October 23, 2015. I was able to get in a couple of hours of work before Dad and Michell woke up at 6:00 A.M. I took a short break from work to administer Dad’s morning meds and trach care. Shortly after 8:00 A.M., I was meeting with Manisha, one of my Indian co-workers, when we lost power. It took several seconds for the seriousness of the situation to occur to me. Until a few weeks ago, a power outage was an inconvenience worthy of a fine whine, but now with our dependency on the concentrator and nebulizer for oxygen, electricity was critical for Dad. I called Oncor Energy, and they predicted that power to the area would be restored by 9:30 A.M. I checked our supply of oxygen tanks and called American HomePatient to request an emergency shipment of oxygen tanks. I called Oncor Energy again at 9:00 A.M., and according to the helpful recording, they could not predict when power would be restored; however, crews were assessing the problem. Power to the neighborhood was finally restored around 10:30 A.M. The emergency order of oxygen proved to be unnecessary, but I decided that I would prefer to have an ample supply of tanks on hand rather than risk running out. Dad seemed pretty unaffected by the outage and napped through most of it. During the outage, Michell checked his oxygen saturation level a few times, and it stayed between 97-99%, which was great. The only deficiency caused by the outage was the lack of moisture from the nebulizer to Dad’s lungs.

Tracy, the home care nurse, stopped by around 11:30 A.M. She said that other than his bedsore, he seemed to be doing fine. However, she thought that if anything, Dad’s bedsore was getting worse. I told her that we had an appointment with a wound care specialist in four days. About 90 minutes after Tracy left, Janet arrived for Dad’s occupational therapy session. As usual, Janet and Dad talked nonstop during their session. As she left, she told me that she thought that Dad was making some progress.

Dad complained about all of his tubes and wanted to know when he could get rid of them. I explained to him that it took him five months to get into this condition and it would probably take another five months for him to get better. Evidently, his expectations were significantly different from mine, and he gave me a look that broke my heart. I explained that we were doing everything that we could to ensure success on all fronts, which was why we had the two therapists working with him.

I later texted Adan to see if I had given Dad the correct information. Adan called me, and we had a long talk about Dad’s progress. During our discussion, he said that he thought that my estimate was far too optimistic and that Dad was probably looking at something along the lines of a 10-month recovery. He also said that the trach might be one of the last things to go. Adan also said that we could start the swallow therapy now if he had an order from a pulmonary specialist.

The news that Adan thought that we were ready to start swallow therapy was huge. Less than a month ago, he had told me that because of his chronic aspiration, Dad would not receive swallow therapy. I had implored him to give Dad a chance to fail and not just write him off as a lost cause. After much discussion, Adan had finally agreed to try swallow therapy after Dad regained some of his strength.

We swallow all day long. It seemed like such a simple thing that I had not realized what an intricate process it is. I would later learn that this seemingly simple process is achieved through the careful orchestration of some 80 muscles. According to Adan, simply regaining some of his strength would improve Dad’s chances of success. I felt better after our talk and thanked our lucky stars that Adan had moved from his position as a speech pathologist at the CCH to his current position as the supervisor of rehab services at Scott & White Home Care.

Around 3:00 P.M., I received a call from Brian at Scott &White EMS. He informed me that according to the notes provided to him by his EMTs, Dad could be transported to dialysis on a wheelchair and not a stretcher; therefore, they would start charging us $80 round trip. I explained that it was his EMTs who asked us to wheel Dad outside so that they wouldn’t have to bring the gurney into the house. Furthermore, I told him that although Dad might be able to make the trip there, he was not strong enough for the return trip. Brian said that he would contact the dialysis center to verify my assessment. He called back a little later and said that Scott & White EMS would provide wheelchair transport to dialysis and gurney transport for the return trip, which meant that we would be charged only $40 for each transport. Gurney transport was covered by Medicare, but wheelchair transport was not. Every day it was another nickel, dime, or $40 that we had to shell out to someone.

While Brian and I were discussing the logistics of this arrangement, I texted Sue, the nurse practitioner at the Scott & White dialysis center, and asked if I could call her.

When we spoke a few minutes later, she became annoyed and said that this decision was not for EMS to make and that the dialysis center would not accept Dad without a Hoyer sling. As I had learned earlier this week, Medicare won’t pay for the very inexpensive Hoyer sling unless you also get the more expensive Hoyer lift. Dr. Issac wrote an order for the Hoyer lift, but depending on when American HomePatient received the order and their inventory, we wouldn’t receive it until sometime next week.

I logged off from work at 5:30 P.M. and was good and ready for happy hour. Dad joined us until dinner was ready, at which time he returned to his room. The dishes were clear at 7:15 P.M. and we were ready for the nightly game of Oh Hell. I don’t remember who won, but we played a long game that didn’t end until 9:00 P.M.

