And so we just look like a hot mess. I I there's no other way to describe us.

Welcome And The Show’s Premise

Welcome to the Only Child Diaries Podcast. I'm your host, Tracy Wallace. Have you ever felt like you didn't receive the how-to brochure on life? That you didn't get enough guidance about major life issues? So did I. You don't have to be an only child to feel this way. In my podcast, we'll explore some of the best ways to better navigate adulthood while doing so with humor and light. Welcome everyone to the Only Child Diaries Podcast.

Day 20 Of Hospital Life

Today, I'm gonna talk about the continuing saga of my husband Bill in the hospital. Today, when I'm recording this, we're on day 20, day 20 of his. I call it now, I'm calling it his incarceration. It's not his incarceration, but if his hospital stays. We're on third hospital. This is a record for us. He is now in an acute rehab unit of the third hospital. And I think things are for the most part, things are going well. He is recovering. We do have a discharge date, and that is in about a week. So I guess we'll be then at day probably around day 28, day 29, somewhere in there. Um it's it's long. This is the longest that he's been away from home since I've known him. Uh, I think the first neck surgery that he had, the first laminectomy fusion thing that he did, was about a week in the hospital and then two weeks, I believe, in rehab. So it was about three, so I think this is longer. Um it's right up there. So it's long. And today I'm gonna tell you about the transition that we had from the second hospital to the third hospital, because you, you know, I was I'm tired. I'm just gonna say it outright. I'm tired. I'm exhausted mentally and physically. I'm exhausted. I do try to sleep as much as I can every night, but it sleeping is ridiculous.

Being Alone At Home

I've this whole thing has gotten me out of, you know, okay, so we live in the house that I grew up in, right? If you're a regular listener, you know that already. But uh this house when he's here, I'm fine with it. But when I'm alone in this house, it's it's a little bit more challenging for me to be alone. I'm not alone. I have the cat, I have the dog, I have, you know, we have neighbors close by, uh, except for the except for the house next door to us, which is still being renovated, which is still being built. And actually they've taken a big long break on that process because they're waiting now for new permits for I think three different factors of the house. So they haven't done any work over there in weeks. So it's vacant. There's nobody goes. I think the the owner does come and he, you know, does a few little things here and there. He just checks on it, maybe for like a half an hour some mornings, but other than that, no, it's it's but yeah, I digress. We do have neighbors uh close by. So but for the most part, I'm here alone, and I don't like it, but I'm getting used to it. And I've been sleeping,

The Cat Who Won’t Let Sleep Happen

I would say. So the other thing about sleeping is that I have a cat. And as much as this whole process, this whole experience has affected me, it's also affecting our cat and our dog. Because not only do they realize, and I know that they they mourn the loss of Bill not being here, but it's also because I'm not here. You know, we've come from this uh place where he and I were both here basically all the time. I was working at home, and I would very rarely go out. I mean, when I had the event, sure, I was going to the office maybe once or twice a week those last three or four weeks, but but Bill was always here, and then I would come back, and you know, so their lives have drastically changed, and what's happened is that the cat is a lot more vocal, especially at night. And he wants attention, he wants food, and he's totally got my number. So we wake up at 5 a.m. We wake up around 6 a.m. And we um when I say we, because if I ignore him, he starts meowing, he starts trying to talk to me, and I've I've seen these things where it says cats jump on you and they wake you up to check if you're still alive. So when he starts meowing and making noises, I'll just say, you know, Bubs, Bubby, I'm yes, I'm alive, I'm okay. Sometimes that works, most of the time it doesn't. So I'll get up and I'll fuss with him and pet him and I'll give him a few treats, which doesn't help the whole process, because then he's like, okay, I'm getting rewarded, I'm gonna do this again in a half an hour. Sometimes he is playing, he's throwing his toys around, he's playing his, he's throwing his squeaky mouse, right? So he feels good, that's fine. Uh but what it means is that I'm not sleeping because, you know, he's making all this noise. Anyway, I try to sleep as much as I can, as much as he will let me. Um, and I'm trying to eat uh good meals every day, and I'm doing pretty well at that, but there's a lot to

