Holy mad scramble, batman!

Well, I went up yesterday. What lovely weather for a drive ...

My Dad tried to stop me ("Why don't you just not come Thursday"), my Mum tried to stop me ("They said on the radio that all the roads in Charlotte were closed."), even the nurse up in Reynolds tower at Baptist tried to stop me: ("You're coming up here? Half of our employees didn't make it in today"). None of them had dads at the hospital, I guess.

Anyway, not counting my just wanting to see Dad, I had to go up there. We really had to talk over some stuff.

I had contacted Dad's lawyer slash friend - Lawyer C - who has rallied a swarm of litigators who will, in turn, be decending on Dad's location today in a pin-striped cloud.

I really like this guy and I'm glad we were able to get a person Dad trusts and likes - no offense to the other lawyers, they were fab - but you know how that is: you're more comfortable with people you know.

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So what else did we need to talk about yesterday? Oh yeah. I got a call from M, the social worker at the hospital on Tuesday. Dad's being discharged.

Like today.

I'm sorry ... *cleans out ears* ... EXCUSE me?!

Yep. They say that Dad is 'medically ready' to leave. Please bear in mind that he still has a bi-lateral flail chest, broken sternum, broken clavical, broken thumb, cracked pelvis (both sides), plus the whole smashed-leg-with-gruesome-external-stabiliser thing goin' on. He is non-weight-bearing on all four limbs and requires extensive on-going physical therapy.

Because of all this he must be either A) put in a Skilled Nursing Facility, or B) have 24 hour in-home care, a hospital bed, reclining wheelchair, bedside toilet, tilt board,etc.

I heard about all this for the first time Wednesday, mid-day. I was told that he would be discharged Thursday. To say that I was in a panic the rest of the day on Wednesday would be an understatement of shocking proportions.

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So I spent all day looking up Skilled Nursing Facilities here closeby my house, and calling the 24 hour in-home care places. I also got a list of places that rented medical equipment since I hadn't spoken with Dad about all this and didn't know which he preferred - in home or facility.

In the meantime, M, looked up the same info for the Charlotte area (I was guessing about where he'd want to go. Daddy has said that he will not be returning to his house.), and armed with this info, I went up to see Dad yesterday.

By the way, he seems to be doing fairly well. He's frustrated at being alert but still so physically frail. He can't sit upright(hurts too much), which is pretty bad for him and physical therapy is always just horrible. It's like being tortured ... but for a good cause.

So he's flat on his back, pretty much, but completely lucid. I imagine he spends way more time than he'd like thinking. He watches a bit of telly and I've taken him some reading material, but both are hard to do all day, especially if you can't sit up.

So Dad's decided he wants to enter a Skilled Nursing Facility here in my area. Since he has one more operation on his leg on the 28th, we're hoping that they can take him in their facility up there in W-S until then. Out thinking is that, since he will have to be transported by ambulance, it would be better to only make that trip once.

So into a SNF until he's stronger then, perhaps, here in my house for a bit until he decides where he wants to go from there.

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Dad has had a life-changing event. It's important that he do whatever it takes to get better, physically and emotionally. Things won't just go back to being the way they were and we shouldn't expect them to or tell him that they will. We all want him to stay close, to go back to some of the old stuff, but if he decides to - I dunno - move to Alaska and hike over the tundra for a year that should be his business. We shouldn't try to make him feel guilty for not doing what we want him to do.