HOSPITAL / June 4th & 5th: The next two days were consumed with getting the house ready and making sure Kathy was ready for her return trip home. Her feeding rate was gradually increased from 25 ml/hour to 35 ml/hr until she was doing fine with 55 ml/hr. At the same time the nurses were training me to administer her meds through the tube. They have to be crushed into fine powder and mixed with water; sucked into a big syringe and squirted into her feeding tube. It sounds complicated but compared with trying to get her to swallow her meds the old way it was safer. Physical therapy came in to work on her. They got her to sit on the edge of the bed for a while. I mentioned to them that the bed she was in had a “chair” button that was supposed to convert the bed into a huge easy chair. A steady stream of nurses and staff came in to try and fail to make the chair button work. I said would it be just as easy to have her sit in a chair. They said they would have to arrange for movement specialists to move her. I looked perplexed. They said it is “two huge men. That’s all they do. Pick ’em up. Put ’em down.”
Meanwhile back in Hampden, Mary and Trisha helped arrange for the delivery of the hospital bed and the Hoyer lift from Agawam Medical. I didn’t know whether the lift had been approved yet, so it was great getting everything at once. Apparently there were no problems. A guy brought in all the pieces and assembled them right there. Then he demonstrated the basics of how they work. The bed came with the air mattress, which doesn’t look particularly comfortable but it does help avoid bed sores.
For whatever reason, Dr. Irani was no longer Kathy’s doctor. He was replaced by Dr. Kampe . She had a completely different personality. She was nice but there was a bit of a language barrier at times. The first thing she said was that Kathy could go to a rehab facility for about five days before she goes home to build up her strength. I started to think that might be a good idea. I figured I could get a little more training too. I decided to make an appointment with Dr. Lyons, my doctor because I needed to renew a prescription and Trisha was there to be with Kathy. In the evening Mary left for Florida. I could see that Mary felt like she was saying goodbye to her oldest sister for the last time. I told her that there’s still a chance that she would see her again. Trisha took her to the airport. They spent the night at a motel near the airport so Mary could get her early morning flight.