The chaos is starting to wear on me. There are too many people involved in Freddie’s care and it’s hard to keep track of them all. There’s the attending physician, whom I have not met. He makes rounds in the morning before I can get there. There’s the maxillofacial surgeon, whom I have met, and he has been the most informative of them all. Then there’s the dental surgeon and at least two others that I can’t remember now. We’ve had 5 different nurses since we’ve been on the neuro floor, but the nurse assistant has been a lovely constant. I don’t know if she takes days off, but she has been there every single day and I love her.
Then we have the physical therapist. And the other physical therapist and the physician assistant and the occupational therapist and the speech therapist and the social worker and the home health care nurse coordinator and and and and and. It’s a lot, and nobody has all the answers or even some of them, sometimes.
Today, we started the plan to move Freddie to inpatient rehab. That’s nowhere near what he wants but this is going to be the fastest way to get him home. He does very well with the physical therapist, but she can only spend a half-hour or so with him every day and he needs more than that. So that’s-a what we’re-a gonna do. IF WE CAN GET THE INSURANCE COMPANY TO CALL US BACK, that is. Those assholes need to sign off on all this shit and they are taking their sweet fucking time about it. Our social worker is excellent and she is going to be up their nose all morning tomorrow until they give us the green light.
And then we’ll see how it goes from there.
The thing that is stressing me out right now are his mood swings. I know he’s in pain and that sucks but sometimes it feels like he just doesn’t care anymore. Even four days ago, he was planning and plotting ways to get out of the hospital and now he’s like, “eh. Whatever.” THIS TROUBLES ME. There’s a fine line between “FINE I GUESS” and “eh, whatever.” Once is acceptance (albeit reluctantly) and the other is teetering awfully close to “I give up.”
We are not doing that in this organization. Of all the things we do, GIVING UP is not one of them. We change our minds, we change course, we step back, we wait, we plot, we plan, we bulldoze our way through, and we eliminate anyone or anything that dares get in the way of where we want to go, but WE DO NOT GIVE UP.
So I got a tad yelly today. Any other woman would add “…which is unlike me” but me yelling at someone is pretty much my default way of being and this patient and calm version of me is a fucking impostor. Whoops! Backwards Girl strikes again! So I got a little mad at him today and accused him of not putting forth any effort and not pulling his weight in this endeavor. Sure, he’s hurt and that is an issue but COME ON, MAN. I ended with “I will literally DRAG YOU back to health if I have to.” Because I will. Someone in this partnership has to be the asshole and that gets to be me. I’m very, very, VERY good at it.
I did offer to let him read his work email if he cooperates, but THIS IS A TOTAL LIE. I do not intend to do any such thing, at least until he is close to being discharged from rehab, and maybe not even then. I will have to liaise with the Work People (hi, Work People) and hammer out a plan but for right now, his job is to GET BETTER and my job is to YELL AT HIM WHILE HE DOES IT.
Twenty years married, you guys. We have a real good time.
We did have some fun today. Roommate #3 arrived last night after I had gone home for the day. I’m not sure what his deal was (Roommate #1 was Racist Shouty Psorasis Gross Man and Roommate #2 was “My legs suddenly decided not to work for a minute” nice older man) but he brought the drama which made for a fun afternoon.
Right around lunchtime, there seemed to be a huddle outside our room. There was a Fancy Hospital Administration Lady and a dude with a chef hat because it’s 2020, and if you want to wear a chef hat around, go ahead and do that. There are no rules anymore. Turns out he was the hospital’s executive chef, which I’m sure is a very weird job.
It took me a minute to tune into what was happening over there because: a) I don’t really care; b) it’s rude to eavesdrop; and c) I am a Cute Deaf Lady and my eavesdropping has been severely curtailed by widespread mask usage because I can’t read anyone’s lips from across the room anymore. That was one of my chief hobbies and it is denied me. ANYWAY, this confab went on long enough that I started to pay attention. Apparently Neighbor Grandpa had mushroom soup for lunch and found something in it. I’m thinking it was a piece of plastic or something like that but it turns out it was a piece of mulch-looking wood. He was BIG MAD, which is understandable, and he did some high-pitched hoarse old man yelling that I didn’t hear a lot of but from context clues, it was along the lines of “what’s wrong with you people, why did you do this, I’ll sue, are you trying to kill me,” etc. The apologies were coming fast and thick from Fancy Administration Lady and Chef Hospital and I felt so bad for them because sometimes shit happens, you know? The number of meals that kitchen cranks out in a day is unfathomable and they can’t all be Michelin-star level. Plus, it’s mushroom soup! Mushrooms grow quite happily in mulch!
Eventually, they did enough bowing and scraping that they were able to leave and by then I was in need of snackies so I headed out of the room. On the way out the door, Grandpa Neighbor stopped me with “how’s he doing over there?” Aw, how nice. How… oh please don’t, I’m not really in the mood for small talk but oh my god I am, at heart, a nice girl so I said “he’s doing much better! What was going on over here?” He launched into his little story and showed me the piece of wood he found in his soup and yeah, it was a whole-ass piece of mulch. I said “aw, you have a souvenir!” and then I beat a hasty retreat, laughing like a loon all the way down the hall.
I am trying VERY hard to get someone to think that maybe I have escaped from the locked ward and then they’ll escort me over there and I can get some fun drugs and relax for a minute. So far, no dice. They all seem to think I work there – the Starbucks keeps giving me the employee discount, which is awesome.
When I returned from the Starbucks, the patient advocate had arrived and Grandpa Neighbor was unloading on her. Since her job is literally to stand there and listen, she performed admirably while Freddie and I traded eyerolls over the whole thing. You take your entertainment where you can, man.