Escape from Alcatraz..or something like that

Some of you that have been hospitalized for any length of time, or have had loved ones hospitalized, may recall how the process to get *out* of such a place can be exhausting. To me, in many ways, it feels almost like a prison break. (not that I would know, but..) Just when you're desperate to get out of there, just want to get home, and they give you a day and a time to let you go, then there are a zillion papers to sign and discharge instructions and other little details, plus trying to pack up all your stuff.....it can take a lot of time and energy.

So, yesterday was my grandmother's day to get sprung from the nursing home. Since I hadn't been willing to drive out there the night before with the suitcases, I arrived about 40 minutes before she was scheduled to be discharged in order to help her pack, since she claimed she had such stringent standards on such things. Funny thing was, when I got there, she had managed to pack up almost all of her stuff......in Wal Mart bags!!!!! No wonder I couldn't live up to her expectations. ha.

I'll spare you the blow-by-blow, except to say that after trying to help get the rest of the packing done, being told by her that her belongings were not her own and that I was moving too fast and messing it all up, after listening to her be mean to the guy with the walker that she was to take home with her, etc. etc. we finally walked out the door by 9:30am, which I thought was just great! All we needed to do was go pick up her prescriptions around the corner, and then drive home.

It sounded so simple......

So we're supposed to have 6 prescriptions. The pharmacy only has record of 5, and now won't give us one of them because it needs some special authorization. Greeeeeeeeeeat. And, what's the missing item? Pain pills.

PAIN PILLS.

As in, the number one single most important thing to my grandmother to go home with.

and she felt she would need one by noon.

So, let the games begin!

Back to the nursing home.

ME: "Why don't we have a prescription for pain pills?"
NURSING HOME: "oops" "well, hmmm...what can we do now? I mean, she's discharged from here now....."
ME: Well, I sure can't take her home without them! She's already getting very nervous about this.
NH: Um....duh....um...duh....I dunno.....Um....well, we can call the doctor's office and IF he's there he MAY call the presciption in and then you can get it. or you can call her regular doctor and see if he will order it.
ME: uh huh. Except then I am stuck driving around in 95* heat with an 82 year old woman who is angry, tired, and in pain, wondering when the heck we shall get some pain pills in our possession.
NH: um, duh, sorry. That's all we can do.

So, I went around the corner to my mom's office to see if she had any good advice. She's a nurse and usually handles my grandmother's stuff. Unfortunately, she was busy and so I was stuck fending for myself. I started by calling the regular doctor to see what I could get out of them. Of course, they haven't been dealing with her needs since the knee surgery, so don't know what the heck I'm talking about, the nurse doesn't know if the doctor will be willing to prescribe the meds because they are narcotics, etc. So, um, maybe by 5pm they can get this done, with no guarantee of what med would be prescribed. Which, of course, doesn't help US since my grandmother is planning to be in terrible pain by noon. And now it is almost 10:30. Greeeeeeeeeeat.

Back to the nursing home:
ME: Lookit. I cannot just wander around this city wondering whether or not a prescription has been called in. What do we have to do to get a prescription?
NH: um, duh, well, like I said, she's been discharged, blah blah blah
ME: (cold stare)
NH: Oh, maybe you could go to the doctor's office yourself and see if they will give you a prescription right then.

Now we're getting somewhere.

So back out into the blistering heat I go, to drive to the doctor's office. 20 minutes after I got there I emerged vistorious, prescription in hand.

Yay! Now all we have to do is get it filled.

So...

back to the pharmacy, where we are told they are OUT of this med!

Of course.

So off to a different pharmacy, which HAS it, and can fill it......in about 30 minutes. (it's now noon)

Yeah, great.

so, finally we got home with 100 pain pills at 2pm, and I am glad I won't have to repeat *that* fun day ever again!

The rest of the day's highlights include me trying to get my grandmother settled in, trying to balance out her desire to have stuff unpacked and accessible, with her desire to rest and not be asked "where do you want this?" 500 times. after walking the line between helping, visiting, and letting her rest til 10pm when my mom got home, she told my mother I'd been "flitting about" too much. I tell ya, there's no way to win sometimes.

:)

so, I've been less flitty today. Probably to earn me the title of lazy and rude by day's end. Oh well.

I spent a miserable night trying to sleep on an air mattress that left me mainly on the ground, sweating from the horrible plastic, pinned between a closet door and my youngest child. I had to go to the bathroom for most of the night, but couldn't figure out how I could extricate myself from my situation without waking up little boys and having them cry and try to follow me to the bathroom. The decisions and sacrifices a mother must make are complicated ones, my friends.

Tomorrow we will drive 12 hours home. I look forward to my own bed, own food, and our usual routine. It's been a good visit though. I feel like we've been able to help a lot, and that was the whole point of coming.