Finally Home

I actually came home yesterday afternoon, a day earlier than planned.  On Wednesday afternoon, my PT met with my family and we made sure I could get into my van.  While I was sitting in the drivers seat of the van, my therapist made a comment about how easy it would be for me to just drive home.  As we talked more, we decided that I could go home after OT taught my home health nurse how to help me with transfers.  We worked it out with the case manager.  Yesterday, I sprung it on Dr. Latorre.  Usually they don't do therapy on the day you go home and I had a full day of therapy scheduled.  I didn't  see the point of staying there over night just to wait for home  health to be arranged.  I was so happy to be home.

The house wasn't as bad as it could have been.  The kitchen was about what  I had expected.  The boys consider "cleaning the kitchen" to consist of doing the dishes that are in the sink.  The kitchen counters were pretty messy with  trash, crumbs, sticky stuff and general junk that needs to be put away. The fridge had a lot of rotten food in there.  I threw some of it  away immediately.  There is still something in there that smells though.   It took all of  my will power not to go in and clean the kitchen.  I had to do a little bit of clean up this morning before I could make my breakfast but I'm trying to be careful and not over doing things my 1st day out of the hospital

The rest of the house was pretty good.  There were blankets all  over the couch which is pretty normal for us since the cats have scratched up the couch.  The table is cluttered.  Our bed had stuff all  over it but it w as an easy clean.  Our bathroom smelled like cat pee though.  Patches was diagnosed with a  tumor in her throat just a few days before I was admitted. She went down hill quickly and went off somewhere by herself and  passed away, or so we assume because she hasn't been seen for more than a week.  Prior to her disappearance, she was drooling everywhere and it was really smelly according to Stan.  She also kept peeing in she shower, so I'm sure she is the one who peed on the carpet in the bathroom.  Lucky may have done it too to cover up Patches marking.  You can just never tell with  cats.  They never did this in our old house but when we moved into the apartment while our house was being built, we had a problem with the cats doing their business in the showers.  That transferred over to the new house.  We put hinges on the  door to keep the bathroom doors closed.  We thought they had stopped so we let our bathroom door open when I couldn't  walk again just before Christmas.

Next week, everything in my regular life starts up again.  On Monday, I have my pain doctor appointment then in  the afternoon I will  have my home health PT eval.  Tuesday I have to have an EMG as part of the continued work up to figure out this ascending paralysis.  I will also meet with the OT that afternoon.  Wednesday is going to be my crazy day.  I have had an appointment with my urologist in the morning.  Then I have my 1st weigh in since being in the  hospital, then my follow-up with Dr. Westgate.  In between, I need to stop by Quilter's Folly to pick up my new block of the month.  Andrew is going to drive that day so I can preserve energy.  The rest of the week is empty so I can rest.  I didn't want my schedule to be that full so close to my discharge.  I would have preferred to spread those appointments out a bit but I've  had the pain Dr. appointment for over a month, and the urologist for 6 months.  Dr. Westgate wanted to see me the week after I  got out of the hospital.  I'm hoping she can get to the  bottom of this quickly.  The neurologist I saw in the hospital  told me that it was very likely that the ascending paralysis could happen again.  I hope it's easier to get answers this time than when I 1st started having neuro problems.  It took a year to diagnose me with MS.