Sunday, August 12, 2007

the weekend

...it's sunday night, well in all honesty, it's 12:37am monday morning...
i just got home from work a half hour ago and need to unwind!
this is grandpa in his new room down in the rehabilitation ward. he is not happy there. and neither are we. he is finally getting his phs. therapy but the staff are just so rude and harsh. whatever happened to compassion in the nursing industry? would it really kill them to care a little? he's 86 years old for heavens sake and they hustle him around like he's in his 30's, and with no compression fracture in his spine either. i hate that hospital. no one seems to know what they're doing over there. careless mistakes and thoughtless words and expressions.
he's still on a minced diet and complains about that daily, and also on thickened beverages to help him swallow. that seems to be the only thing he's doing okay with...he wishes we could 'thicken' up some whiskey for him i'm sure!!!
{ GIGGLE }
this is going to be a very slow healing process, and as much as my grandma wishes she had all the answers and prognosis NOW, we are all going to have to go with him one day at a time. it is very sad watching her look after him as best she can while he's in the hospital and know that she'd sell her soul to bring him home with her, like it was before.
things are going to be different now for them.
i didn't get to go for a visit on friday as i was preparing my CRAZY house ( believe me ) for my class friday night. and i did a wedding (photography ) on saturday, so i went up to see him around supper time on saturday. this was taken then. he was pretty beat and tired by the time i saw him and wanted to go to bed. but the nurses had him sitting in a chair and said he can't go into his bed to sleep until they said so. ( about another hour ). since when do they dictate bedtimes??? if the guy is sore and tired and wants into his bed THEN HELP HIM!!! we are not allowed to move him ourselves as we don't know the proper way to move him without causing more damage....but i thought that was just awful.
HANG IN THERE GRANDPA!!!!

...despite all this commotion, my life at home of course still has it's demands and required attention to my family and my business!!! friday night i had a fun album altering class and since it is my mom's birthday on tuesday ( the 14th ) her good friend grace had brought along a birthday cake to have with our half time snack!!!

...and saturday night, after the wedding and my visit with grandpa, i met up with mike and the kids at our friends house for an evening BBQ and bonfire! they had rented a cool bouncer for all the kids to play in and they had a blast...and so did mike a few times too!!!
thanks linda and dave for a much needed fun night!!


...and this picture made me LMAO (laugh my ass off)...

i didn't see it until i downloaded the pic's tonight...so i'm sure it's good to guess that mike took it saturday night at the party...this is an unusual photo of courtney as she is quite the little 'picture perfect' poser for photos!!! the last time i saw a picture of her sticking out her tongue was when she was all dressed up as a little flowergirl! ( which is now my mousepad!! following this shot )



...and that's my weekend in a nutshell...
i must say that i am very GREEN WITH ENVY to my friend AMANDA who had tickets to see josh groban tonight...lucky ducky.
and also jealous of my kids and husband who are all sound asleep upstairs right now...and that's where i'm going now...
'nite all!
:O)





3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi kimmy, I'm so srry to hear what you are going through with your Grandparents. WHat an awful experience this must be for you. Try and think positive (although it must be hard) and I am praying for both of them!

Happy Birthday Heather aka Mom! Haha!

Can't wait to hear about your September classes!

T

Unknown said...

Yes it is very sad - the level of care- but when I broke my leg in the spring in the US the first thing I had to do was prove I had adequate insurance, or pre-pay with a credit card, or it was the bum's rush out the door! So instead of emptying our bank account we have to suffer with an inadequate level of care. The system needs fixing for sure, but we can do all we can to help out the staff with a kind word, or a 'I know you are incredibly busy but can you...". I know you can win them over! Hopefully your Grandpa heals quickly and gets back to home, but in the meantime hang in there!

Kim said...

thanks allison!!!
believe be, we ARE being as polite and patient with the nursing staff as possible...even though they are treating him poorly, i hate to think how worse things could be if we returned the rudeness to them!!!
and we do understand they are all busy and probably short staffed, but it really wouldn't kill them to have a friendlier attitude and warmer understanding of his needs. it's very frustrating!!!
did you check out the notions cart yet??? heeheehee...i had fun!
:O)