still ill

So, we spent another evening/morning in the emergency room with LOG.

On Saturday, he came home and although we thought it was a little too soon, he seemed really happy to be here. Unfortunately, once he got home, we couldn't get him to get out of bed and move around (he was transported here from the hospital by ambulance) and he wouldn't eat or drink as much as the nurses had instructed. This didn't shock us, he hadn't been moving around much or eating or drinking much of anything for the past week or so (which is why we ended up in the emergency room on Wednesday in the first place).

Anyway, fast forward to yesterday. He still wouldn't move and we were really worried. We explained to him that if he couldn't move around, it wasn't safe for him to be home alone when we were at work and that we'd have to pursue some kind of nursing care for him, outside of our home. He promised (he's good at making promises) that he'd get up and move around "tomorrow" and that he was fine.

This morning, we discover him, on the floor of his bedroom, bleeding and disoriented. We make another trip to the emerg via ambulance. Four staples in his head and 12 stitches in his arm later, he's battered and bruised but basically alright. Unfortunately, we no long feel that we can look after him in our home and he's been given what's called a "crisis placement" in a local nursing home. This placement can be for as long or as short a period of time as we need. Because of the nature of this placement, he could have been placed anywhere in our cachement area (which is huge). As luck would have it, he has been given a bed in the best place in town, which happens to be a 10 minute walk from our house. He's being transported there tomorrow morning.

At first, he really didn't want to go. He seemed to think that we were going to just leave him there to die. He told the social worker that he needed some time to think about it (now this from a man who thought he had fallen in the hospital and had been transported to the emergency room by a woman who worked in a bakery that burned down 40 years ago). She asked him how much time he would need and he replied, "um, about 2 weeks." When we explained to him that he would be able to stay there to heal and get stronger and then come back home, he agreed to it. I'm glad he agreed because he didn't really have a choice. We could not bring him home and they weren't going to admit him to the hospital. By this time tomorrow, he'll be settled in and hopefully will be on the mend.

Right now, we're both shattered. I know that this hasn't got anything to do with fitness or any of that stuff but I do feel better for letting out some of it here. I hope that all of my lovely American friends had a terrific holiday today.

Stay healthy folks. Getting old and sick does not look like a party that any one of us want to be at. Trust me on this one.