A conclusion

 In my last post I discussed the difficulties of comunicating in hospitals, today I'm going to extend that and talk about rehab after surgery.

After the sucessful femur surgery my caree was moved to rehab at a smaller hospital.  Unfortunately in rehab "care" isn't provided and that made life difficult.  Her legs were going uncreamed and as a result drying out and splitting open, meds weren't cut up so they could be easily swallowed and went untaken, meals weren't soft palate friendly and "it's a hospital we cater en masse not for individual requirements" was repeated to me on a daily basis, support for drinking with arthritic hands didn't happen, the list of inadequate care for someone who was unable to care for themselves was long and the daily fight over it was stressful.

Needless to say for someon who was already experiencing reduced kidney function being unable to drink didn't help and she quickly became dehydrated yet my requests for her to be seen by a dr were met with "it's the weekend we don't have drs at weekends". I was concerned and mentioned to the persoon visiting with me bruising that hadn't previously been on her body and and mishapen toes but during my request for daily updates wasn't made aware of any problems.

Eventually a late night call was recived {yes I know it wasn't the best and I had to keep getting them to repeat things} but the gist was that no further medical support would be given as she's dehydrated and her kidney function is dropping.  When I asked why she wasn't given fluids I was told we don't do that.  So at my insistance a transfer to hospital happened over night.  She was then on IV fluids for three days.  The fourth day she seemed semi lucid but by this point but things were going to get worse.

On that fourth day more tests were being run and she was due an x-ray and I was questioned by hospital staff regarding a second fall in rehab. They kept looping back to this just as they would in a police interview or when you're trying to catch someone out.  They do the same with the person visiting with me too.  It quickly became apparent that she'd had a suspected second fall in rehab.  Unfortunately the following am I recieved a call to say due to the severe dehydration and the state of her kidneys she's now not suitable for dialysis and they wanted to begin end of life care.

I agreed and spent the following six days visiting and spending time with her, very little in face only about 2mins of it was spent with her lucid.  It was a fabulous opportunity and the staff on this ward were excellent at keeping me up to date in a form of communication I could understand, masks were removed, and we were allowed two to a bed which helped a lot.  The staff were friendly and supportive too.

It appears that this part of my blog has come to it's natural end but I've a few more posts in mind...1} Dealing with sorting things after a death whilst deaf, 2} organising a funeral when deaf and then finally 3} life after caring.  At which point my intention is to change the name of this blog and as and when I feel I have something worth sharing I will update the blog on changing from every moment of every day focused on someone else to well time will tell to what?