My Dad's Journey: Six Weeks In

It seems, the while the bubble has not yet burst, it has developed a slow leak.

The past two weeks have been fair to good in my father's world. His therapy has been going well, his appetite has been enhanced through pharmacology and his motor skills had been improving. Until tonight.

My mother visited in the afternoon and things were good. By the time I arrived to spend dinnertime with him, things had gone decidedly downhill. Asleep when I arrived, he awoke with impaired speech and very little energy. After his vitals were taken the reason for his condition became clearer. His blood pressure had dropped to 91/55.  For a man who has battled hypertension the last 25 years, this change is extremely alarming.

Getting him to eat dinner was not as hard as I thought it would be, but it amazes me how his taste preferences have changed since he became a nursing home resident. Water, for example, was always drunk at room temperature. Once he became a patient, water needed to be cold...now cold drinks are on the shit list again.  Ice cream however, remains a perennial favorite. We try to bring him foods we think he would enjoy, to supplement the one-step-above-crap food he is served daily. At this point anything he eats is ok with us. He once weighed around 175, yesterday his weight was 108.  A UTI and thrush are the latest assaults on his tired body. Everyday, it seems there is another danger lurking.

While I haven't had another exceptional visit like the one I had when he was in the hospital, (Enjoying The Evening Light With My Dad) before being transferred to the nursing home, there have been many good visits. There have also been some very bad ones. Tonight was somewhere in the middle.

It was a rainy day today, kinda the way I felt inside.

Love you Pops.

.

On The Soapbox: And It's Not Covered, Why?

So yes, I'm a little pissy today.

People, stuff...let's just say the day is not starting out stellar. I could go on for days with my own kvetching, but this morning I need to take on a cause for another. It is a common enough problem, encountered by many people in this country. Today we talk about Medical Insurance Companies.

Say you had a medical condition like hypertension...many of us do.  After trial and error for a good length of time, you finally find one drug which works.  Of course after this good luck comes your way, the insurance company takes that specific drug off its approved list. Now, to stay healthy, it's going to be with money coming out of your pocket...at a cost of several hundred dollars a month.

So, the insurance company would rather pay for a drug that doesn't work as well, and incur all the costs down the line for repercussions...than pay upfront for a drug proven to take care of the problem  Sure, let her have a stroke, then we will pay for the hospital, doctors, rehab...etc, if she lives through it.

Kind of makes you believe the inmates are really running the asylum.

So here we are with seniors cutting their meds in half because they can't afford a full dose, people bringing in meds from over the borders because they're cheaper, and our medical insurance companies just look at the "in-the-moment' cost. They started allowing tests for preventative medicine, including flu shots, mammograms and check-ups, but still have a narrow-minded approach to the drugs which keep people healthy.

Stupidity it seems, is an epidemic well covered by the medical insurance business.

.