Home Again

Both mother and father are out of the hospital and at home. Hopefully things will stay that way for a good long while.

The day my mother got out of the hospital, she walked out to the garden without her oxygen tube. Well, that might be good except she was still on antibiotics and steroids to treat her illness. I'm afraid I got mad at her and was a little mean. I told her that I should tie a rope around her waist to keep her from running off, just as she once did to me when I was a little boy. Then I said, "At least we know you still remember your way home." That's the part I feel bad about, because her short-term memory has been getting steadily worse since her illness in the Winter of 07-08. I must be more mindful about what I say.

Hotel Legacy

Legacy Salmon Creek Hospital is nice as far as hospitals go. It's new, it's spacious, its walls and rooms are decked out in attractive colors. It's also where my mother was on a ventilator a couple of Christmases ago. And now it's where I am--here with my mother. She has pneumonia again--not as severe as that Christmas, but bad enough to keep her overnight; hopefully that will be sufficient. They have built-in day beds here, large picture windows, TV with all the channels, and even wireless Internet. It's almost like a hotel. But it's not where I want to be staying, and it's certainly not where my mother wants to be right now. My step-father just got out of the hospital on Monday, his second stay in a month's time, and now my mother is in. It's kind of like a yo-yo, one out and one in. As my mother's doctor said the other day, their health has taken a real nose-dive in the last year. But we want to keep them with us and at home for as long as we can.