(no subject)

They did not let Dad go home yesterday, after all. Hawk has just left to try to get up there in time to see Dad's doctor, when he makes his rounds, to see if he can determine what's really going on. We met Dad's doctor a month or two ago, and he seems very nice, even if he was disinclined to prescribe cannabis (Dad humorously played up being disappointed. What's the use of having a terminal cancer if you don't get the good drugs? He may have actually been a little disappointed, but he couldn't resist the opportunity for a little levity.)

From what Hawk got from the stepmother on the phone last night it seems they're keeping him in for further observation because his pupils are so contracted and a couple other things, but Hawk thinks they're coming up with excuses because the ambulance crew saw what the condition of the house is and think he shouldn't be in that. I'm not so sure, now. Yeah, he should not have been in that environment, but what difference does it make at this point? It is, as he says, his home. Is it really better for him to be in a hospital with a bunch of sick people? And in a hospital he has much more chance of ending up on a respirator.

Of course the respirator thing is my nightmare, not necessarily his. Or maybe he hasn't thought about it. My impression is that it's pretty much like those horrible dreams I have all the time where I'm lying in my bed but can't move, and hands or something are coming up from under the bed, holding me down. Sometimes people are moving around and talking the room, or in the next room, and my eyes are open, or partly open, but I can't quite get myself awake. I had another of those night before last, and I'm always SO grateful when Eor wakes me up from them. Something had looped up from under the bed and hooked my wrist, pinning me, but as soon as he woke me up that loosened up and was just the sheet. :) With respirators, if people wake up enough to realize that horrible choking feeling of having tubes down your throat they often try to pull those out, and if you do that the hospital staff then has to strap your hands down. *shudders* Experiencing this for minutes, or possibly seconds if what people say about dreams is true, is horrifying for me - what would it be like if it went on and on?

I'm going to go see Dad tomorrow, I guess, since I have to take a test today. I'd skip it, only my boss is coming down from Bangor to see how it works. *eyerolls*

sponge baths

I may have to wait to drive up to Belfast until Saturday as there's a snowstorm on the way. Yup.

Hawk had a good visit with Dad today, though. In the hospital. He got to talk with the doctor a couple of times and do some angling toward getting Dad some homecare.

Hawk was also present when a nurse came in and asked if some student nurses could practice on Dad... giving sponge baths.

"Are they young?" Dad asked.

"Yes."

"No. I don't think so."

She talked about the teaching program a little and then asked again, which for Hawk is a fail flag - he says you really shouldn't badger a patient to try to get the answer you want.

"Young girls?"

"Yes."

"Can [Hawk] take my place?"

"Sure, I'll help you out."

(sotto voice) "Save me from these women, [Hawk]!"