It's a rainy, fairly warm morning with a little thunder and lightning thrown in. Started last night as predicted and rained hard through the night. I think it's supposed to last all day, but I'm not sure, been a little out of touch with news and weather the last couple of days.

Yesterday was quite interesting. Bill didn't feel well and we felt that he was just tired from the transfer. He's still disoriented about where he is. I think once he can move around some and look out different windows he'll realize how close to home he is. That may be a bad thing, I don't know, but he's still confused on his location.

He didn't want to eat at all. I forced him to have some oatmeal and he ate a couple of bites of scrambled egg. His lunch was fried catfish with slaw and black-eyed peas...good southern lunch. He only ate a couple of bites of fish.

I love the med nurse he had, we'll work well together. I told her I was going to be very hands-on and be there every day and she said that's what she liked, involved family. His blood pressure was low yesterday morning, but he had not had his midarone. That's the new med to keep his pressure up. He was also coughing a lot, even though he was sitting up far enough that his lungs could expand. When she was assessing him, his O2 was very low, only in the 60s and his heart rate was elevated, but not extremely high. With sats that low he should have been blue and gasping for air. But, he was not, he was just moaning a little and moving his head from sided to side.

I asked later to borrow her pulse ox to check it again because he just didn't seem right. I checked the concentrator and it was on the right setting. This time his sats were in the 50s! Heart rate still wasn't extremely high and he still didn't show any outward signs of distress. That's pass-out range. Charlise came immediately and asked if I wanted him transferred to the hospital or just monitored for a bit. I said to monitor, especially since he had just been moved, and she said she needed to call her supervisor and the nurse practitioner for the dr., but she wanted to try something first. She brought in a tank and changed him over and...oh my God!...he went straight to sats of 92! Apparently the concentrator was not producing a high enough concentration of oxygen and he was probably just breathing room air! The effect not only of the sats rising so fast, but in his entire demeanor was amazing! He perked up, he ate part of his dinner, which was like a stroganoff Hamburger Helper made with ground turkey. I told him to pretend that I cooked it and he said he couldn't even do that to make it taste better. I told him he didn't have to eat the fried okra, or the burnt dinner roll, but he had to eat some of the entree before he could tackle the strawberries and whipped cream, which was mostly whipped. He also started talking to his roommate and they were getting to know each other when I left for the night.

Charlise got permission to keep him on tank air for the night, but at the setting he's on, those tanks don't last long. I wondered how well he would be monitored in the night. I told him that since he could tell when nothing was coming out of the tubing to call them and tell them he couldn't breathe.

I don't know how well that went, but I got a phone call at 1 this morning. He had gotten out of bed and fell in the bathroom. They said he wasn't hurt but he had a panic attack which he has done before and they took him off the humified air (on the concentrator) and used something called a Christmas Tree and he was breathing much better. I asked why he wasn't on tank air like he was supposed to be and she just assured me that his sats were good. I don't know if they brought in another concentrator or what. It was storming at the time and since she assured me that he was OK, I didn't get up and go.

I have a feeling that since Bill knows he's not supposed to get up, that in the night his call button was moved, along with his urinal. That happened all the time at the center in Florida in was in after the transplant. There they had his bed very low to the ground with gym pads around it so that if he fell he wouldn't fall far. This bed is sitting up pretty high so he could get his legs under him, but since he hasn't walked without help for more than 2 weeks, it's not surprising that he fell.  So, I'll investigate this morning when I get there to see just what happened. Charlise may like working with me, others may not be as happy!

I had to leave for a couple of hours yesterday and I think physical therapy came in and assessed him. OT and Speech came in late in the afternoon. The OT guy, a very nice young man from the Philippines, was impressed with Bill's hand and arm strength. He was also impressed that he still dresses himself, including putting on socks with no aids. I told him he complains about the buttons on his shirt being too small, so they are going to work on some fine motor skills and just general strengthening. Speech watched him swallow and didn't see any issues and she assessed his memory. I told her about the strokes and that he did have memory issues. He surprised me with some of his answers, remembering some sequences with words and numbers, but dates were a thing of the past. Looking back now, all of that was done before we discovered the low sat problem. I wonder if I could get her to re-evaluate him Monday before deciding on a treatment plan. His mind was so much clearer after that.

One disturbing aspect was that, instead of the 2-3 weeks we were told he would be there, they said it was 3 months! I told Bill that, if he worked very hard on therapy, and I could tell that he would be able to function better at home, I would take him out after the 3 weeks. I think that 3 months is the maximum amount of time that Medicare will pay for short-term care. I know they pay 100% for the 1st 21 days and then Tri-care will kick-in with what Medicare doesn't pay. They rushed through the paperwork so fast when he was admitted, they didn't give a length of stay. So, something else to check out Monday since there will be no administrators in over the week-end.

Once I see what he's doing with this new concentrator, I may call Jaron, our Lincare rep, and ask about a temporary one from them. It may be like when we're travelling. They provide concentrators and tanks wherever you are. If that can be done, and I would have more peace of mind, I'll tell them (the nursing home) to remove the concentrator charge from the billing. My sister, who used to work in nursing homes advised me of this.

Once again it was an eventful day. But, I didn't have to get up and drive to Memphis, or drive home in the rain and storms. I'm going to get the bills paid since it is the 1st of the month and hard boil some eggs to make egg salad for lunch. It still hurts to chew some, although I can tell a difference this morning in how my mouth feels, so maybe I'm getting used to the new teeth. But a softer sandwich sounds good and I haven't had egg salad for a long time. Have a good week-end. Stay dry if it's raining where you are, warm if it's snowing, and enjoy warm weather if that's your location. Happy December!