Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Getting Settled In

We are still really getting ourselves settled in - although dad said he feels like he's been home now for a lot longer than 2 days! He had a decent 2nd night at home. . . he said he didn't sleep quite as well because he was thinking about the next day and the new people coming to aide us with his bathing. I guess just the fear of the unknown- of people he hasn't met. Yet, we actually ended up with the same aide we had when dad was home in January. She couldn't believe how much better dad was - she said he was like a different man! So she will be coming every other morning to give dad a bath til we get the shower finished. He hasn't seen any therapists yet, but I guess we'll hear from them when they get openings in their schedule. After we met with his Nurse from home health yesterday, she recommended that dad receive all services from home, including therapy for the first 30 days. . . in order to provide a safe home environment while they monitor it and make sure we are caring for dad in an appropriate manner. If we take him to outpatient therapy at this point, they would not be able to provide the many in-home services we now provide, it's federal guidelines for Medicare. So for the next 30 days, dad will basically be "homebound". . . exceptions they allow are doctors appointments, haircuts and church. So we will have to limit dad's outings to that until we are settled in the home and we no longer need their in-home services. . . then we can transition to outpatient services. Dad is okay with that - although he was a little disappointed he will not get to come see his grandkids play baseball this month. . . but he said he definitely wants us to have these services and help so that is what we will have to do for now. I tried today to help dad out of his wheelchair onto his portable potty chair, but we were not strong enough as a team to pull it off. . . so we will just have to try the bedpan/urinal for now until the occupational therapist is able to be here to help with that or one of my brothers. I think I may not be strong enough to get him to the standing position. I tried!!! We'll just have to keep trying! Mom is doing great and looks better every single day. Thanks for checking in!

1 comment:

Viewer said...

So happy to hear that Shug and Jeannie are now home together! Just want to let you know that you and your whole family are still in our prayers.
Love, Jody