This past week (Exhaustion)

Sorry I haven't posted in a week. Even now I should be doing something else but I will manage a few minutes to spend here.

My father-in-law had shoulder replacement surgery a week ago. We were at the hospital for 13 hours. The surgery was successful and the plan was to discharge him the next day (last Wednesday).

Well...that didn't happen. If you don't have senior citizens in your life you may not understand this but somethings the child becomes the parent and the parent becomes the child. My husband is an only child and his mom passed away years ago. So it is just his 86 year old father, him and me in our family. My father-in-law (FIL) does have a 90 year old brother still living but he has Alzheimers.

The anesthesia the hospital gave him to do the surgery made my FIL very confused. He thought the world was out to get him and came up with a complicated plot to his confusion.

At first the confusion was every day and he was quite mad we were "in on the plan". After a few days the confusion was only at night. We were called at all hours to come in and sit with him to calm him down. He was scared and angry and it broke our hearts.

The doctor did a CT for a stroke and it came back that he did have a stroke. And then they did an MRI and it came back that he did not have a stroke.

My FIL needed two blood transfusions with a total of 4 units of blood. He could not walk at first and could not feed himself. We were at the hospital constantly.

Have you ever been so exhausted that you could sleep anywhere? I have felt this throughout my life and I have fallen asleep on the floor of many places - including the streets of NYC in November while the hubby watched to make sure I was safe.

Thanks to my Thalassemia and low B12, I need 9-10 hours of sleep a night. Well, when you are up at midnight for hours at a time, that doesn't happen. My body shuts down. I cannot think and I go into a state where everything is blurred.

Thankfully on Saturday night my FIL was discharged from the hospital and was taken to a rehab. On Saturday night we got a call at 1:30am to come up. He was experiencing the same confusion. We were there until 6am. We came home, slept for a bit and then the hubby had worship to lead at church. Thankfully I was able to skip church and sleep in a bit.

Things are getting better with my FIL. He is now able to walk 80 steps at a time with a cane. Therapy is working with him to dress himself (Velcro shoes and elastic-waisted pants are helping) and he is able to feed himself. Unfortunately the confusion is still there but it is dulling. He is realizing that parts of his memory are confused and parts are real. It is just hard to know which is which.

Once he comes home (and we don't know when that will be), we will be living with him for a bit.

If you think about us, please keep us in your prayers. I hate to complain (okay...I probably don't hate to complain but I know I shouldn't!) but I am tired. Plain old wore out tired. Thanks!

More ebay posts to come...once I sleep.