN be in the room, so we rearranged the blinds instead. I think it's a great sign that at the moment his biggest concerns are about his comfort. He has all sorts of ideas for how to better design hospital equipment!
Emily and the kids are coming back into town tomorrow, so Dad is excited to see her and maybe the kids as well. It'll make up for Mom's absence, as it sounds like she's being hit hard with this cold.
posted by Sarah @ 5:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home