Joyce's KP Adventure mikepasini.com headlines
The Last Two Weeks
13 December 2025
Before the last two weeks turn into the last three weeks, I thought I'd sit down and tell you what's happened so far this month. By the time I sat down, though, it was 11:30 at night.
DECEMBER 1
The month began with a call to the Water Dept. to ask for a relief from what would turn out to be $100 in extra charges for an undetected leak in November. The Dept. actually mailed a notice that they suspected a leak and when I investigated, I found out they were right. I replaced a failing fill valve in the downstairs bathroom toilet, checked the meter to make sure it wasn't running and emailed the Water Dept. the invoice for the parts to prove it had been addressed.
It will take two to three months for the account to be credited, the Water Dept. person told me. I was hoping to get it done before the bill went out this month. What was I thinking?
DECEMBER 3
The Wednesday after her birthday I took her to the Mundstocks for lunch and to see Eric and Rachel and their daughters Eva and Riley. Alice's cousin Paul was also there for dim sum so we had a good time for a couple of hours. We hadn't seen them in ages.
That same day I found out Joyce had refused to do a blood test her doctor had ordered. They'll try again but only three times, then the order is canceled. They come before the regular shift starts so the nurse on duty doesn't press the issue like the regular nurse, who knows Joyce always says no, would.
DECEMBER 4-5
She refused on the next day but the day after that they were able to draw blood. The tests showed a high white blood cell count again but we really didn't have anything to compare it to. It's always high with her, it seems to me.
DECEMBER 7-8
I took Saturday off, as usual (except the previous Saturday was her birthday so I didn't get the day off) but when I returned on Sunday I couldn't find her clothes.
No top, no slip, no skirt, no socks.
No one knows where they are. The RN, the CNA and I all look without finding them. Then they figure out that the Friday night CNA must have been new and didn't know to put them aside for me to wash. Instead, they sent them to the laundry.
I go over to the laundry but they have put locks on the doors since the last time I went in, so I give up for the day. On Monday, Irma the head of housekeeping asks me what Joyce lost and I tell her and an hour later she returns from the laundry with them. Minus one sock of course.
Trivialities, right?
DECEMBER 9
Meanwhile, I am texting the Kaiser social worker about renewing Joyce's Medi-Cal coverage for 2026. She's the one who set it up originally so the data that has to be updated it her invention.
There is some confusion about how her Kaiser premiums are paid. The social worker seems to think Medi-Cal should pay them (reducing Joyce's share of cost) but we've always deducted them from the Golden Heights bill as a legitimate medical expense Joyce pays.
Because she's billed for it.
But then she's billed $45 not the $70 the social worker told Medi-Cal. And we did pay $70 for a while until Joyce got a low-income subsidy, knocking it down to $45.
I don't pretend to hope to unravel stuff like this. It's arbitrary.
I have been trying to find an attorney with some Medi-Cal expertise to set up a trust for her to protect her Medi-Cal benefits. But I haven't been able to find one and the social worker keeps forgetting to text me her referrals.
But as I told her last year, anything outside her social security payments would be in a trust.
Meanwhile II, I have not had a bill from Golden Heights for the last two months. One person said it would be covered by Medi-Cal and another said it would not. So I was waiting for the bill (in writing, you know) before doing anything.
But I did deposit enough to cover four months in her checking account. That will take her past recovery from her wound surgery.
DECEMBER 9 (Continued)
Which brings us to Meanwhile III, I suppose.
On Tuesday this week, she had a pre-surgery call we took in the Fireside room at Golden Pavilion.
But that was after I took a short break from my visit to dash over to Home Depot to buy a power strip to replace the one that fried that morning as I was trying to get some work done. I thought the room heater I use had blown a fuse but the fuses were fine. Then I had to trace back the electrical connection from the heater to an extension cord to a power strip plugged into the wall to the power strip plugged into that power strip. It was that last power strip that was dead.
Just in case you thought there were not enough balls in the air.
The pre-surgery call was just to screen Joyce's current situation. Including her medications, which is a long list. I had to run to the desk during the call to get Raquel the RN to print the list for me. And the recent blood test so I could tell the prescreener about the white blood cell count.
And ask her when we pick up the pre-surgery box (a nutrient and some disinfectant wipes for the night before surgery). Friday when we see Dr. Holland, she said.
I left at 3 p.m. after that but not to repair my electrical setup. Nope, I had to buy an anniversary present before the shop closed at 4 p.m. at Fort Mason. Could I make it, I wondered.
Well, I did. They didn't have what I was thinking of buying but they had something I liked better. Which doesn't happen often.
Then I went home and, in the dying light of dusk, replaced my power strip in the sequence of four of them.
DECEMBER 10
On Wednesday, which was the next calendar day (and our 50th anniversary), I went to Bank of America to deposit some money in Joyce's checking account before meeting with the social worker to give her the renewal form. She was half an hour late but we were just going home.
Fiftieth Anniversary. Raising a glass.
I make a filet mignon lunch with scalloped potatoes after a chopped blue cheese salad. We had a little prosecco with it, too, but not enough to impair Joyce's ability to walk to the car after. In fact, she made it in and out of the house without a problem.
