The Longest Day

Wednesday ...

• Up at 6:15 to get ready as the nurse was due at 8 to admit Skip to the new visiting nurse agency and, more importantly, to train me to administer IV antibiotics. Yes, your hero, her Crankiness, has to perform the twice-daily IVs.
• Turn Skip, make coffee, take out the dogs, and so on. Get dressed as I figure I should make an effort to meet the nurse for the first time in street clothes and it's pj's every day thereafter. (Today, I graced the nurse with my leopard print flannels.)
• Nurse calls at 8 to say she is on her way but has to stop at the office. She'll be here at 9.
• I dust and vacuum the bedroom, do some other random cleaning. Throw in the first of 4 laundry loads for the day (lots of sheets and blankets came with Skip from the hospital. Gotta clean those cooties off.)
• Nurse calls again. Yada yada yada. She'll be here at 9:30.
• She shows up at 9:30. Meets dogs out in the front yard. She likes dogs (a plus). Immediately makes a positive impression as she's warm and friendly. I love her professionalism, her knowledge, and she trains me very well on the IV, primarily by not taking over but letting me do it with her observing.
• She leaves around 11:30. Phew! I've got a job interview at 3 and still have to bathe Skip (no aides yet from the new agency), feed her, feed myself and shower. Finally get out of the house just in time to arrive at Starbucks for the interview at 3:01.
• The interview goes well. Really, it's not too much of an interview as this guy works for the guy who was my boss at another company for 11 years so I'm a known quantity. It's a part-time sales job I can do from home. Will know more details soon.
• Home around 5 with a mocha frappucino for Skip. She's in fairly good spirits; still happy just because she's home and not in rehab.
• Skip has slipped down in the bed a bit. I pull her up.
• Do as close to nothing as I can for an hour plus.
• Feed Skip dinner at 7:30. She's pretty weak and we're having a sesame noodle dish (the noodles are hard for her to manage) so I literally feed her. The dogs stand at ready beside her so I can give them lit bits of pupperoni treats.
• More laundry. Dishes.
• On to the second IV. This time solo. I get out the instructions and follow them end to end. Got some bubbles in the line, how I don't know. Worked very hard to flick them out of the line (research online after the IV was started told me the small bubbles are not a big problem). Finally got the IV started. Was supposed to take 2 hours but it went on quite a bit longer. Fiddled with the drop rate to speed things up a bit. Finally done around midnight. Off to dreamland.
• At 2:50am, Skip wakes me up because of a problem she's having. I hate being awakened in the night; fortunately this happens infrequently. However, I hit a very low, highly cranky state. It's 62 in the house and that is cold! Spend about 20 or 30 minutes taking care of Skip. Adjust the alarm from 6:15 to 7:15 to make up for lost sleep time. Addy says, well Mom as long as you're up, why not take me out? Man, it's really cold outside! Then, back to bed. Out pretty quickly.

This morning, the 7:30 nurse visit turned into a 9am arrival (are we sensing an unwelcome trend?). Still no home health aide scheduled. Spoke to scheduler; she just got Skip's info on her desk this morning. Grrrrr. They don't have aides on the weekend!! Grrrrr. Can't wait to drop this agency like a hot rock and go back to the folks we've been using for years when the IV process is done (our prior folks don't do IV's for some reason).