Susan's update 11/29

sorry for the delay in posting this update, folks! -- Julianne



Hi all,
I need more prayers. Physically she's actually do pretty well
-- infection free, thank God. Today we got back to weaning
(breathing off the vent) for 6 hours after two days of no weaning. She
did 7.5 hours Monday and 6.5 hours Sunday. They only allowed 6
today...she probably could have gone longer.
The problem now is emotional. Intellectually she is suddenly
very lucid and alert and asking questions -- questions about things that
up to now she has not wanted to discuss -- specifically, two nights ago
she wanted to know all the details about how my dad died and the funeral
and all that. She also now wants specific about what has happened to
her and her prognosis. The psychologist (I asked for counseling for
her) says everything she's doing is "normal" and she doesn't need
counseling. But she spent hours being very agitated for two days and a
couple hours crying the other night when we talked about Pop, which
probably is natural for grieving. They are giving her some meds to
help her relax.
The problem is that the nasty witches (insert another letter if
you wish) in case management immediately saw two days of no weaning and
are using that as evidence of "lack of progress" and reason to make me
remove her from this "Acute Care Hospital" and take her to a nursing
home since our Medicare-allowed days here are running low anyway.
Actually I don't know and they don't know Medicare will allow since
Medicare has made a mess of things. So if she continues weaning
successfully for increasing numbers of hours, they might let me keep her
there a while longer and at least have some time to find a good place to
take her. I've got my good doctor who is a bigwig on the board at this
hospital pulling some strings for me and a made a stink about how lousy
it was of them not to let the poor woman grieve in peace. They won't
force the issue before next week sometime, so I have the weekend to go
research nursing homes and find someplace nice if this becomes
necessary. I suggested that I'd pay them myself but, of course, I can't
really do that since they charge $40,000 a week!
So please pray hard that she keeps weaning from the vent successfully!
Thanks!
Susan