Discharged

Sounds so simple.  Getting discharged from the hospital.  But it is incredibly complicated.

At 10, Ned dropped me off at Kaiser's Building A where my post-op appointment was.  It went very well and I'm about 60% healed.  Just keep doing what I've been doing and return in a month.

I went over to Building B, where the hospital is, and went to Walt's room.  When I got there, there was a psychiatrist talking about the mental changes we have seen in Walt since the start of the urinary tract infection.  He gave us an information sheet on this kind of dementia and it was very encouraging.

After the psychiatrist left, a psychiatric aid came in to give him a mental status exam.

 

He did very well and there were no serious signs.  Then someone from Orthopedics came to test his strength and clear him for discharge;

 

By now it was time for lunch and Ned went to the cafeteria to get food for him and me, while Walt enjoyed his chicken salad sandwich.

 

A guy came in to change his catheter bag so he could be ready to go home.  It was now getting close to 3 p.m.  Surely we would be out of there soon.

 

The doctor came in with an in depth report on the MRI.  They found he has had a small stroke, but they can't tell if it was this week or sometime within the past six or so months.  But it's small (she stressed) and should gradually resolve.

 

NOW surely we were ready to leave but it was another 2 hours.  The discharge person came in to see what needed to be done.  It was now 5 p.m.

 

I'm not going to describe what happened next, but suffice to say it was not Kaiser's finest hour and probably not Ned's, though in fairness he was so fed up with the inefficiency we had been dealing with all week that he was at the breaking point when they wanted us to watch a video, at about Brianna's level, about catheters--which Walt has been wearing for months.

 

Ultimately someone did come in to get Walt dressed, though she didn't seem to know how to cope with a catheter, and Walt was put in a wheelchair and we headed off to the car and home.

 

Our plan had been to come home and have a nice welcome home Chinese dinner, but by the time we got here, it was too late to order Chinese food.  Walt finished the chicken soup our friend Jessica had made for us, Ned fixed himself some pasta and I had yogurt.

It may be a rocky night tonight, but best of all is that he is home and we don't have to deal with Kaiser again until...uh...Thursday, when he has his next doctor appointment!