Mary is Released From the Hospital

Mary (I) was released from the Valley Baptist Hospital in Harlingen today. Unfortunately, it could have gone smoother. When we went to check out we found out that I wasn't going home with a walker because the Social Worker said I told her that I didn't need one. The nurse told me we could wait and they could manage to get me one in about three hours as that is how long the paper work would take. I told her that I wasn't going to wait for three hours and that I wanted to file a formal complaint against the Social Worker. The nurse got flustered and instead of letting me file the compliant, she went and got the Social Worker. Actually, both Social Workers came in.

I (Mary) was quite upset when I saw the Social Worker and told her that I didn't want to talk to her. She had been rude and uncooperative the last time and at that time she led me to believe that I had a walker and now I was not only not going to be able to go straight to a rehab facility but I also wasn't going to have a walker to use to even get to the car. I can understand some glitches and things going wrong but I can hardly tolerate people who are just rude and uncooperative. This social worker is the type that treats the elderly like they are not able to understand anything. It must give her some satisfaction to have someone she can kick around. I wanted to file the complaint so maybe other elderly people would not have to put up with her.

At any rate, she was just bending over backwards telling me she would resolve the situation. She had a whole room full of people to perform for. She finally said she would get me a walker out of the hospital stock. The nurse told her she couldn't do that but that is exactly what she did. And, we were able to leave the hospital shortly thereafter.

Lee took me home in Rose and Mark Williams' mini van. Rose offered it to us before I went in and we decided to take her up on it. It did make getting home a lot easier. I still had to climb the steps into the fifth wheel but I managed them all right. It was so good of them to let us use their mini van and we really appreciated it.

It was kind of a rough first night home mainly because of the small bathroom and the high bed that is hard to navigate. I choose the wrong side of the bed 34 years ago when we got married and now we are so set in our ways, it is hard to change. So now I have to sleep next to the mirrored closet doors which means I have to traverse a step and then a maybe one foot path along the side of the bed. The bathroom was worse though because I had to walk in sideways and then I couldn't bend my knee enough to sit on the stool. We did borrow a high rise seat for the toilet from Cathy's Closet here at Winter Ranch. We thought that might help. It made it easier to sit because it was higher but then I couldn't reach the floor with my feet and I still couldn't bend the leg far enough to be comfortable.

Fifth wheels just are not made for rehabilitation after surgery. So, we decided by the end of the night that we would try to get me into a rehab facility by contacting Dr. Basset's office and letting them know what happened.