My oh my, occasionally things move so fast and so smoothly that I think I must be dreaming. Promptly at 11am, a big pickup came down the driveway. It was the crew from High Desert Hospice--Bob, the social worker, and Denise, the registered nurse. I went up to meet them and before we even got down to the cabin I discovered that Denise used to live at Rocky Point, her husband is a contractor who built some of the places up here before they moved to Bly, and they know a lot of people up here!
The meeting went very smoothly, Mom liked them very much, and by the time they left, the paperwork was done and mom is now signed up for hospice care. Denise asked mom whether she would like her to come once or twice a week and mom elected for once a week for now. The hospice aide, Lonna, will be coming out twice a week, and they even have a massage therapist who will probably be coming once a week. They went over mom's end-of-life wishes (essentially the same as her Living Will), and they had her sign it. They will then have Kubac sign it and they will bring it back out to be posted prominently on the refrigerator (it's printed on bright pink paper).
Mom wanted to keep her appointment in town on Friday with Kubac ("so my daughter can hear what he says...") and she wanted to keep her appointment next Tuesday with Dr. B. But after that, Denise will be handling all of mom's medical care and mom shouldn't need to go into town for medical appointments anymore. Denise said that she works very closely with Dr. B to the point that Dr. B even allows Denise to change the dressings on "HER" wounds! Mom was astounded to hear that and commented that it speaks very highly of Denise's skill, because mom knows how particular Dr. B is. The way High Desert Hospice works with Dr. B is that periodically (not every week) usually on a Saturday, Denise picks Dr. B up and drives her out to visit all her patients. So Dr. B will come out here to see mom in her own home.
Hospice provides medical equipment and supplies, so I discussed with them the two things that I think she could use right away--a walker and a foam pad for her hard mattress. To my surprise she chimed in and said that the kind of walker she wants is the kind with a seat because she gets so tired that she needs to sit down. Turns out that Medicare will only provide the basic garden-variety aluminum kind, but Bob said that people donate them quite often and he would see if they have one in their storage area. They do have foam pads for the mattress, and they will bring one out.
Denise did the nurse thing, took down mom's history, took all her vital signs, and checked her feet. Then she sat down on the floor and told mom that she couldn't leave without clipping mom's toenails, so she did a mini-pedicure right there on the spot, while Jana nervously hovered nearby sniffing and panting and watching.
When they left, I walked out with them and showed them "the underhouse," since Lonna can make trips down there to bring things up for mom. Denise said that as rickety as mom is on her feet, she hoped that mom wouldn't try to go down there herself. Denise also told me that on the drive out, she had been reading the paperwork that they got from Dr. Kubac's office, and she said, "Her kidney function is TERRIBLE!" And then she said that Kubac probably wouldn't want to do anything heroic to fix that, and I said that we know that.
After they left, mom ate her "huge" protein lunch of three Ritz crackers with Braunschweiger and lettuce on each one. She commented that it was SO MUCH FOOD that "This Brauschweiger will be the death of me!" so we decided that her tombstone should read, "Died of Brauschweiger." She still has her sense of humor.
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