Cow hay and peacocks

2003-09-25 - 6:49 p.m.

I'm so pissed off. I'm exhausted. This whole situation sucks.

Visiting hours in this hospital don't start until 11am. My mom and I were out and about killing time in the city long before that. At about quarter to 11 I got a call from Grampa's nurse in the ICU asking us to please come help them with him. He was confused. He didn't understand where he was or why he was there and he was pulling all his lines out. So we got there. He was confused a bit, but he knew perfectly well who we were. We spent the next three hours trying to keep him in bed and comfortable--both very difficult tasks. His mentation never did improve much. They did eventually transfer him downstairs to a transitional care unit. First he was in the chair. Then he was in bed. Then he was in the chair. Now he's back in bed. He's still really confused and it's hard to keep him from doing something to hurt himself. I'm constantly the bad guy. He's finally sleeping now.

And then there's my mom. Grampa's driving her nuts. She's driving me nuts. I finally get Grampa calmed down and then she'll start talking and wake him up again. And the whole time we've been down here I've seen his fucking nurse twice. We've been here five hours. The first time she brought him a tray with scalding hot tea and chunks of orange with seeds still in it. For a man who can barely eat! The second time she came in and woke him up to give him a stool softener.

I expected Grampa to be more with it mentally. He was pretty with it last night, but has been confused all day today. Maybe I worry too much. Of course I worry too much. I'm worried the anesthesia did bad things to his brain. Permanent things. But no. I'm just overly worried.

The UPS guy tried to deliver my computer yesterday. Of course nobody was home. He tried again today, too. I called them to tell them I would come to the main office to pick it up tomorrow. That was when I thought Grampa was doing well. I can probably drive to Sacramento and back before visiting hours start tomorrow to get it. It's not that I need it, it's just that I don't want it to get lost or sent back or something.

I'm worried about Grampa for tonight and tomorrow morning when I'm not here. Who will take care of him? Actually, he has a sitter but the sitter has been gone since we're here. I guess the sitter will watch him well enough. Or maybe Grampa will sleep through the night with no problems.

At least he hasn't been in pain. He complained of pain once in the ICU and the nurse gave him Tylenol. I was thinking, "What the fuck? Tylenol? The man had his sternum sawed in half!" But of course he was still confused so they didn't want to give him anything that would make that worse. And it seemd to do the trick. Shows what I know.