The Week that Was

To catch up on the last post. Jon does have pneumonia but they decided against a bronchostomy evidently, because no mention of one being done was in his chart. His largest bedsore is down to the bone and actually the bone is infected. Another case of osteomylitis! Had one while in Columbus late in '09. While in Ft. Wayne Brookview would not take him back due to his behavior--coming in late, smoking more often than allowed, not following doctor's orders, etc. His ombudsman, Cretia, filed an appeal and a hearing was set for a week ago Monday. With 30 pages of notes on his behavior it didn't look well. The social worker at St. Joe's is not familiar with facilities in Ohio so it was pretty much up to me. I've been fighting a cold and Senate Bill 5 which does away with collective bargaining for teachers, firemen, policemen and all other public workers so my time and energy have been divided.

This week has been crazy. Angelique, Jeff, Greg and I went to Ft. Wayne on Sunday and I checked with the nurse to see if there was any sign that he would be discharged yet. She checked and couldn't find anything but did say they were trying to get his blood pressure stabilized. However, On Tuesday, I received a call from Cretia saying our appeal had been denied. It was quickly followed by a call from the social worker in Ft. Wayne saying they were discharging Jon that day and sending him to the facility in Toledo we weren't crazy about. I tried to say we didn't want him there but it was to no avail. I called back with several names of places she could try but about noon she said it was too late, he had already been discharged and "was out the door as we speak."

"Well, out the door as we speak" is the infamous quote of the week! Tuesday's plans were for Carol and I to go to Toledo to check out a place that Brookview here in Defiance had said would take him. We were far from thrilled when we read their inspection reports for the last 7 times so we decided to go see Jon. Since the call with the social worker was around 12:30 we thought if we got there by 4:30 he probably would be settled in by the time we got there. We found the place, went to the reception desk and they never heard of a Jon Castanien, they checked the lock-down area where he would be and they had no word of him either. We called the hospital and he hadn't left yet! We went back across town to get a new mouth-piece for his Camelback water bag he uses to get drinks and stopped to eat. We still had an hour to kill so we decided to visit his Uncle Raleigh and cousin Eric. We joined them at Bob Evans and had a nice chat. Another call to the new place, Liberty Nursing Home, and he still wasn't there. Called back to the hospital and asked for the address. Seems they sent him to a sister facility several streets from the place we had stopped at. When we called them around 9 he had just arrived. Since we were both beat we decided to go back home.

Greg and I went to see Jon yesterday. This place is older but looked okay...and its inspection ratings, while not great, were at least better than the other one. We visited a while and Jon said he couldn't eat yet. Actually he said he couldn't swallow. I checked with the nurse and she said he needed a swallow test with the speech therapist and that probably it would be done tomorrow (which is actually today.) I reassured Jon that I was sure he could swallow--Sunday he ate a huge sandwich according to Angelique--and did he want to try a few swallowing exercises? We did some together including the silly repeating of the syllable, hee hee hee! in a voice as high as possible. Carol called today and they said the reason he needed the test was because Ft. Wayne did not include eating in their orders and since he came with a feeding tube they assumed he didn't eat.

In general, Jon was extremely quiet, didn't want the blinds open and had the door shut all day. The TV was on (NCIS of course) but his bed wasn't positioned well to see it. I regret not asking if we could move it to an angle--or at least turn on the TV in the other part of the room. He has no room mate. Jon stopped doing exercises with his neck when his original physical therapist left at Westerville and I'm not sure he can turn his head much at all.

That's all for now. I've probably left out some but you've got the gist of it. Have had trouble getting into this blog but think I've gotten things straight in my head now.

Looking forward to Spring as I'm sure most of you are, too!

(Jon's on complete bed rest and his chair is in my living room so he won't get getting about too much for a while.)