Murphy's Law in Full Effect..

Yep. I knew there would be "glitches" when I decided to bring my husband home from the nursing facility that he had called home since 1/30/2009. These things just never work out the way they're supposed to. No smooth transition at all. Although I must say that getting the bed and the patient lift worked out a lot better than I thought. I used that lift this morning while doing his bed bath. I put him in the sling and lifted him off of the bed just enough where I could straighten the sheets and chux pads. AWESOME is all I have to say about that contraption.

The bed bath went really well but I quickly remembered why I didn't want to do that type of work all those years ago. While I enjoy taking care of people and helping them through their problems, I don't care for the hard work that comes along with taking care of a "total care" patient. My husband does try to "help" when he can. He grasped the bed rails when I need him to but I strongly suspect it's more of a way for him to feel secure about not falling than it is to help me. I was whipped after doing the AM care this morning and declared to my daughter; "they don't pay those folks who do this work enough". Although they make more than minimum wage most of the time, it's still not enough when it's total care.

Back to the Murphy's law sentiment that got this whole thing started. The home health agency has yet to send anyone over to the house to do his assessment. So I called them this morning at 8:30am to inquire about where they were. The nice young lady on the phone said, "I was just about to call you". I informed her that I was concerned because my husband didn't recieve his tube feeding last night because I didn't have anything to feed him the feeding with at the house. The home health lady then says, "well that's the nursing facilities responsibility to get those things in place prior to the patient being discharged." I didn't know that either! I thought the home health agency supplied all of that stuff. But no, she assures me, the nursing facility should have set him (my husband) up with a DME. A DME is a durable medical equipment company. So I told her that I got the bed and the lift, but I didn't get the pump, the tubing and bag, the supplement or anything remotely resembling something I can use to run a tube feeding overnight. GREAT! I thought. How is he supposed to maintain his blood sugars and weight if he's not getting the supplemental feedings? The home health lady is really peeved at this point and she agrees to call around and try to get the things in place.

She calls me about 2:00pm today and tells me she's hitting brick walls at every turn. So I kept the number to the home health equipment company so I offer to call the person I dealt with regarding the bed and lift. I paged her and she called right back. I informed her of my ignorance at how things work and then told her I wasn't able to give him a feed last night because there's no equipment. She's taken aback by this and says that the physician that wrote his discharge orders did not include the pump or bagging or supplement or anything to his orders to them. She can't believe it! So she offers to get the ball rolling and will hopefully have things turned around lickety split for us.

So whatever can go wrong has thus far with the exception of a few things. I guess I should be greatful that anything has worked out.

On to the next failed thing I guess.