30 October 2024
Before I could leave the house for the hospital, Mary Ann (the patient care coordinator) called to tell me Joyce has been discharged. So she found a bed for her at a facility in Daly City run by the same people who ran the facility my mother had been in. And which, consequently, I was pretty familiar with, having gone there every day for 11 months last year.
They don't have the staff to do wound care, I knew. But the big problem is that it's out of town so I can't get there to help out. I don't know how many times I've pointed out that I can't drive so the SNF has to be in San Francisco where I can take the bus to it every day.
But Mary Ann said the two facilities they contract with in the city wouldn't take Joyce, presumably because of the wound care. So it was Daly City.
No, I said. I have to be able to get there.
So she tried to convince me I could take Muni to SamTrans and get there and home in the same day, a schedule that was more fantasy than functional. I ended the conversation at that so I could get out of the house an hour later than usual.
But I was annoyed, Somehow I'm expected to accommodate Kaiser. Pro bono. The unpaid advocate has to yield. But what good is an advocate who yields?
In fact on the bus ride over, I had an idea. I could have her come home instead for wound care and call 911 at the first problem to have her readmitted from the ER. Eventually she'd be strong enough to stay home. That became my plan.
But as I walked down Geary to the hospital, my phone rang. It was Mary Ann. I called her back when I got to Joyce's room. Joyce was in bed after a debridement and had been up and used the commode for the first time. But still dehydrated and not eating. But Beth the Physical Therapist thought she was ready to be discharged.
When I told Mary Ann I was in the room, she came up.
She wanted to explain the options to us. But she had a new one. A brand new one in which physical therapy came to the house seven days a week. You need strong support at home for it to work, she said, but she said she hopes she has as strong an advocate as me when she needs it. Because she knows I'm a pain in the ass.
She promised to explore that for us before she left. Then I encouraged Joyce to get out of bed to sit in the chair. And she did.
And I went shopping for dinner, which was my plan all along.