Adjusting

Moving always takes some time to adapt to our new surroundings and CRSI is no exception. During the interview they were adamant in their response to two hour turnings....”absolutely we turn every two hours!” We have yet to see that. Being the new kids on the block we’ve tried to be patient and yet insistent. We put the schedule for changing the foot and hand braces on the wall only to have the Director of Nursing tell us they couldn’t be there...privacy rights? I could have understood fire hazard! I asked how the staff would know since so many of them could be pulled from various other responsibilities and he said they read the charts every day. I responded that it was 10:10 and I had just removed the hand and foot braces and they were supposed to be removed at 8. He started taking notes. I said would you be the person to discuss turnings and he replied that he was so I told him of the 3 hour stretches the day before; he took more notes. Then he expressed some amazement about the IV port they were using in Jon’s wrist for his antibiotics. It seems that vancomycin is very hard on regular veins, which may explain why they were having trouble finding a good one a few days before, and that he needed to have a special PICC line in his upper arm. This required a move to the hospital next door yesterday. The PICC line (a peripherally inserted central catheter) is inserted in the upper arm and travels up to the shoulder and down toward the heart through increasingly larger veins until the tip rests in the distal superior vena cava near the heart. This allows the antibiotics to go into a larger body of blood and also get to the heart faster. Score: Director of Nursing, 1 pt. Us: after two days of very irregular turnings, 0..

We also had trouble with the call button. This is not new for Jon. He doesn’t seem to have the strength to hit even the soft round buttons hard enough and the only kind we’ve found that works is triangular shaped. After much tinkering they checked and by golly they have one of those!

By luck the VAC machine they use is stronger than the one at the other hospital. (The wound nurse there was not happy with the progress of the bedsore as it was getting larger and not forming as much granulation as it should.) However, the first one they used started beeping and they had trouble getting it to work properly so they needed a new one. I’m happy to say it arrived that same morning...so did another one about 7 that night!

I am pleased with the physical therapy team but then I just saw them briefly two days. Because of the trip for the PICC he missed therapy altogether Friday. He did, however, get a real bath. The first since he had been at Dodd Hall. They lay him on a plastic table which has a pattern of large silver dollar size holes and can use a sprayer to rinse him off. He got a good shampoo also. I’d like to see more of those since he has developed seborrhea in his hair, eyebrows, mustache and along the sides of his nose. Baths are supposed to be a regularly scheduled “activity.”

Barb,Bill and I have been “tag-teaming” at the hospital and keeping a log of turnings, instructions, and general events to keep each other informed. That has been a great help. There has been so much to remember though. The new bed doesn’t have degrees marked on it and he shouldn’t be below 30 degrees.. We try to guess but I think Jon has “the feel” of 30 degrees ingrained because he always let us know in the past when we had dipped below the 30 degree mark. Can’t be above a certain angle without his turtle shell brace...you get the picture.

Thanks for checking in. Was looking forward to an early bedtime in my own home and it’s late already.

Hope your holiday preparations are going well.

Marj