Another Day at Kaiser

Walt is still at Kaiser.  I have had to skip a couple of days visiting him, one because I had a show to review, another because his brother and sister-in-law were going to be visiting and I had not seen my mother in such a long time, I felt I should go to Atria.

I need not have bothered.  She had no idea she hadn't seen me in weeks (we were there twice when she couldn't wake up, so we saw HER, but she didn't see US).  When she asked what I'd been doing I told her I had cancer surgery and Walt was in the hospital.  She said "and what else have you been doing?"  I showed her the photo of the big bandage on my nose and she told me it was "cute."  Sigh.

I spent this morning writing the first of my 3 reviews from the weekend while Ned did a lot of cleaning.

We drove to Kaiser and spent about 5 hours there, just being with Walt so he didn't have to be alone.  We didn't do a lot of "visiting" since neither Walt nor I do much chit chatting, but Walt's brother was there and he and Ned, the two talkers, visited a lot.  I read my book.  Walt looked in the direction of the TV (turned off).

Walt's lunch was served so Ned and Norm went off to the cafeteria and brought lunch back for the three of us.

 

A doctor came in and said she was thinking of sending him home today, but he is still having some memory lapses and she wanted to run an MRI.  Ned and I told her that bringing him home tomorrow would be perfect because I have my post-op appointment in Dermatology in the next building over from the hospital, at 10:30 and we could all come home together after that, if all goes well.

In the middle of the afternoon, Norm decided to go home when they bundled Walt up and took him off for his MRI.  Ned went with his dad in case he needed questions re-interpreted for him..

 

Someone said he looked like a middle eastern potentate.

Ned and I left around 5 p.m. and when we got home, Ned tore through the house finishing up the clean up he'd been doing in the morning.  Walt wants the bathrooms to be extra clean to avoid a return of the infection he's been fighting, and Ned has done deep cleaning on both the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms and they are more or less pristine (or as "pristine" as anything gets done around here!)  I'm almost afraid to use the bathroom and soil it!

Ned went home, the two of us ready to de-stress before our next trip to Kaiser.  Ned was looking forward to a steam bath early in the morning before he picks me up; I baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies!  Ironically, I saw a bit on "anxiety baking" on Colbert which I thought very funny...and very understandable!

You come home from Kaiser and check in to see what the Manchurian Cantaloupe is up to today (I can't take credit for the nickname; it came from my friend David) and I was ready to bake something.  Anything.

This is perhaps my last opportunity to sleep without watching golf all night, for several weeks, so I will have to make the most of it!

Polly is Happy

Ever since Polly adopted Walt as her "person," she has decided that his chair is her special place.  For a long time, she would rest there in his lap for hours on end, tummy up so he could pet her.  Way back in June, or whenever it was that he first got a catheter, it bothered him to have her in his lap because it moved the catheter, so he would make sure she didn't climb into the chair with him.

She was not happy with this arrangement and often stood by the chair whining and as soon as he got up, she'd jump into the chair again, and as soon as he came back, he would order her down.  This has been going on for weeks now, the struggle over who was the boss of the chair.

Last night, Polly won the battle.

 

The emergency room called in mid-afternoon to say that Walt's blood work had shown more infection and that he needed to come in right away. Ned decided I should stay at home and off he went with his Dad.

Walt had been more confused than usual during the afternoon and we were both glad that he would be somewhere with professionals to watch over him, possibly on stronger antibiotics.

I don't remember when it was that Ned called finally but they had been in the waiting room for 2 hours and had finally gotten to an ER exam room, where they were for another few hours, repeating all the tests they had done the night before.

The bottom line was that the doctors felt he should be admitted to the hospital for 1-3 days to see if they could get this infection under control.  I was, all things considered, relieved.  His behavior has been kind of weird and we knew there was something going on and it made me feel better to have him in the hospital.  When Ned called they didn't know if they would be able to find him a bed or if he would have to spend the night in the ER.  Ned was going to stay until he knew where his Dad would be spending the night.  He called an hour or so later to let me know that they found him a room and that he would help to move Walt up before coming home.  He got home at 2 a.m. 

But Walt was in a room and settled, and that was a good thing.

This morning Ned and I got out of here as early as possible to spend the day at Kaiser.  We found Walt sitting up in his room and looking downright perky.

 

It's obvious that he's not ready to come home yet, but it was good to see him looking alert and interested in what was going on around him.  We stayed until around 3 and then Ned brought me home to get ready to go and review a show tonight.

I'm hoping the antibiotics will kick in soon and that he can be home by the weekend.  Polly is not as hopeful about that.