CAREGIVER NOTE:
He’s giving us a run for our money. He’s officially on hospice and isn’t willing to take his meds — spit them out, has been awake for a good portion of the night which means I have officially been awake for over 24 hours now. Not how I had hoped to spend my first night – nor did T. He has to help reposition and roll when when needed… and it was needed a lot last night. He’s taken off his brief again. His feet are dangling off the bed, again. And he won’t keep the oxygen on either. Not sure what the nurse will say this morning, but I hope she’s got an idea other than to keep trying…

It would be nice to get into a routine of sorts — but he might have other plans as he tries to assert himself and tries to do things he can’t.

POSITIVES:
The hospice contacts have been great
Family has given us a little bit of wiggle room to get settled.

CAREGIVER NOTE:
The x-ray results are back. No new breaks, thank goodness, but he does have some pneumonia in his lower left lung. He slept again for most of the day. They were able to get some meds into him yesterday, but he was spitting most of them out. He did eat some breakfast and were hoping he would eat a bit for dinner. The nurse I spoke with late last evening said he did take the sleeping and anti anxiety meds last night, but not the rest of his meds. At this point, I don’t think they are all that important — His comfort is more important for healing and peace.

We tried to get some extra help by hiring a nurse to sit with him during the night, however, that didn’t work out because of liability issues for the rehab company. We’ll see what happens today — though I think we’re much closer to bringing him home and starting hospice care much sooner than we’d planned.

POSITIVES:
No falls
No calls that he’s being non-compliant
We get to spend some more time with him today.

CAREGIVER NOTE:
Don’t lose yourself in the process of caregiving…. make time to do the things you love. That was my reminder yesterday as I visited with a friend during our online crafting session.

There are days it’s not easy — but taking that to heart, I set up my assembly area (because I didn’t finish during the online session) in the living room so he could be a part of that if he wanted and I could still get some work done. He checked things out a couple of times, asked a couple of questions and was satisfied that all would be good. And he did like the finished card when I was able to show him a finished one.

He chose to watch some shows other than news yesterday and that was nice. A little football and some Antiques Roadshow. We had several good conversations throughout the afternoon and evening.

He’s been up for the last hour and a half. He’s getting a slightly rocky start to his day. I hope things will settle down as soon as his bowels finish emptying out. (sorry about that, but it’s what happens when you have had radical surgery because of colon cancer).

POSITIVES:
Good conversations throughout the day.
Was able to let go of not having a good meal at the restaurant and not hold on to the disappointment of not being able to eat his favorite meal. The restaurant did comp part of the meal — however, it sounded like it wasn’t the only meal that hadn’t met the standard and it was still early in the day.
Didn’t start a rumble when T and A told him he couldn’t drive to the restaurant for lunch — T was designated driver for that.
He has already taken the responsibility for “cleaning up” the bathroom this morning — well sort of, I’ll still need to go in and do a little deeper cleaning and sanitize everything in a few minutes. but at least he’s done a pretty good job for a start.