Bozgratch

No foolishness here, just an update.

Yesterday was jam packed with activity; today is dialysis day and a lot more activity. The poor guy is tired, but not getting much rest.

I met with Dr. Flickinger today. He is the renal specialist and will most likely have the final say in when Frank is discharged because he kidney issues are the most serious. At present that may happen later this week.  2-4 days.  It was a sobering but needed conversation.

Over the weekend when none of the family were present the Dr. had two separate almost identical conversations with Frank. The purpose: to find out whether he was still willing/interested in fighting on. The answer was a very definite yes for now at least. He’s been poked and prodded and interrupted and jostled around for so long now that it’s an important thing for the doctor to be assured of.

The Dr. was very direct in saying that no matter when he is discharged to the rehab center that it will STILL seem too early. But, in 2008 he feels that the care has been optimized and that what he needs now is time and caring therapy. That does not mean that he is out of the woods

• He has lost a lot of muscle
• He is very weak
• He is depressed.

For the depression they have put him on medication — not an uncommon thing for people in his situation.

For the weakness there is hope that being able to sleep through the night and not be awakened, poked, interrupted, etc. will help him do some healing.

For the weakness the only solution is LOTS of therapy and lots of work. And with him so weak that’s pretty hard. At this point both of the doctors are adamant about the fact that whether he’s uncomfortable with the therapy is NOT a consideration. Unless he actively works on recuperating he will lose even more muscle and lessen the small chance that he has of ever getting back home.

Let me repeat that.

No one among the medical professionals is expecting him to return to how he was before the surgery. The question at this time is: Can he survive and if he survives will he be able to get well enough to even consider returning home. The chances of that are quite LOW. There are exceptions, but Dr. Flickinger is saying that the chances of him getting back home are in the order of 10-20 %. That does not affect Peg or my willingness / desire to help him get there, but for those of you who are not here to see him it’s a huge change from where he was on February 19th.

Right now he’s sound asleep. He had dialysis, returned to the room sound asleep, didn’t wake during the 1/2 hour or so he was here and while they swabbed out his mouth, did a blood sugar test and then got shipped out to Vascular to have his veins mapped so that a fistula can be installed for long term dialysis care. He arrived back in the room sound asleep, where he is snoring next to me right now. I haven’t gotten him shaved yet today, but will do so in a little while.

The fact that he IS so exhausted all the time is a cause of concern in and of itself. It’s hard to have the energy to do any exercise if one is asleep all the time and that has been his condition since Saturday — get roused to communicate or exercise a little and then back to sleep. He’s getting a 2000 cal diet which should be enough energy for the little activity he is having, but he is just THAT WEAK.

I spoke with Nicole the social worker and she’s checking with the rehab center to make sure they will have a bed for him,  or else he will just stay a couple extra days until they DO have a bed.

We spoke about insurance and medicare, evidently renal failure is the only disease that is automatically covered by medicare.  For obvious reasons we are wondering what his longterm prospects might be — would it be possible for him to move to Milwaukee if we got to the point that returning home is no longer an option?  I need to check with his insurance and find out a few things about limits of coverage.