Laundry Logistics And The Laundromat

do. I have to continue to do laundry for Bill because they you know, at the rehab unit, they want him to have fresh clothes every day, which is like, I mean, come on. How often when you're at home and you're just at home by yourself, how often do you put fresh clothes on every day? I want to see a show of hands. Okay. I don't. If I'm not seeing anybody, I'm just gonna wear maybe the same thing I wore the day before. So the bar the bar is higher than, and remember that my washer is still broken. And you're gonna say, why haven't you gotten a new washer? Again, if you're a regular listener, you know that my washer is old and the newer washers are wider, and I don't have any space, and so I would have to take out a cabinet, which means a whole process, and I haven't had any time. And between, you know, his herniated disc situation and all this other stuff, I don't anyway, so I have to go to the laundromat, which is a place that I love because uh the closest one to me, which is probably the easiest one, there's laundromats all over, but you know, some of them you have to now buy a card to put in the machine, which okay, what's the point? Buy the card, and then it costs you a dollar to buy the card, and then if you don't use all the money on the card, then okay, you have this money and limbo. So there's one buyer house, which I really don't like to go to because it's it's annoying. They have a TV on in the place now, but the TV is breaking, so it's it's like going to uh Best Buy because the TV's on really loud, but it's breaking. So it instead of hearing people talk, you hear like constantly, right? I feel like I'm gonna lose my mind. I mean, wait for your laundry for 25 minutes and listen to that. It's headache inducing anyway. Um again, I'm digressing.

Discharge Day Starts Slow

Okay, so last week it they were ready to discharge Bill, and we were gonna go over to rehab, and so you know, it's never an easy process, it's not like a hotel where you go, okay, I want to leave now. It's always like, okay, we got to get the paperwork, we've got to get you to sign this. Here's the instructions, here's what we're gonna do. Okay, so I go to pick him up, and they leave the bracelets on. He's got his barcode bracelet, his ID bracelet, he's got his fall risk bracelet, he's got his whatever. Okay, take out the IV, he's got his bandage on that. Finally, we get the wheel, you know, they order the wheelchair, but it takes a while to get the wheelchair to go down to the car. You know, the nice young man came. Well, so Cedars is a large place, there's no way around that. And yes, this this orderly got lost going down to the car because yeah. Uh, so we got lost. And he was trying to go in the staff uh the staff hallways, the staff elevators, and we got lost. So I had no idea where we were. I couldn't help him. Uh okay, so we we finally get down to the valet, and then you have to wait for the car. And then by now, it's the end of the afternoon. So then we're hitting traffic. Finally, we get over. This is like a four-hour trip. Like I left the house, I got to the hospital, I waited for him, we got in the car. Finally, we waited for the car, we got in the car, then we have to go to the new hospital. The whole thing was a four-hour turnaround. So they told us we has the bed, go to the valet. Okay, so we pull into the valet

Rolling In Looking Like A Mess

at the hospital. This is not the way people normally check into a hospital. Usually you go into the ER, I think, right? So we pull into the valet, and I asked the guy for a transport wheelchair, and so we just look like a hot mess. I I there's no other way to describe us. I mean, his hair was just flying everywhere. He had the three ID bracelets on. He had, well, he had his his barcode, his white barcode bracelet with his name on it. He had a yellow bracelet that said fall risk, and then he has this red one that says extreme fall risk, right? He's got this four-inch wrap around his arm where the IV came out. He's got his Snoopy pajama bottoms on and a t-shirt, and his um his vascular boots, which go up almost to the knee, and they just they're velcro and they protect his uh feet. Then there's me who looks like I'm hysterical all the time. I've got a big duffel bag because we had to bring uh a week's worth of clothes for him, and I've got a couple of these plastic bags that say patient belongings on them. So, you know, God bless the valet guy. He takes a look at all of this stuff and he takes a look at us and he goes, Are you visiting a patient? It's like because I know he's thinking, you guys went to the wrong place. You know, you're in the wrong, you're at the wrong door. But um, no, I said, Well, we're checking into the rehab unit. And he said, Okay, okay. So, you know, we have to go through security, the you know, they find out we don't have our guns with us. They let us in, we go into check-in, we get our little ID stickers, and then the gal says, Okay, well, this is where you're going. Uh, if you want to wait 10 minutes, I can escort you up there, or you can just, you know, go go on your own. And I'm like, Oh, well, how hard can it be? Because I've been to this hospital many times, and I know it's not gonna be that bad, right? I mean, I know my way around. That's what I say to myself. So she gives me this little sheet that has the directions.

