Duck Pond Redneckery


Now they're talking about discharging her this Thursday BECAUSE she's not improving.

That's like the fucking opposite of what a hospital is supposed to do.

Nursing home might not take her because she's too young and her medication is too expensive...
🙄

But she's still got these blood pressure issues and a catheter and an IV.

I haven't had time to clean the living room to make room for a hospital bed, and at the moment the only vehicle I have is the motorcycle. Or that old truck. Van is in the shop because I don't have time to fix the rusted out brake line.

I don't know WTF I'm going to do now. She needs 24/7 skilled nursing care.

I'm going to be making like 40 phone calls a day to my sister I guess.
 
Now they're talking about discharging her this Thursday BECAUSE she's not improving.

That's like the fucking opposite of what a hospital is supposed to do.

Nursing home might not take her because she's too young and her medication is too expensive...
🙄

But she's still got these blood pressure issues and a catheter and an IV.

I haven't had time to clean the living room to make room for a hospital bed, and at the moment the only vehicle I have is the motorcycle. Or that old truck. Van is in the shop because I don't have time to fix the rusted out brake line.

I don't know WTF I'm going to do now. She needs 24/7 skilled nursing care.

I'm going to be making like 40 phone calls a day to my sister I guess.
I thought it was illegal for them to basically give up on a patient.
 
Today I went in search of a "gait belt" AKA patient transfer belt with the motorcycle.

I went to every Walgreens in the Kankakee/Bradley/Bourbonnais area and every medical supply store listed on Google maps. All of the latter were near downtown Kankakee.

Walgreens didn't have any. The first medical supply store didn't have any. All the other ones didn't even exist.

One was some politician's campaign office, next one was a massage parlor, next one I'm pretty sure is a brothel - right next to the court house - because there's no name, just pictures of black women in lingerie plastered all over the windows and door.

Last one was a corn field just south of town.

So I headed back to the hospital and discovered a CVS that wasn't on Google maps. They had ONE in stock. So I got it.

Exactly one minute after I got back to Sarah's room, my sister sent me a text saying she ordered one online that will be delivered Thursday.



While I was on my gait belt hunting expedition, I pulled into this Burger King parking lot just to sit on the bike and study Google maps on my phone trying to find the medical supply store that turned out to be a massage parlor, and one of the employees was taking a trash bag to the dumpster and as he walked past me he said "git on up outta here, we don't feed white folks here".

Kankakee is such a lovely town. 🙄
 
I am going to bring tomatoes to my dad's friend Rita and some to the occupational therapist that neither me nor Sarah likes.

Sarah doesn't like her because she perceives her as mean.

I don't like her because she's pessimistic.

I mean I don't like her professionally.

As a person I think she's just impatient. Not a good trait for a therapist. I think she truly cares about helping people, but thinks her time is better used with patients who are recovering faster.

She's a short Hispanic looking woman, probably in her 60's. Hard to guess her age because she colors her hair.

Today she told me her tomato plants didn't grow. I told her about the ones I put in pots getting stunted when winter came back twice after the weather channel said it was safe to plant.

So I think I'll unload some tomatoes on her tomorrow or Thursday because I've got probably 7 or 8 more that are still orange, and will be red very soon.

It really bugs me that I put all that work into maintaining that garden and I can't even do anything with the "fruits of my labor" because I don't have time to cook anything.

Maybe my Rita's psychotic sister will teach me how to can them. Rita herself broke her shin bone 4 months ago and it hasn't healed yet. And she's got cancer. She used to give me tomatoes back when she could grow them. Now she's too old. So she gets first dibs on mine.



I've been eating most of my meals in the hospital cafeteria because you can get a burger and fries for $4 something.

Breakfast is expensive for some reason but everything else is surprisingly cheap.

And it's good food too.

Like good enough I'd actually go there to eat if I was in the area, even if I had no other reason to be there. 😁
 
Oh and on my way home from the hospital tonight, an SUV pulled out in front of me while I was going through an intersection at 45 mph. I was going north on Rt 45/52 and the SUV turned north in front of me from westbound Latham Dr.

I hit the brakes hard, all the way to impending lockup as @Hammer166 has described, then at the last second I let go of the brakes and did a hard, fork suspension bottoming swerve into the left lane then straightened out.

4 miles later, I was on St George Rd in the left turn lane waiting for the green so I could turn north on Rt 50 and a Manteno ambulance pulled up on my right and the driver said "That was a nice brake and swerve maneuver back there when that SUV pulled out in front of you"

Before I could say anything he said "How's your wife? I saw you followed us out of the hospital". Light turned green so I just yelled "I can follow you to the station" and he yelled "Casey's".

I was already planning on stopping there for gas.

At Casey's, I could see his face and recognized him. He was one of the guys who took Sarah to the ER with the stroke, and he was one of the guys who was here when we had the fire in 2014, and a few weeks later he showed up to install smoke alarms.

