Our transfer to rehab did not go as planned, and I'm not sure how this is going to work. The rehab hospital would not take Bill because of his oxygen. I don't know if it's because he's on oxygen, or because his sats fluctuate so much. So, it was decided that he would go to skilled nursing instead. The first choice they gave me was for the nursing home here in town and I immediately said no. That one is more an old fashioned nursing home where there isn't much physical therapy. We decided on one that's only about 5 miles away in Gosnell, which for those of you who have been to our area, is right outside the airbase. It's supposed to be the best one in the area.

He was transferred by ambulance and we all got there within 3 minutes of each other. I had called Emily to go to the house to get Bill's meds because they would not be able to handle the transplant meds, at least for last night. She pulled in right after the ambulance.

The first thing we noticed was the noise from the residents. They don't separate the dementia patients from the other patients, and the residents I saw looked so unhappy. But, we got Bill settled in his room with his roommate Bill, who goes by Gary (don't ask why) and he just kept saying "this isn't going to work". There was one dementia patient that was going up and down the hall yelling she wanted out and it wasn't fair and she wanted to go home. We told Bill that she would go to sleep and things would quiet down. His roomie got into bed and promptly went to sleep, but he had the remote for the shared TV. I don't think Bill was interested in it anyway and wanted the curtain separating them to be kept pulled. They brought him a turkey sandwich, and he just said he wasn't hungry. 

One of the employees, (I'm just not sure of her status and she may be an LPN because she gave Bill his meds) knows Emily and she said she'll take extra good care of him. We told her that he will need help to the bathroom, but he does have a urinal right beside his bed. 

It nearly killed me to leave him there so unhappy. When he was in skilled nursing in Florida, those patients were in a completely separate wing and the dementia patients were in another locked area. I told him I would be back after all of the school traffic had died down since I have to turn by the school to get there.

He was also very confused on where he was. But, arriving by ambulance, in the dark, he just didn't know where he was. I finally told him he was 5 minutes from Mistie's house and I would put her down as an emergency contact so that in the night if he needed something, she could get there faster than I could. I'm hoping that in the light of day things will look up for him.

The oxygen concentrator they brought for him wouldn't go past 2 liters and he started having a slight panic attack saying he couldn't breathe and I'm sure he couldn't. But we got him calmed down and they brought in a 3rd concentrator that finally worked and he was breathing much easier.

I'm just praying that his therapy isn't just going to be range of motion type therapy, otherwise he won't get any stronger. We shall see today. I know today will just be an evaluation day and there won't be any therapy over the week-end, but hopefully Monday he'll get some good therapy started. I told him last night the harder he works, the faster he'll get out of there.

I picked up my partial yesterday and it looks nice, but I'm going to have to have it adjusted, so one day after Bill is settled in, I'll go back to Memphis to have it fixed. It's very tight and I can't chew. One side feels bigger than the other side and no matter which side I try to chew on, I can't close my mouth completely. They also left a lot of "gum" on top, but they told me that could be taken off and I do want that removed. I have 60 days to do it but I don't want to wait that long. I told my sister that I would give it through the week-end since I hadn't really eaten anything since getting it, so we shall see.

We're supposed to get severe weather tonight. Hopefully it won't get too bad, maybe just lots of rain.

That's all I've got for today. It should be an interesting one. We didn't leave anything with Bill that can't be easily replaced. He doesn't even have his cellphone with him and I don't think there is a phone in the room unless it was on the other side of the curtain. I'm hoping that the guys will start talking some today and swap war stories or something. That would also free me up some. But, now I can come and go easier than before.