The Long Push To Rehab

Now that should have been my first clue about how messed up this was gonna be. Um, but okay, so I pile the bags onto Bill's lap. And you know, transport wheelchairs are such that you have to hold this bar up so that the wheelchair will move forward. So the problem is that after a while my wrists get really tired of that whole thing. Okay. So I start I start we start pushing, get to the elevator. So you had to go upstairs, and then you have to go down through the building, then you have to go across this bridge, and then take another elevator up, and then, you know, look for the purple sign, which was way down at the end. So, you know, we're going, we're going, and then we go through this whole area that's completely deserted. Like all the doors are locked, even the hand sanitizer uh dispenser that's stuck on the wall in the hallway is got the guts ripped out of it, and and all the doors say, you know, vacant, not in use, right? You get to the corner, and there's like an old nursing station that's completely not in use, vacant, no chairs. There's uh what used to be you know the indicator lights of whose room was requesting attention. So there's like number 17 was lit up, um, which was a little weird. And um and then we turn, and by this time, my wrists are killing me. Like I'm thinking, I'm not, I'm literally not gonna make it. So I'm trying to push with my elbows and push him so that my wrists, you know, I have to stop and like shake my hands out or something. Okay, so then, you know, keep going. Then there's a sign that's like a pull-up sign or something, and it looks like, oh, well, this is it. Keep going, just keep, just keep walking, just keep on walking. No, that's no, that's not it. No, there's you still have to walk more. So then we turn this corner and we go around this whole area, and then you can see a nursing station, and there's this guy, and he yells out, Oh, is that Bill? You know, and it finally there's this unit is at the end of this whole building. And I just I I just was like, You have got to be kidding me. You have just got to be kidding me. It's the most obscure. Why do they have to have all that vacant stuff in the you know, couldn't they have used some of that vacant stuff for the so there's 24 rooms in this outlying area, right? And I'm like, I'm gonna die. I'm just gonna die. And I'm like, you know, pushing him anyway. So that's what we did. We got there in one piece, and he's got, but I have to say, he's got a lovely room private with a view of trees, and it's so funny because you look down and there's a parking lot underneath with no one parked in it. And I said, What is this parking lot? Like, why can't I park here? And they said, Well, that's for volunteers. So, okay, well, because it's so close, right? But no, it's not for the re anyway. So that's the story of transitioning from one hospital to

Creepy Empty Wings And Coincidence

the other. And uh, every time I go, I walk a lot because there's no shortcut. There is a shortcut. If I had a pass, if I had a badge, I could get in some of the doors and have a shortcut. But and I'll tell you, it's really creepy because that whole vacant area there is really vacant. And the first night, most nights when I leave, I never see a single soul at all until maybe I get to the front desk. I don't see anyone. It's like I'm in this huge hospital and I don't see anybody. And the first night, actually, that we were there was the anniversary of the passing of uh my friend Nelia, who is the mother of my friend Gina, who also passed away at the hospital. And it was just, it was it was very strange. It was very coincidental, and it was very strange. And uh, and again, it's it's a huge

Closing Thoughts And Where To Follow

hospital, and I I didn't see anybody. So that's all I've got for today. Uh, next week we'll tackle another topic together. I hope you'll join me. If you like this episode, please follow the Only Child Diaries Podcast on Apple Podcasts or other platforms you might listen on. And consider rating Only Child Diaries and writing a review. It helps others to find us. Please share it with a friend you think might like it as well. Visit my Instagram page, Only Child Diaries, or Facebook, Only Child Diaries Podcast. Thanks for listening. I'm Tracy Wallace, and these are the Only Child Diaries.