Bill Update 7-20-2019
Bill is in a place called St Josephs. It's a care facility. A nursing home.
It's a nice one. They're always clean, well-staffed and they have good equipment.
I was able to recommend the place when my Niece, Nina was setting up Bills discharge and subsequent care.
My previous experience as a Medical transporter paid off.
Bill, naturally, hates the place with the fury of a thousand white-hot suns.
If you find yourself in such a place and you have any of your brain functioning, you will hate it, too. They are not happy places and the residents frequently lack any mechanism for self-actualization.
I pointed out to Bill that he was lucky (and he is) that he has a path, that, if followed properly and well, will lead to his exit. Too many people in these places are there to stay.
Bill does not want to even hear that shit. He wants to go home NOW and begin a self-directed program of physical therapy his way on his terms.
This is not a good idea, but Bill will have none of that.
Bill has been a strong guy. An Athlete. He's been that guy for 60 years. But now he's weak. His muscles are wasted, his balance is shot. He has a lot of work ahead of him to regain enough to be functional.
He does not seem to be absorbing this. They are taking him for an hour of physical therapy per day. He describes these as "tests" which he "passes easily". Hence his rather optimistic appraisal of when he's going to get discharged and get to go home.
I have told Bill he nearly starved to death and his muscles are wasted. He described this as me trying to make him into a "victim"
Bill is also having a problem with his urinary tract. He's not peeing right or easily. They're putting catheters into him.
When I asked his nurse WHY this is going on, the very question seemed to befuddle her. She described the process of putting a catheter in, gently but well.
They use an ultrasound machine to read his bladder and measure how much urine is stacking up.
But WHY this is an issue is something that has not been explained to me. I am concerned about it. Bill destroyed his mattress, leaking on it. It was a terrible mess.
So something is not right there, and I don't know where that's going. Bill wrote it off as "Getting old" so this issue has been building up for a while.
Currently, he is a fall risk. He fell yesterday. It wasn't a bad one. He sort of failed to make the transition to his bed and slumped down next to the bed. But the facility went into a fall protocol and monitored him closely for the next several hours.
Bill fell down several times before I made contact with him at the start of this mess. He was covered in bruises and scrapes. As the infection took hold and sapped his energy, he began falling down like a really old person.
So this is an ongoing concern for the facility. Bill needs to regain his strength and his balance. If he can grok that this is a large project and needs large athlete energy to accomplish, he can do that. But he is not seeing himself and his current situation clearly.
I talked about him getting into his wheelchair and wheeling around the place. I would. Staring at the walls would drive me batshit.
Bill doesn't want to. To peoplely. Bill said this to me with a straight face. "I have nothing in common with them. They're all OLD PEOPLE!"
Bill is 73. But he doesn't see himself that way. There's good and bad to that. The bad is until he realizes how far behind the curve he is, he won't start putting in the effort to recover.
I think, if the urinary tract situation is addressed and has a good outcome, and if Bill works on recovering strength and balance, he can return to his life on his own terms.
But Bill is griping and snarling about behind held to "Other people's standards"
Talking with Nancy, his ex, a pattern emerged.
Bill has always been anti-social. He doesn't like most people. He detests being told what to do.
Bill's life has been one long struggle to build a niche for himself where he could do remunerative work on his own, without being told what to do, and without having to cope with too many other people in the process.
He doesn't have social anxiety, he has social hostility.
But some things mitigate against Bill succeeding as an independent small businessman. So his life for the last 40 years has been a long fight, with some wins and many losses, trying to build that niche for himself.
In 2006 Bill and I drove school busses for Laidlaw. After that failed to work for each of us, Bill took his Class B CDL and drove inter-city coaches. The greyhound style busses.
Then he got on at Mead School district. He does trip driving for them. He doesn't drive a route picking up kids for school or delivering them home. He drives the kids on field trips or the school team to matches at other schools.
He faces away from the kids, coaches, and chaperones, looking out the front window. He drives them to their match. They get off the bus and go do their thing and he waits on the bus. Then he drives them home.
He gets called and informed of trips, but he goes in, clocks in and checks out a bus by himself.
between this and is SSI, and subsidized housing, he's been stable for the last 12 years or so.
So for Bill, losing his mobility and his independence is a disaster. Being stuck at the mercy of medical people whose opinions don't coincide with his, among a lot of old people is just an ordeal.
I fear that he's going to trap himself with denial and unrealistic ideas of how things are. He has a lot of challenges but the toughest one, and the most dangerous is in his own mind. If he fucks around and treats himself like he isn't where he really is, physically, he'll never get to the point of capacity where he can resume his life. He won't make the DOT physical to retain his Class B CDL.
Right now I can see it going both ways. And all I can do is try to support Bill and let him know he's not alone.
I am bringing him protein-enriched blueberry juice each day.
I always ask him if I can bring him something to occupy his mind. I'd be going nuts from boredom.
mind you. If they'd let me go to work and play on a computer, I could live there.
Well, no. I have cats. Gotta take care of the cats.
BUT, Bill is just staring at the walls and thinking he's going to get out any minute.
At home, he'd do a similar thing. I watched him when I lived with him in 1990 and 1991. I've seen him do it at his current place.
Bill has no TV and no computer. He has a radio playing NPR.
He has a chair. He makes a nest there.
He stares out these huge picture windows and thinks Bill thoughts.
I identify, I often do similar things. But I need to be facing a computer typing away, now.
Bill does this all internally. He sits and his lips move with his internal dialog. He stares out the window, thinking Bill thoughts. Sometimes he reads books from the library next door.
In the morning he'll go to Starbucks and eat a banana muffin and drink a coffee and then he'll go to the park and exercise.
But by the afternoon, if he's not working, he back in his chair, staring out the window thinking Bill thoughts.
I am not clear I understand it all. But he likes it. He's set it up several times.
I offer to bring him books. I offer to bring him his radio.
Nope. I am not sure if he thinks that bringing in something to occupy time is tacitly admitting he's going to be there for more than 20 minutes. Or if he's just fine being quiet and thinking Bill Thoughts.
I dunno. All I can do is offer, and then give him what he requests.
Which, so far has been organic, protein-enriched juice. Once per day.
He is eating better. WHich is helping.
I am concerned about how this will all go. Will describe as we go.