30 December 2025
After talking to Dr. Holland late yesterday afternoon, I put away the wound dressing supplies I'd set out to change Joyce's dressing. Not only had he done it himself but he'd changed the frequency to three times a day.
So there was no point in my maintaining care now. He would keep the wound healthy enough to operate in a few days.
I drank some sparkling water and had an individual panettone from box of them my brother John had sent for the holidays to ward off hunger (and a headache from having nothing all day but an espresso to get to the bus stop). Then I drove over to the hospital, parking (as always) on Fortuna for good luck.
It was just after 5 p.m. by then. I'd been gone about two hours, plenty of time for her to be moved to the room Jeremey the ED Manager had arranged for her. So I checked in at the hospital entrance not the ER.
Nope, she wasn't there. She's still in the ER, the clerk told me.
I did utter a famous curse and flung it against the walls of the lobby as I walked out to the ER where I had to disrobe for Security before entering to get a pass to Bay 17. When I got there the bay was empty. I looked at the nurse standing at a computer terminal and asked, "Where is she?" pointing at the empty bay.
She gave me the room number. My curse had worked. She was just on her way up.
I didn't bother going back to the hospital lobby. I know the way through the bowels of the place by now. So I left the ER and took the route to Imaging on the second floor and walked up to the fourth floor to room 4351. She'd just been rolled in and transferred to the big hospital bed with her IV drip and Purewick.
The room was enormous. Set up for two patients, but the other bed was empty. Joyce's side (4351A) was still decorated with a little white Christmas tree with an angel on top and some red trim running under the TV with ornaments hung from it.
The nurse (whose name as Nunu) was fastidious and attentive, rerouting Joyce's lines and getting her comfortable. Changing the paper diaper, checking her with Dorothy (another nurse) for any skin conditions, taking her blood pressure (which, thanks to the medication, was above 120) and finally seeing about dinner.
I helped Joyce figure out the big paddle that has the call button and controls the TV. And I helped her find the buttons that control the bed so she could raise her head.
I had asked Joyce if she had eaten. She seemed to confuse lunch, which she remembered having with dinner, which she hadn't had. Nunu went to get her a tray and I got a bed tray from the other side of the room for Joyce to have dinner from.
I also plugged in her phone after I took a photo of her room number. She was reminding herself of the number over and over. So I took the photo to confirm the number for her. So you can now call her at her cell phone number.
Nunu brought the dinner tray and cut up the chicken for Joyce and opened a few other things on the tray for her. Which is what I do for lunch at Golden Heights but it was really nice to let Nunu do it instead.
But I did prompt Joyce to try this and then that so she'd eat something and not quit at the first byte. I told her about her creatinine number and kidney failure to inspire an appetite and she did eat more than usual.
Then it occurred to me to ask Nunu about supplements like Ensure or Boost. "We have some," she said and went off to get one. When she came back she had an chocolate Ensure Plus (she knew it had the boosted protein for wound care), Joyce's favorite. And Joyce drank it all.
Nunu, who was on the computer doing the Admitting Dept. questions that I was pestered for on the bus (but who never called back at 4:30 when I left for the hospital), gave Joyce a little cognitive test (what month is it? what year? what city are you in? what is this place?) which she passed except for the last question ("a facility," she guessed).
I put my name on the white board with my phone number as her emergency contact. Nunu thanked me.
She set up a schedule for the wound dressing changes too, starting at 10 p.m., with another at 6 a.m. and then 2 p.m., every six hours.
After that, things settled down quietly. Nunu went off to the nurse's station computer and I put my jacket back on and left through the lobby.
This morning it struck me that Joyce was clearly more responsive than she has been recently, particularly at Golden Heights. She was worried in the ER but in the hospital room she was comfortable and challenging hersself to remember the room number and try the things on her dinner tray.
My guess is that the IV drip has started to restore her hydration and she is responding to that much as her mother did when she was hydrated in the ER prior to her hospice stay. A sudden revival.
The next few days will be about kidney function. Dr. Holland is hoping that hydration and eating more will bring her creatinine down so she can be anesthetized for the operation, which he is trying to reschedule as soon as possible after that.
I looked for lab results this morning but there was only the tests from yesterday. I'll take the bus over before lunch and leave before the dressing change at 2 p.m.