He told me that if the nursing home doesn't take her, to call him when I bring her home and he will help me get her into the house and move furniture around to make room for the hospital bed.

And the other paramedic who was riding shotgun said the same thing. They said if the fire department isn't busy they'll drive an ambulance here and do it for no charge, but if they're off duty they will come here in their personal vehicles to help me.

The driver lives in Momence too. That's like 12 miles.

I think he wants some tomatoes 🤣
 
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Oh and on my way home from the hospital tonight, an SUV pulled out in front of me while I was going through an intersection at 45 mph. I was going north on Rt 45/52 and the SUV turned north in front of me from westbound Latham Dr.

I hit the brakes hard, all the way to impending lockup as @Hammer166 has described, then at the last second I let go of the brakes and did a hard, fork suspension bottoming swerve into the left lane then straightened out.

4 miles later, I was on St George Rd in the left turn lane waiting for the green so I could turn north on Rt 50 and a Manteno ambulance pulled up on my right and the driver said "That was a nice brake and swerve maneuver back there when that SUV pulled out in front of you"

Before I could say anything he said "How's your wife? I saw you followed us out of the hospital". Light turned green so I just yelled "I can follow you to the station" and he yelled "Casey's".

I was already planning on stopping there for gas.

At Casey's, I could see his face and recognized him. He was one of the guys who took Sarah to the ER with the stroke, and he was one of the guys who was here when we had the fire in 2014, and a few weeks later he showed up to install smoke alarms, and he was here when Sarah had her stroke.

He told me that if the nursing home doesn't take her, to call him when I bring her home and he will help me get her into the house and move furniture around to make room for the hospital bed.

And the other paramedic who was riding shotgun said the same thing. They said if the fire department isn't busy they'll drive an ambulance here and do it for no charge, but if they're off duty they will come here in their personal vehicles to help me.

The driver lives in Momence too. That's like 12 miles.

I think he wants some tomatoes 🤣
Even though this world is a mess there are still plenty of good people.
 
Now they're talking about discharging her this Thursday BECAUSE she's not improving.

That's like the fucking opposite of what a hospital is supposed to do.

Nursing home might not take her because she's too young and her medication is too expensive...
🙄

But she's still got these blood pressure issues and a catheter and an IV.

I haven't had time to clean the living room to make room for a hospital bed, and at the moment the only vehicle I have is the motorcycle. Or that old truck. Van is in the shop because I don't have time to fix the rusted out brake line.

I don't know WTF I'm going to do now. She needs 24/7 skilled nursing care.

I'm going to be making like 40 phone calls a day to my sister I guess.
Thats really fucked up 🤬
 
I'm trying to get her sent back up to Chicago now but they have no beds available and there's a 5 day waiting list.

So it's looking like she'll be transferred to the nursing home tomorrow and I can not get around the ten day quarantine because it takes a month to get hired on doing ANY job there. And it's locked down all the time to keep their dementia patients from wandering off. So I can't sneak in.

But the nursing home will be able to send her up to Rush for an outpatient MRI of her brain that they can't do in Kankakee because of her Vegus Nerve Stimulator implant. Their machine is too old.

And maybe I can drive up to Rush by myself and beg the neurologists to order a transfer.

In the meantime I am going to make a new cell phone holder for Sarah's phone, probably just mount a store bought holder to a piece of polyethylene so I don't have to drill holes in her fancy butterfly case. Because I've been told that during the covid lock downs of nursing homes, the staff all got familiar with getting video calls established.

Tonight before I left, I installed Messenger on her phone and did a test call with mine, and noticed her brother Eric was online so I did a video call and I just held the phone up over Sarah while she was lying down.

Her speech during that video call was better than it's been since Thursday night when she was still making progress.

So I'm going to be one hell of a pain in the ass for the nurses during that ten day quarantine, making them do video calls and keep her phone charged.

With a holder, they can just start the call, make sure it's pointed at her and then leave the room for a while.


Tonight I also verified that messenger will work without having to be logged in to Facebook. I can't allow her to get on Facebook and find out her other brother is dead.
 
If you don't think natural childbirth is severe trauma, or that a C Section is actually a major wound, you're woefully uninformed.
They cut you open for a lot of surgeries and send you home as soon as you wake up from anesthesia.

Being in their bed doesn't really make you heal faster than being in your own. Unless you're an asshole husband who makes her do housework or you're a dumbass trying to work on your car the day you get out.
 
They cut you open for a lot of surgeries and send you home as soon as you wake up from anesthesia.

Being in their bed doesn't really make you heal faster than being in your own. Unless you're an asshole husband who makes her do housework or you're a dumbass trying to work on your car the day you get out.
That doesn't mean it's the correct thing to do. It means they're clearing the bed for another big bill to come in.

Thats my point.

You're still woefully uninformed.
 

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