Sleep all day, stress all night...

[davidgillon]

 So my day seems to have been defined by sleep, interrupted by stressful phonecalls from my sister on the situation with my father (or more precisely with the rehab unit being arseholes). I've almost entirely missed daylight today, having slept from roughly 5AM to 4:30PM with about an hour awake when she rang 10:30ish. I'm furious with the unit for the distressing way they spoke to my mother this morning, a blunt 'so have you decided if he's going home or into care?' almost the instant she arrived, when they've only just dropped the bombshell that they don't think there's any point in him being there and no one has had a chance to process that yet, but I armed my sister with a few necessary facts and pointed her at them (this is roughly equivalent to 'Unleash the Kraken!' but scarier).

Meanwhile my dad, unaware of this, has spent the day hitting all the targets that they said he wasn't able to meet, to the point that the doctor causing the issues has had to back down, and, combined with my sister insisting on speaking to people they've agreed he'll have at least 2-3 more weeks on the unit.

To some extent it's only crisis deferred, but maybe I'll be able to relax enough to sleep tonight.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

This much stress is too much!

Glad to hear even the doctor is backing down from the "change or die" scenario.

[davidgillon]

Thanks.

[heliopausa]

This is an appalling story; all power to you and your sister - and your father - in pushing back against those who think that he doesn't "deserve"(not rich enough? too old?) real recovery-directed medical care.

[davidgillon]

It's not a monetary thing - advantage of the NHS, nor age, but they seem to have concluded that he wasn't going to improve and was therefore blocking a bed they could use for another patient. There's been a real breakdown in communication, with seemingly a lot of the lower-level, but direct-care staff feeling he's actually a lot more capable than the doctors believe, the problem being that the doctors don't see him for more than a few minutes a day; while at the same time the doctors haven't been telling us what they believe, and therefore not giving us the opportunity to say 'but what about the fact he's doing X'. Plus there have been medical problems preventing him getting the rehab he's supposed to, so of course he hasn't been making as much progress. Whether it was down to one of the senior doctors being away on holiday I don't know, but it certainly seems coincidental they backed down as soon as he was up to speed.

[calissa]

While I'm glad that things have resolved for the time being, I'm sorry that your family is going through this. Recovery is stressful enough without these kind of power-plays.

[davidgillon]

Absolutely!

[nanila]

Augggh. I'm so sorry your family is having to fight for appropriate care for him every step of the way. So stressful. Hugs, if wanted, and tea.

[davidgillon]

Hugs and tea sound just about right ;)

[davidgillon]

So I now seem to be completely switched into sleeping during the day not the night. If I can't get to sleep tonight I'll probably try to stay awake right through until tomorrow night and see if I can reset myself that way. I've basically lost the entire week and ended up worse than I started with respect to sleeping, though I have made some progress on the daily waddle, having been out for at least a token distance every day (need to do that for today yet, but will do it while my breakfast/dinner/tea/supper/whatever is in the oven.

WRT the situation with my father, he apparently hasn't had a good day today, but again other medical stuff seems to be the trigger, in this case pain - he'd injured his shoulder before the stroke, it's that side that's paralyzed and there's not the functioning musculature to stop him hurting it, particularly as he tends to roll onto that side as he can't roll himself onto the other. They are treating him for it - he's got a brace for it and they give him painkillers when he wants, but they also see him as non-compliant when he's like this. I think I need to get my sister to point out that the days when he is out of it seem to have a significant correlation with the days when he's got other stuff going on medically. (And that's why writing this stuff down is useful, I hadn't made that connection between pain and bad days previously).

In spite of all this he'd been down to physio, and they hadn't just had him standing, he'd actually taken a few steps, probably with about three of them supporting, but it's still a hell of a lot more progress than they were claiming he would make earlier this week.