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Bog project is officially closed for winter. I went outside one day when it was raining fairly hard and it turns out that hard-packed clay is really slippery when it's wet. I went sliding down a slope with a very heavy bucket in my hand and I distinctly remember contemplating where I had left my phone and how far I would have to crawl to call 911 if I broke a leg.
I did not break my leg. However Offspring and I agreed that we have both had it up to >>here<< with mucking about in the well, muck. So we shored up the ground a bit on the side nearest the house and called it a season. There is a metre by two-metre flood plain of completely cleared ground on the far side of the pit and a winding trench through the remainder of the clay pile that leads to the very back of the yard and that will just have to do.
***
My dad is still in the hospital. When I visit him he smiles to see me but he struggles to talk and he nods off frequently. They had him sitting up in a wheelchair last time I was there so I took him around the floor to look out the big windows at the view over the lake. He's not eating much.
I hate this fucking hospital[1] - their medical care is fine, but they absolutely refuse to communicate. My step-father went into this place on multiple occasions when he was sick, and I could never get a doctor to talk to me when I called, I would have to hope that when I went to visit in person I would just catch somebody by luck. Well they're doing it again - the Wicked Stepmother is there most days with him so they just info-dump on her even though she is too overwhelmed to process or retain it. ("They gave me two options. I forget the other one.") She has asked over and over that my sister or I be kept informed of updates. It is written on his chart. It's inscribed on the whiteboard in his room. She has asked the doctor to call me every time she sees him and he promises to do it and then he just... doesn't.
Well yesterday they told Wicked Stepmother that my dad was going to be discharged at the end of the week and she absolutely panicked. She has some chronic medical conditions of her own and she is frail. She can't lift him. He tries to get out of bed. How the fuck is she supposed to take care of him?
Ontario hospitals have a Transition Coordinator who is supposed to deal with things like a care plan at discharge or transition to rehab or whatever the patient needs. This is the first hospital I have dealt with where that person doesn't have her own phone number, I can only leave messages at the nurse's station. Of course she doesn't call me back. My last act of the day was to call the patient relations office and rant at their inbox and I will be calling them back tomorrow to see if I can get a live person. Wicked Stepmother is under strict instructions NOT to sign any discharge papers until there is a family meeting with the transition team where we can go over a written care plan as a group.
The advantage I have is that I've been through this process for the step-father with several different hospitals and so I know how it's supposed to work when handled by people who are actually fucking competent. So they can't gaslight me by claiming they can't do something or they don't have an answer.
Every time I have to go a couple of rounds through something like this I wonder how people manage if they don't have family to help them. It's bloody exhausting.
[1] Michael Garron Hospital if you happen to be in Toronto. Their medical care is fine. Their emergency room used to be the worst in the city but it went through a major overhaul and I hear it's better now. DO NOT send somebody there who can't self-advocate unless you are prepared to set up a camp bed next to them because they will NEVER tell you what's going on.[2] (Also they lost my step-father's clothes and glasses once.)
[2] Best Toronto hospital for communication by a mile: Mt Sinai. I always knew what was going on. Both step-father and Darrell spent time in there and they were always 100% on top of things.
I did not break my leg. However Offspring and I agreed that we have both had it up to >>here<< with mucking about in the well, muck. So we shored up the ground a bit on the side nearest the house and called it a season. There is a metre by two-metre flood plain of completely cleared ground on the far side of the pit and a winding trench through the remainder of the clay pile that leads to the very back of the yard and that will just have to do.
***
My dad is still in the hospital. When I visit him he smiles to see me but he struggles to talk and he nods off frequently. They had him sitting up in a wheelchair last time I was there so I took him around the floor to look out the big windows at the view over the lake. He's not eating much.
I hate this fucking hospital[1] - their medical care is fine, but they absolutely refuse to communicate. My step-father went into this place on multiple occasions when he was sick, and I could never get a doctor to talk to me when I called, I would have to hope that when I went to visit in person I would just catch somebody by luck. Well they're doing it again - the Wicked Stepmother is there most days with him so they just info-dump on her even though she is too overwhelmed to process or retain it. ("They gave me two options. I forget the other one.") She has asked over and over that my sister or I be kept informed of updates. It is written on his chart. It's inscribed on the whiteboard in his room. She has asked the doctor to call me every time she sees him and he promises to do it and then he just... doesn't.
Well yesterday they told Wicked Stepmother that my dad was going to be discharged at the end of the week and she absolutely panicked. She has some chronic medical conditions of her own and she is frail. She can't lift him. He tries to get out of bed. How the fuck is she supposed to take care of him?
Ontario hospitals have a Transition Coordinator who is supposed to deal with things like a care plan at discharge or transition to rehab or whatever the patient needs. This is the first hospital I have dealt with where that person doesn't have her own phone number, I can only leave messages at the nurse's station. Of course she doesn't call me back. My last act of the day was to call the patient relations office and rant at their inbox and I will be calling them back tomorrow to see if I can get a live person. Wicked Stepmother is under strict instructions NOT to sign any discharge papers until there is a family meeting with the transition team where we can go over a written care plan as a group.
The advantage I have is that I've been through this process for the step-father with several different hospitals and so I know how it's supposed to work when handled by people who are actually fucking competent. So they can't gaslight me by claiming they can't do something or they don't have an answer.
Every time I have to go a couple of rounds through something like this I wonder how people manage if they don't have family to help them. It's bloody exhausting.
[1] Michael Garron Hospital if you happen to be in Toronto. Their medical care is fine. Their emergency room used to be the worst in the city but it went through a major overhaul and I hear it's better now. DO NOT send somebody there who can't self-advocate unless you are prepared to set up a camp bed next to them because they will NEVER tell you what's going on.[2] (Also they lost my step-father's clothes and glasses once.)
[2] Best Toronto hospital for communication by a mile: Mt Sinai. I always knew what was going on. Both step-father and Darrell spent time in there and they were always 100% on top of things.
