There has been a bit to update since the last missive in October -- some of you know what's happened, but I stopped sending out the updates because things were, as we said during the startup of TheNewVI (the TV station I worked at for a couple of years in Victoria), "fluid". So now it's a good time to catch you up.
Only a few days after the last message, which told of the decision not to amputate the tip of dad's right index finger, there was a major setback. He complained of shortness of breath and -- more alarming -- showed a loss of short-term memory. Dad's neighbour -- the retired Air Force doctor -- called 911 and he was hustled back to Royal Jubilee Hospital.
The damage to his heart was much worse, as was the damage to his lungs, and to sum things up, the smart money says he cannot function on his own at home.
To say this was a shock would understate the case. It appeared to those of us close to him -- including the medicos -- that the only real issue for dad was now his functioning with two wonky hips. He'd been off oxygen, his oxygen saturation rate was vastly improved, and the Quick Response Team -- the medical "strike force" that was monitoring him and checking up on him a couple of times a week -- had taken him off their list. It was believed that, with the twice-daily visits from the home support workers, dad would be OK. For this sudden setback to happen was a bolt from a blue sky.
So dad has been in hospital from the middle of October until last Thursday. In fact, he was under the impression that he had been in hospital since August 23, when he had the heart attack. It wasn't until just before Christmas, when Amelia and I visited him, that a couple of memory triggers went off and he realized that yes, he had been home for about 10 days.
He still doesn't fully accept the fact that he won't be going home again, but the reality is, there isn't a home care support system around that can provide him what he needs. But it's not all bad news. One of his difficulties was aspirating his food -- a medical term that essentially means "having it go down the wrong way". They'd been serving him was amounted to cat food -- minus the flavour* -- but dad let them know that he was prepared to accept that risk, even though it might lead to a "pneumonic episode" from which he might not recover, they started feeding him real food.
That alone contributed to a definite improvement in his outlook. Then on Friday, came another advance.
RJH had changed dad's status to "resident", which means that they would start hunting down an extended-care bed for him ASAP. On Thursday, I got a call from one of the social workers at Glengarry Hospital, which is in the Fairfield district of Victoria, and about a 3-iron shot from dad's house in Oak Bay. Since it appeared dad was still under the impression that his next move would be back to 638 Victoria Avenue, I asked if I could break the news to him. To my surprise, he was delighted. I told him he'd be sharing a room with 3 other men, and when I said it would be QUIET, he almost cheered. In fact, he may have, but I couldn't hear much over the vacuum cleaner obbligato in the hospital hallway behind him.
And so that is dad's current residence: Chandler Unit, Glengarry Hospital, 1780 Fairfield Road, Victoria. The room is much larger than the one in the hospital ... and made larger still by the absence of the medical machinery that was in the other. It is quiet, and when I went to see him today, he was wheeling himself down the hall in a wheelchair -- something I hadn't seen him do at RJH -- and wearing sweatpants and a borrowed sweater (I have since brought him his own clothes), so he's out of those hospital piggy-jim-jams, at last.
He has the option of having his meals in bed, or getting up and going to one of two eating areas, with large windows and movies, and lots of staff (including a Practical Nurse who, it turned out, taught my children how to skate about 15 years ago). He's in much better spirits, although really ticked off at his body for letting him down the way it has.
This may not be his last move: he's actually on a waiting list for a "preferred location" -- Mount St Mary's, which is also in Fairfield, on the site of the original Victoria General Hospital -- but at least, he's out of acute care, and for him, that's moving forward.
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*Not that I'm an expert, y'understand: I often wonder who actually determines that a cat food has a NEW, IMPROVED TASTE. I mean, how can you POSSIBLY improve on turkey giblets, bone meal, taurine, salt, gelatin and beef byproducts?
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