March 27, 2018. Because I was concerned about how Dad fared during his first night after surgery, I didn’t sleep well and woke up just before 2:00 A.M. I hoped that he had slept well and that he had not tried to get out of bed during the night. Mom and I didn’t have much of an opportunity to visit with Dad yesterday after his surgery, but I had warned him that he might experience some confusion after his surgery. I knew that I would be spending a few hours at the hospital today, so I set up my computer shortly before 5:00 A.M. and worked for about four hours. Thirty minutes later, Mom and I arrived at the hospital.

When we entered Dad’s room, we found that a nurse and a couple of nursing students were turning Dad in his bed. Until patients can get out of the bed, they must be turned every few hours so that they don’t develop bed sores. After Dad was resituated in his bed, Dr. Bolanos entered the room. Within moments, the two of them were arguing about Dad’s antibiotic suppressant drug. He insisted that the doxycycline gave him an upset stomach and that he hadn’t taken the pill in six months. She suggested that he take the antibiotic with food or with Zofran, which would prevent any nausea. He agreed but said that he would take only one pill a day and not the prescribed two pills. Fortunately, she avoided the subject of rehab during this visit.

Although Dr. Bolanos had steered clear of the contentious subject of rehab, Kim, the physician’s assistant, took the bull by the horns when she stopped by Dad’s room. While she was there, she described the different types of physical therapy available to patients and the patient requirements for each option. For Dad, she reinforced Dr. Bolanos’s recommendation for in-patient therapy at a rehab facility. As before, Dad insisted that he had to go home and take care of his garden and wife.

Shortly after lunch, Amy, the occupational therapist arrived and had Dad stand with the walker. Before Amy left the room, Brooke and Lisa, the physical therapist and her assistant, arrived. They had Dad stand up and sit down and then sit in a chair. While he was enjoying being out of bed, Pastor Tom entered the room. While Tom was there, he spoke of the many benefits of rehab. The pastors in that church always seemed to answer my prayers. Before Tom left, he urged Dad to get well quick because he needed a Christian in the church, which was a running joke between them. Tom had a very busy schedule this week, and Mom and I greatly appreciated his taking the time for a visit.

At 3:00 P.M. I returned to the house so that I could get in a couple more hours of work. I was feeling the effects of my sleepless night and drank coffee to keep myself awake until 5:00 P.M., which was when I logged off for the day. While I was working, my parents’ neighbor, Jane, dropped off a Cobb salad that she had purchased for us while she was in Austin. Mom and I devoured this much-appreciated gift for dinner.

March 28. Dr. Bolanos stopped us in the hall as we approached Dad’s room. She told us that Dad was very confused. He thought that he was at home and he was also having hallucinations. Also, during the night, he had gotten out of bed, and the nurses had found him on the floor when they responded to the bed alarm. To help prevent him from injuring himself, they exchanged his bed for one that could be lowered within inches of the floor. As if this news wasn’t enough, she added that Dad was argumentative and was still fighting the notion of going to rehab.

When we entered Dad’s room, we encountered chaos. Dad was eating breakfast and arguing with Alisha, an aide who was trying to take his blood pressure, which was required before he could have his morning meds. He insisted that he would not take the meds, and wanted her to leave. Steve, the electrical technician, was also in the room, trying to repair a problem with a spastic call light and oversensitive bed alarm. It didn’t help matters any that Steve and a nurse were discussing the problems with the system.

I asked Alisha if she could leave so that Dad could finish his breakfast, and she agreed to come back later. As soon as she left the room, another woman entered the room. She introduced herself as Lisa, the nurse manager, and asked if we were having problems. I told her that the room had been like a sea of chaos when we arrived, which was not helping my father’s anesthesia-induced confusion or his mood. She took control of the situation and orchestrated the activities of the nurses, aides, and Steve until a relative calm settled over the room. The only challenge, which remained for a few hours, was the bed alarm and call light. Dad’s new bed did not have a built-in bed alarm and an attached call light. The nurses were using a chair alarm and the rigged-up system was somewhat faulty. I finally had Steve turn off the maddening bed alarm, promising to have the nurse turn it on when Mom and I left.

Adding to the parade of people who dropped by was the case manager, who asked whether she should start looking for a rehab facility for Dad. Dad didn’t hear her question, and I quickly ushered her out of the room. Rehab was still a touchy subject, and I didn’t want us to launch into another argument in front of the case manager. I returned to the room and told Mom that she needed to see the case manager in the hall. While Mom was gone, she signed the appropriate paperwork to set the discharge process in motion. While Dad had been in surgery, I had asked Pastor Tom about Cornerstone, and he said that he thought (based on his visits to many rehab facilities) that it seemed like a good facility. We hoped that Cornerstone, which was within a couple of miles from my parents’ home, could accommodate Dad.

Mom and I had hoped to be with Dad during his next physical therapy session, but we hadn’t heard anything about today’s schedule. To ensure that we didn’t miss the session, I went to the cafeteria to buy lunch for Mom and me. While Dad enjoyed a lunch of pork chops, Mom and I ate yogurt and fruit. Dad admitted that his lunch was pretty good, which was practically an enthusiastic endorsement of the hospital food. We finally asked the nurse about Dad’s schedule, but she said that there was nothing on his chart today about him having physical therapy. With that disappointing news, Mom drove me back to the house so that I could get back to work.

Shortly after Mom returned to the hospital, Pastor Tom returned for another visit. Tom told Dad how rehab had made a difference in his recovery when he broke his ankle after jumping from a plane while he was in the army. Although Tom’s words probably fell on deaf ears, I felt like we should have baked Tom a pie for trying to sell Dad on the notion of a rehab facility.

Shortly before I logged off from work, I answered a phone call from Cornerstone. Marie was calling to inform us that Dad had been accepted and that she wanted to make an appointment with Mom so that they could finalize the arrangements for his two-week stay.

Now, all we had to do was get Dad to agree to the transfer from the hospital to the Cornerstone facility.