Crisis

Jim was hospitalized last Friday with a raging UTI and kidney stones accompanied by over-the-top delirium (standard side effect in male UTI infections). Spent five nights in Stanford Hospital, then transferred to the nursing home adjacent to our apartment. UTI resolving, no fever, no tremors. Regaining strength. Marie, the caregiver who helped me through the broken ankle episode is sitting with Jim because he wants to wander.

I’m playing hooky this evening. Stayed with Jim in the nursing home from 10am to 1:30pm, then went to a care consultation which was so exhausting I went home and slept for four hours and missed my evening visit with Jim.

He moved into a private room this afternoon. His erstwhile roommate was agitated and loud. Jim kept trying to get up to help him and kept me and caregiver Marie hopping all night. Not sustainable.

Jim will have surgery late next week to blitz the stones in both ureters, under general anesthetic which is dicey for the demented but there is no help for it. The kidney stones will be tackled by sonar waves a month hence.

After Jim is sufficiently recovered from these ordeals, he will move to a one-bedroom apartment in the Memory Care unit of Palo Alto Commons. It is only four miles away (through mid-town traffic) and I will visit most days. It is the most highly regarded dementia facility in our area. Many programs and therapies. He was to have moved in by now but nasty bacterium had other plans. Now projevting a move-in date in mid-September.

I am fucking exhausted.