Despite everything that's going on, we still have to eat. I had planned on making oven BBQ'd ribs Saturday but then all that hospital stuff happened. Now, I didn't want those ribs to go bad, so luckily Dad got tired at the hospital so we got home in time for me to make the ribs. INFINITY NOM!! I served the ribs with sweet Vidalia onions. Now, my Dad thinks that onions and garlic are chemicals but I decided to see if he'd eat the ribs w/the onion. So I told him that this is the way that Poppy eats her BBQ and that's how it's done in Texas. Not only did he like it, he asked for more onion. I think the stroke has effected his taste buds.
Pretty Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer! I can tell by her eyes, she's depressed and missing me. Poppy is doing double time and Friend-Laurie is loving her up on her way home from work. Thanks again, Laurie!!!
So another day another cluster-f__k at the hospital/doctors. Today, we took Dad to get his blood work done. The ever-inept Carson Tahoe Regional Medical Center told us that we could take Dad on Monday to his local lab (by his regular doctor) to get his blood done. So we did. We went there and they told us we needed to go to the hospital to have his blood done.
We kept on driving down I395 to the hospital. We were on our way there anyhow. We get to the hospital and Sister Kathy goes straight up to Shirley's room and I take Dad to the lab. Missy has been staying the night at the hospital and we had her coffee and breakfast. Okay, so get Dad to the lab and the gal says "It should be a long wait, you're on a 'stat'." After a 20 minutes of sitting, I'm starting to think what their definition of "stat" is. I thought stat meant "now"...at least that's the way it's portrayed on the tele. But seems you add a half-hour or so to the normal time things would take.
After we finished there, we went to see Shirley. When she was awake, she made sense. Wanted to know that Dad was eating. Then she started worrying whether we were all getting paid back for the money we've been spending. We've not been spending all that much and told her she need not worry about it. It's funny because she knows she's dying but she can't let go of the day to day routines.
Dr. Rau came in for another visit. Recall, he's the only doctor in the whole place that knows what he's doing. He said he was embarrassed by the care that Shirley is getting because she should not be feeling any pain or have to ask for pain meds. So we got that all straightened out and they now have her on pretty heavy doses of morphine. Finally!
The social worker, Joan came to see us about the hospice care. Our choices were Circle of Life or St. Mary's Hospice. We chose The Circle of Life because their brochure had things like sunsets, footprints in the snow and the ocean. St. Mary's brochure just had some old looking nurse tending to some sick person...not to mention, they're the catholics and Shirley ain't no catholic. :) After some time, social-worker-Joan came in to tell us that The Circle of Life is getting very small with cutbacks and they won't serve the Minden area so we have to go with St. Mary's.
We left the hospital about 1:30 to take Dad to his doctor's appointment. Before we got in the car, the lady from St. Mary's called. We set up a call for after 5 to talk about a meeting or set up another phone call. She didn't call yet...Nice.
Got Dad to the doctors. All is looking good. We told Dr. Jones we had to get the blood work done at the hospital. He said, I don't want you to get the blood work at the hospital because they don't know what they're doing. Wonderful! Fuel for my getting all Brooklyn on those people. Dad's biggest question for Dr. Jones was "When can I have a gin and tonic." Dr. Jones said go for it! Also, not dentist appointments but he can resume his regular activity. Good news for Mr. I'm Bored.
In other news...oh look, Snowmaggedon Phase 3!! What's up with that?
Okay talk to you later!
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