The skilled nursing facility is coming to our home tomorrow with my husband to assess any potential hazards to his discharge. I am removing a rug from the hallway just in case they feel that is a concern...one of the cats loves to run through the house and leave it bunched up at one end. I don't want to use double sided tape at this point because I have no plans to keep the rug long term. I have cleared all paths that I CAN. I cannot make the railings on the basement stairs accessible because the things blocking the way are too heavy for me to move AND I have no idea where I would move them to...my son says that he and his father have talked about it and they are both confident that it can be done fairly quickly...after he is home and can offer some direction. In the meantime, Mike will have to agree not to go to the basement until the stairs are made safe. After the home visit on Monday morning, the tentative plan is to discharge him on Tuesday afternoon. My son said he will help with the move...he has accumulated a lot of things in his week long stay there. He texted me at work yesterday and asked me to bring things that he wanted...they were all heavy and difficult to navigate in pouring rain...BUT, I took them. When I got there, he said he had been so worried that he could not stand it, he wanted to know where I had been. I told him I had been at work...we had discussed that at length on Friday. He said he thought I got out of work at 3:00...I get out of work between 4:15 and 4:45, I have ALWAYS gotten out then. There is a giant clock in his room there facing the bed. I know that he is frustrated and depressed and that he feels like he is trapped there...I keep asking him to try to be patient for a couple more days. He is close to being hostile toward everyone at this point, thinking that he is effectively masking it in sarcasm. I told him before I went there that I would bring the things but that I absolutely could not stay because I needed to get home. He said that he understood and then when I got there, he wanted me to sit down on a chair next to the heater...it is like a blast furnace and I cannot sit in that room and breathe. I explained again that I had to get home, that I needed to feed the cats, have something to eat myself and get some rest. I told him that our daughter in law was planning to come with our step grandson...to work on a Star Wars kit they brought him. He asked if I could explain to them that he was really tired. I told him that HE should do that. He is complaining and complaining that he is tired and sleeping all of the time. Part of that is recovery from the heart attack and the surgery, part is depression over being there and the recognition of his mortality and another part is the withdrawal of his ADD medication that may be contraindicated following the heart attack. At this point, the jury is still out on that one.
I am still exhausted and overwhelmed and feeling ambivalent about his return home...however, I do believe that he will respond very positively to the cats and to his "stuff." I am just worried that he has become very critical and demanding at this point and I am hoping and praying that I can handle that.
I apologize for not updating and for not responding to all of your amazing and loving comments and for your prayers...believe me that they have helped me more than I can possibly express. Right now, I HAVE to take care of things that are happening here, one day at a time. I am signing in to EX and reading when I can and occasionally commenting. I just cannot be as active as I was...my presence is likely to be quite limited for a while.
Love and thanks,
Ellen
