At least, I HOPE I’ll be going home today. Everything is set up, the discharge papers are being processed, all my doctors are in agreement, and the home healthcare companies are approved and ready to go. All we’re waiting on is for one of the home health nurses to arrive with the portable pump and another bag of meds. This part of the hospitalization process always makes me uncomfortable though, because I have to hold off and wait until I get the green light before I can call Rory and tell him to come pick me up. Then there’s more low-level anxiety while I attempt to time Rory’s arrival with an available nurse who can walk me and all my kit downstairs. I really, really dislike the whole discharge crap. With any luck at all, I should be ready to go by 2:30-3:00pm. Just in time for abysmal traffic on the highway. Wheeee…
Wow, the whole discharge process this time around wasn’t nearly as bad as it has been in the past. Maybe it was because Adriel was charge nurse and at the helm (he certainly gets the job done), but things went very smoothly. The home healthcare nurse came, delivered the pump and instructed me in how to change out medicine bags, tubes and such, my port was deactivated and all the discharge papers were dealt with, and I had my cart loaded and ready to roll within an hour. Rory was able to pull up to the front of the hospital, Dennis the PCA helped me stow all my gear in the back of the car and then we were off! I wasn’t wrong about the traffic though. People seemed to have lost their collective minds and it was once again awful, especially when an ambulance came up behind us on Fredericksburg and most of the other motorists froze in place. We didn’t have the room to move to the right and the ambulance was blaring its horn at us. Not fun. Once Rory was on the highway and could manage it, we bailed off the interstate and took a back road the rest of the way home. Not quite as direct, maybe, but certainly far more pleasant than the “Rollerball”-like experience of I-35. Sheesh.
The kitties were VERY curious about the portable pump bag once I got home, especially Tesla, who began trying to see what was in there. I wish I’d gotten a picture – he stuffed his nose into the netted panel on top of the bag and then began pawing at its sides. “I KNOW there’s something in there, I can hear it. Maybe if I stuff my paw in right here…” We eventually had to shoo him away. I didn’t want him to start shredding the netting, the little knucklehead!