day 63 Hospice begins

Hospice begins

Which is not as serious as it may sound.
Preliminary hospice is different from regular homecare
because they focus on the patient differently
They are concerned for Dad's comfort
not keeping him alive

Despite a whole lot of problems working against him
physically dad could go either way.
He often has a low fever
he is being fed through a tube
He gets insulin shots
and
blood thinner shots

It's a horrible experience. We have a little sort a cel-phone looking device
you turn it on and insert a little... computer stick?
It beeps.
You then prepare the weapon.
this is a small disposable needle
locked into a kinda plastic tube
you load the tube like a gun
you choose a finger
and clean it with alcohol.
Then you turn on the little cel-phone thingy
pull back the skin on the finger
and fire the needle into the taught skin.
Hopefully, if you do it correctly (which for me is about every 3rd try)
you draw blood
quickly you have to drip the blood onto the stick that is sticking out of the cel-phone
8 seconds later it reads the sugar in my dad's blood.
I then have a chart which I use to measure how much insulin I should give him.

It is not fun pricking your father
it is less fun jabbing him with needles

I freaked out yesterday
really really freaked.

now that he is back
I can't leave
right now there is no one willing to do the work
and you have to check him every few hours for the insulin
and give him the blood thinner twice a day
and my mother even fears the stomach tube.

It's all me
and I can't handle that

I feel so guilty
lonely
horrible
tired tired tired
and guilty again
I don't sleep well
Im not eating properly
and I am the only one who talks to all the nurses/insurance people/doctors/pharmacists because my mom doesn't understand it and my sister is usually working
AND THEN
my mother looks at me and asks
"what should we do?"
"Is he ok?"
"Did you remember to secure the bed?"
Its the only topic of conversation around here
and I am the only one everyone looks to for answers

my mother just asked me, 'Will he be able to use the chair again?"

1st. i don't know
2nd I don't want him to anyway
3rd Do you realize, mom. That if we did want to put him in the chair... it would be ME putting him there?

so there is where the guilt comes in.
Yes, maybe its 50% selfish
I do not want to (on top of all the other things I am doing) to have to get him out of bed and into the chair.
It was bad enough before he went into the hospital.
Now he does nothing to help
nothing because he is NOT there

and this is just 1 minor tiny miniscule guilty feeling
there are so many others

my cousin said to me... You should be changing your father's position every few hours."
I said, "Yes. Yes, I do."
She said, "So, you get up in the night?"

she wasn't being mean... just sort of assuming I did. No, I don't. I DON"T GET UP OK. I don't WANT TO and WILL NOT. And it was just a comment she made. nothing accusatory about it at all. It is I who accuse myself.
and it has only been 4 days