DECEMBER 11
On Thursday she had a Memory Clinic appointment at the ungodly hour of 10 a.m. Which meant leaving the SNF at 9 a.m. to get to Kaiser French and park in the garage. I thought I'd use the wheelchair to get her from the garage to the third floor in another building because we wouldn't have time to walk.
But to leave at 9 a.m. I'd have to get to the SNF at 8:30 to get her up and dressed and to the car with the wheelchair. And to get to the SNF by 8:30 I'd have to leave a little after 8 a.m. And to get out of the house by 8 a.m., I have to stop working at 7:30 to shower and get dressed myself. So to get my three hours of work in, I'd have to get up at 4:30. As if.
As it happened, though, I got a call while I was driving over there (a bit behind schedule) from Anita at the Memory Clinic who offered to make it a phone visit instead of an in-person visit. When we made the appointment I thought an in-person visit would be more revealing.
But I opt for the phone call when Joyce has problems in the bathroom. She's been scratching and breaking the skin and bleeding and they put a barrier cream on that to stop the bleeding and a bandage on that so it doesn't get on her clothes, Which takes more time than we hand.
We answer the Memory Clinic nurse practitioner's standard questions about Joyce's recent behavior, which she considers improved. Some aspects of it are. She has read two novels, done puzzles and reads sheet music better. But she's still terrified when walking and has poor balance when standing.
The nurse practitioner suggests increasing the Buspirone and I’m happy about that, pointing out that I prefer they manage this rather than Blake the NP psychologist who sees her quarterly for 15 minutes and who I’ve never met. He'd recommended stopping the Buspirone without knowing it had just been prescribed She agrees that would be best.
After Joyce had lunch and brushed her teeth, I left to buy a Christmas tree and a wreath for the house. I couldn't do it last year since I couldn't drive. But I wanted to see if I could manage it this year. I'd been taking walks again late in the afternoon and seen the trees in neighbor's windows and missed having our own tree lighting up the street. So there. I got it up that afternoon.
But I'm not done yet with the Meanwhiles, sorry. And you wondered why there hasn't been an update in two weeks.
Dr. Holland. On Friday.
DECEMBER 12
I thought Joyce could walk to the car from her room (as she has many times) and then from the car in the garage or on the street by the medical building to the office. But I was wrong.
She was unstable walking to the car but managed. But from the car to the office she was yelling she wanted to sit as soon as she stood up. I always hold the back of her belt to soften her fall and have her put her left hand around my waste for stability. But as soon as we took that position and I told her to start walking (which usually stabilizes her), so said she had to sit and her legs crumpled. I laid her down on the sidewalk and she laid on her back before I got her to a seated position.
A woman walking her dog ran across the street to our aid and another coming up the sidewalk asked if we needed help. Just to get her to her feet, I said. So she helped me. I thanked them both for their kindness before they disappeared as fast as they had come to our aid.
Joyce struggled to walk to the corner asking me all the way if her wheelchair was behind her and when could she sit. It didn't matter what I said, the same questions were repeated immediately. Repeated at a yell.
She managed to get down the ramp into the building's lobby but that was as far as she would go. "I have to sit!"
The desk clerk asked if we knew where we were going. Sixth floor, I said. "Do you need a wheelchair?" I wasn't aware they had them. "Yes!" I said.
He consulted another guy who told him where to get one and then he rolled one of those Kaiser transport chairs you squeeze a bar on the bar to release and roll. We got Joyce in and up to her appointment. And later, I got her back to the car in it too.
When Dr. Holland came into the exam room, the two of us rolled Joyce toward her side and lifted her leg so he could remove the dressing and look at the wound. He'd already seen the white blood count, which didn’t phase him (you can't wait for ideal conditions), and the peri skin, which he said is sound enough and should heal well. So he's confident he can close the wound at last.
He used the Mepilex I brought to cover the wound he packs with dampened Kerlix. Then we sat and chatted.
I asked about the stitches and he says there are three layers of them, two that will dissolve and a third on top that will be removed in a few weeks. There will also be a drain so any discharge won’t seep through the stitches but be drained safely off. She'll be in the hospital five to seven days and be released with a dressing that only needs to be changed every two days. Not a dressing Golden Heights has, I feared. He’ll let Dr. Dimaano know what she'll need.
I also asked about the anesthesia and he said he expects the procedure to take about 90 minutes, well short of two hours. He's aware of her situation and will minimize that.
No restrictions on her ability to sit or walk or move around unless he finds in the hospital that they would stretch the wound.
He may have to cut a flap in the skin, he said, to close the upper part of the wound, but it will be integral to the wound not a skin graft.
I got Joyce's wheelchair from the room when we returned to the SNF and rolled her back. No more walking. Dementia won today.
NEXT WEEK
Monday she has an appointment with the dentist. Monday it will rain. Monday I will probably bring the wheelchair to get her to the office but have her walk to the exam room, which is cramped.
And Wednesday she has a debridement, perhaps her last, with Jennifer the RN.
So if you don't hear from me, doing worry. I'm probably trying to convince her to have a blood test, find her clothes, forget about the wheelchair, eat her lunch, out for a walk to get some exercise, reading Chaim Grade, cooking (or shopping for) dinner, gardening or even working on Photo Corners or 'Tis , both of which help keep me upright.