Me and Lamb0

Can you believe it? I am going to write about a really nice day! The weather was gorgeous, cool and clear. I had arranged yesterday for us to go visit Lamb0 this afternoon, so we made the call, and off we went. We met DreamGuy's parents along the way and they followed us up, since they had been saying they'd wanted to visit Lamb0, too. Off we went, way out into the country. ( Read more... )

The new place, a little hospital with an acute care floor about a mile from the big hospital.

That sounds like the title for a great country song, doesn't it? My mother and I were talking one day last week about what car we'd want if we could have any one we wanted. I was shocked at my mother's insistence that she would want a Hummer. "But they're so high up and hard to get into, aren't they?" I inquired. "You can get a step that lifts you right up. I saw it on TV." Hee! If I ever win the lottery, Mama's gettin her Hummer!

So it's been quite the week. I stayed over in Atlanta until Monday morning, when I could hit the ground running at my dad's new hospital unit and see to a few things before leaving town. I don't like the system this place uses for coordinating patient care. The medical practice which operates the unit is chock-full of experienced experts in various aspects of critical care, but rather than having patients assigned to particular doctors, they rotate by the week, with one doctor seeing to all the patients in the unit that week. There is so little communication of basic information from one to the next that I am worried my father will be dead and gone before they finish reading his chart from week to week. Well that's a joke, really. His chart is HUGE and it's quite evident that nobody reads much further than the top few pages before diving in.( Read more... )

Bonsai pine at the monastery in Conyers, Georgia.

As usual, I have no idea where to begin, so I'll just begin. Starting with my dad, he's still riding the ragged edge of disaster, now in a long-term acute care facility about a mile from the hospital. He continues to do incrementally better as he goes along, but also continues to step in pot-holes along the way. I was back home last Monday as planned, and at my desk bright and shiny Tuesday morning. The plan was to return to Atlanta on Friday night, but on Thursday I got a call saying Dad was having trouble, so I zoomed back to Atlanta on Thursday. ( Read more... )