October 24. It was dialysis day, and Michell, Dad, and I were up at 4:00 A.M. It was raining like a son-of-a-gun this morning. To enable Dad to be picked up by the EMTs, I had to clear a place in the garage where we could transfer Dad from the wheelchair to the gurney. We hadn’t needed this accommodation before because we had had good weather on dialysis days since he had been home. Dad resumed his normal routine for dialysis day and was ready to go at 5:45 A.M.  Because of the inclement weather, the ambulance was about 15 minutes late.

While Michell and Dad were at dialysis, Mom and I did some chores around the house. I also took this time to wade through some of Dad’s medical paperwork. When I sat down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and Dad’s home care admittance book, I found a document that stated that his Medicare coverage for home health care might end this coming week. I called the on-call nurse to verify this information, and she said that according to her records, Dad was covered through the end of the year, but she advised me to call the office on Monday. I felt mildly relieved but would feel better after I contacted the office on Monday.

Mom and I went to the bank around 10:15 A.M. As we approached the front door of the bank, a HOP Paratransit bus dropped off a passenger. We asked the rider about the HOP service, and she gushed about the paratransit service and the HOP organization. In addition to the convenience and responsiveness of the service, its cost was very reasonable: just $2 per trip. We told her about Dad’s situation, and she encouraged us to apply for the paratransit service.

Mom and I had other errands to run, but the trip to the bank took longer than we had anticipated. We thought that we should go home now to ensure that we were there when Dad arrived home from dialysis. Shortly after we arrived home, Stan arrived from Houston. When we hadn’t heard from Michell and Dad by 12:30 P.M., I texted Michell, and she replied that they were still waiting for the ambulance. Rainy weather often results in car accidents, and accidents take precedence over transport services. There was nothing that I could do for Dad, but I had Stan drive me to the dialysis center so that we could bring Michell home. I planned to stay with Dad until the ambulance arrived, but as Stan and I arrived at the dialysis center, Dad’s ambulance also arrived. Michell said that she would stay with Dad, so Stan and I returned home. Michell and Dad eventually arrived home at 1:30 P.M.

After his seven-hour trip to dialysis, Dad was exhausted, and from the sound of his breathing, it seemed that his trach needed changing. I spent the next few minutes suctioning him and then left him to sleep for a few hours. He started coughing badly later in the afternoon, and I decided that I couldn’t postpone his trach change any longer. Dad seemed to breathe a little better after the trach change, but he still had a lot of secretions, and he didn’t want to suction himself, so I had to suction him again.

We played a game of Oh Hell after dinner, and we started to put Dad to bed around 9:00 P.M. His oxygen saturation was 98%, which relieved me a little, and he fell asleep almost immediately.

Around midnight, Dad’s coughing woke me and I decided to go downstairs to see if I could encourage him to suction himself. He steadfastly refused to hold the Yankauer wand, and his oxygen saturation readings were erratic. I suctioned him for a few minutes and went back to bed when his coughing seemed to subside.

October 25. I woke up at 6:09 A.M. and I didn’t hear any noise from Dad coming through the baby monitor. Convinced that something bad had happened to him, I bolted up out of bed and ran downstairs to his room to see if he was all right. Thankfully, he was just sleeping, albeit quietly. I returned to my room and changed into my scrubs.

I returned to Dad’s room 45 minutes later and found that he was up and washing his face, but he seemed a bit disoriented. I administered his morning meds and trach care and Michell took over for the remainder of his morning ritual.

I left Dad’s room and went to the kitchen. Mom had started the coffee maker a short time earlier, and I was ready for a cup of coffee. Michell wandered into the kitchen and mentioned that Dad had told her that he wanted to stop dialysis. I knew that he understood the implications of stopping dialysis. I hoped that Dad was experiencing a temporary funk, but I needed to watch him and be supportive. While Michell was with Dad in the bedroom, Stan, Mom, and I had breakfast. Dad finally appeared dressed for the day at 9:15 A.M.

While Mom and I attended church, Stan and Dad tried to fix the VCR. When we returned from church, Dad was napping. Michell told us that at 11:30 A.M. he had wanted to lie down for a few minutes, and he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Stan told me that he needed to leave early today, but he wasn’t ready to leave until 2:00 P.M. Before he left, I woke Dad so that he could say goodbye to Stan. Dad was constantly surrounded by female caregivers. Stan was the welcome break from all of the female hovering, and Dad enjoyed their time together on weekends. Shortly after Stan left, Michell was able to convince Dad to do some of his physical therapy exercises.

After dinner, Michell and I asked Dad if he wanted to play cards. He said no, that he was just a “hindrance.” I told him that I was really asking if we were going to play cards this evening because we wouldn’t be playing cards without him. We played a long game tonight, and while he was pretty much exhausted by the end of the game, he wasn’t too tired to beat us again.

We started on our bedtime routine at 8:30 P.M., and I was able to call Stan shortly after 9:00 P.M. I was distressed about Dad’s apparent depressed mood, which was uncharacteristic of him. Stan said that he could understand how Dad’s cup could look a bit less than half full from his perspective. Perhaps Stan was correct.

If I thought that I had been unprepared to be a caregiver for Dad’s physical health, I was totally unprepared to handle depression.