On the Road (to recovery) Again

The News

It was a much happier, brighter, and more alert Carolyn who answered my phone call this morning than the one I visited with last night.  She admitted that she couldn't recall a bit of conversation with Ed, Tiffany, or me last night, just a vague recollection of someone being in her room.  I was calling this morning to ask what, if anything, she wanted me to bring to her. I was also interested in what her day was shaping up to be.

By the time I arrived shortly after10 she had begun taking walks the length of the nursing station.   But she also welcomed the reading book I brought.  She informed me that "we" would be instructed at 1:00 this afternoon on the care and cleaning of her drainage tubes coming from her chest cavity.  The doctor had said that after the instruction, Carolyn could go home at any time.

However, as the day wore on and Carolyn continued to feel a little queasy, she decided she would rather stay an extra day; that a couple of extra meals in her stomach might help.  So the plan now is for her to be all packed and ready to go about 9:00 tomorrow morning.


News behind the news

The discharge timing question boiled down to "where would be easiest to get good rest" and which would be the best place for care and comfort if Carolyn were to become more nauseous.   I didn't think there would be any question given the usual hospital environment.  Carolyn's roommate, a woman in her 80's who had fallen and broken her ankle, was quiet enough but when her children and grandchildren came it became a noisy room indeed. One of the hospital staff finally reminded the family that visitors must be 12 and older and that only 2 at a time could visit in the patient's room.  Whereupon the patient's daughter roughly pulled the 2 year-old girl out of the room while saying loudly, "THEY don't want you to visit Grandma!"  Good theater but hardly a peaceful environment.

Finally, in a perverse twist of incentives, by staying an extra night Carolyn becomes an inpatient, loses her outpatient status, and qualifies for a $15 refund of her co-payment.  What a world!  She gets paid for extending her stay!