THE UP AND DOWN ALL OF IT, I HOPE (Part 1)

 Early morning or late at night? May 12, 2024

I realized a few moments ago that this would be Janet’s last Mother’s Day. That felt noteworthy to me. 

Then again, given my current waves of grief and sorrow, I think anything would set me off. Hard to really celebrate with her, given that she is hospitalized again. And pretty unlikely that she will ever live at her house again, even if there is occasion to visit from the skilled nursing facility where she will likely spend her last days.

I know, I know. There is a lot to catch up on. Notwithstanding the sweet pleas to take up my blog again, it has been most challenging to find the mental bandwidth or the time to do so. Until these last couple of days, I had scarcely streamed anything, save for watching Jeopardy. 

To summarize, although I reserve the right to flashback, in early November, Janet stepped out of a car and broke her hip. Yes, that quite a scene with her screaming (and I do mean screaming) in pain. She was being dropped off after Senior Center dominoes by her friends Eric and Diane. I was at the kitchen sink when I heard the car drive up. I wiped my hands and headed to the door to help her to the house as Diane was bringing in her purse and water bottle. I looked out the dining room front window as Diane was walking back the the car. In that less than 15 second interval, she stood up and then was on the ground.

Not one of the three of us, or four if you count Janet, really knows what happened. Where she stepped out of the car onto the driveway was not an even surface, and I suspect she took the wrong step and snapped her hip. Eric couldn’t help her as he has a bad back (turns out he had cancer), so it was up to me and Diane to get her up and wrestle her into my inadequate Honda Fit. I knew she wasn’t dying and I also knew how horrible it is to be jostled in a fucking ambulance, so I opted to drive her there myself. 

Knowing that it would be a long time in the ER, I ran back into the house to get some supplies to sustain me during the wait. Janet was relatively comfortable if she didn’t move. Once at ER, I went to check her in and ask for a gurney and a couple of EMTs to get her inside. Of course, they ignored me, sent one guy and a wheelchair out to the Honda to accommodate her. Uh, no. Screams filled the Whittier air. 

After a small team of EMTs got her onto the gurney they got her into a room relatively quickly, as I recall. I don’t think it took too long … only a couple of hours, before they admitted her. Her 96 year old femur was broken. She was operated on the next day and came through the surgery none the worse for the wear. I was more worried about the anesthesia than anything, but it did not significantly affect her.

Here’s where things go off the tracks for me. While she was still in the regular hospital, which was for about two weeks, she was up and walking with a walker. By the time she was transferred to the temporary care unit, she was walking, with a walker, probably 130 feet. In the temporary care unit (TCU), she didn’t make as much progress as the first week or two has portended, but, as I understand it, recovery is not a straightforward trajectory. After her insurance ran out for TCU, she was transferred to what I came to understand was a hell hole. A skilled nursing facility. Or as I came to think of it, the decaying meat locker. Without getting myself further upset at this hour, in the current situation, and after two gins-and-tonics, I found out firsthand how shamefully, how disgracefully, how tragically the “health care system” in this country truly is. 

What strikes me the most is how purposefully they obfuscate the process. I don’t know about all of you, but I didn’t know much about nursing homes. I didn’t know “the rules,” didn’t know what to expect, didn’t know how to help or ameliorate anything. For instance, no one discussed with or handed me some basic do’s and don’t’s about laundry. Consequently, my mother lost many items because they just wash everything unless you harass them, and things get lost if they don’t have name tags in them. I mean, my mom’s in a skilled nursing facility, is laundry the first thing I think of? A simple guide or introduction to settling in, a one page document, would have been a huge help.

Of course, when I spoke to the head of the nursing department, I was lied to and told that this was an oversight and they would get such a document or a documents to me. Later I was told by someone further down the food chain, that no such thing existed. No rules or procedures for checking someone out for doctor’s appointments. Forfend that they would be organized so. More screed on this later.

Even when Janet had seen her regular doctor who prescribed more pain medication, they ignored what I told them rather than following up in any way. Given that Janet is riven by arthritic pain, particularly in her shoulders, pain meds were critical to her ability to do physical therapy. So, when she was in too much pain for PT, they just let her lay around. Hello atrophy. 

Janet and I have a precarious financial situation which is likely no news to any of you. Should Janet be a “permanent resident”, all of her assets (such as they are) go to the money, blood, and soul sucking facility. That leaves me without a place to live as there is nothing I could afford nearby. 

Things looked extremely grim, based on the facility’s assessment that she could not be at home. Then I brought her home myself, just to see how she moved around. It was tough at first getting her in and out of the car, particularly into a wheelchair, but as the day moved on, she was more able to move around. She didn’t need as much help getting in and out of the car. When I took her back to the hell hole, I went in to get a wheelchair, and when I got back, she had gotten herself out of the car and was standing there waiting for me. If she can move around at all on her own, she can be home.

Okay, I’m stopping here. Hope to continue the saga in the not-too-distant future, but who the fuck knows.