Lining Up Resources – Thursday, August 17, 2017

As the week comes to a close we are working hard to get as much in place as possible. Yesterday we met with someone who will be mom’s primary caregiver (who’s not me). “T” will be starting on Monday and she is WONDERFUL. She spent two hours with us yesterday. Almost right when she arrived we headed into therapy where she watched mom work on walking with H and S. After one pass, T and I took a turn at walking with mom. It didn’t look as easy as when H and S do it, but we managed to cross the floor and mom said we did OK. 🙂

After her session was over, we went back to her room where the therapists gave T some pointers on transfers and watched her work with mom. They didn’t need to spend a lot of time with T, since she did such a great job. The key is letting mom take her time. Since they will be one-on-one and T won’t be rushing off to cover 4-6 other people, the pressure is off for transfers to be done quickly. We got to spend a little bit of time getting to know each other before she left. She is a very sweet lady. After she left, mom said that she thinks she’s good, that they will get along, and that she felt safe with her. That is my primary concern. Later that afternoon I spoke with the person in charge of coordinating the caregivers and she told me that T called her after she left us and said that she’s really looking forward to working with mom. That’s also a great sign. I was told that T likes progress. Meaning that she will help my mom with exercises and will help try to keep her motivated so she regains her independence. I don’t see a lot of just hanging out watching TV in their future. As of right now, T will be here weekday mornings to help me out. I’m sure I will need to expand hours but we need to see how schedules shake out.

Shortly before T left, we met a nurse from Capital Home Health. They will be providing therapies to mom. She wasn’t there to do an assessment, it was just an in-person introduction. They should be calling me today or tomorrow to schedule the first appointments. We will probably only have therapy (at most) 2-3 days a week. We will need to keep working on our own to fill up the other days so she doesn’t lose momentum. Hopefully there will be things that we can do that will be safe and not too challenging for us untrained unprofessionals.

One of mom’s beds should be delivered today. Yes – I said “one of”. As of Monday, she had NO bed coming. Apparently there was an issue with the paperwork and the supply company didn’t receive the order for the bed. Because they ship “first come first served” and there were already 17 orders ahead of ours, there was no guarantee that we would get one for her. So Chad to the rescue! We hate having to rely on others to get important things done. Some things really should not be that difficult. Not trusting that they’d come through, Chad ordered one for mom. It’s a little bigger (full vs. twin) and I have a feeling that she will end up liking this one better. We’ll take a look at both and hopefully be able to send back the one we don’t want. We’ve also ordered extra wheelchairs so that we don’t have to haul them up and down the stairs. But we’re finding out that a couple that we have ordered may not work for her. After waiting weeks to get a certain chair (a little narrower than the one she had been using), we realize that she can’t shift her legs around as easily. That’s important because she uses one leg to lift the other. Without room on the sides to do that it is a little challenging. Again, we’ll let her choose which ones work best for her and we’ll find a way to get rid of the others. We may end up having so much stuff that I can start my own medical supply company. 😉

People are welcome to come visit here once she’s settled. If you don’t already have my cell number, click on the “Ask Questions” link at the top to send me an email. I’m happy to email you contact information. She’d love hearing from her friends!