Thursday, July 17, 2008

Long Term Acute Care - Lourdes

Good morning!

I had a wonderful visit yesterday with dad, cousin and Frankie and his wife, Suzanne. Like all of you, they love my mom and dad and have been a big help emotionally and physically. Thank you both!
Dad looks great (mom reminds me it is in part due to the high bilirubin count). The nurses think he's "hot" and also mentioned the 2 handsome visitors he had yesterday morning - Uncle Bill and Uncle Charlie!
Dad's voice is still not as strong as it will be, but he can communicate very well and we played a few rounds of "Ghost" - a word game.

We spent some time with his case manager and she explained the purpose of his stay in LTAC (long term acute care). The average stay in an LTAC unit is about 25 days, so this is our goal. His medical state is still critical but stable. Their focus at Lourdes will be on healing his surgical wound, strengthening his swallowing muscles so he can begin to get food and drink by mouth and to keep his lungs healthy and get him off the trach.

When he moves to the next facility, Care One, the focus will be on physical strength, walking etc. He will get that type of therapy as well in LTAC but they want his main energy to go to healing, not workouts. One day and counting....

Here, again, is the link to the facility. Visiting hours are 12 - 8 pm.

http://www.lourdesnet.org/services/lsh.php


Love to all of you.

PS Apparently, Michael is still rowing the boat. Not quite ashore just yet, but we can see land?!
I have been desperate to claim "out of the woods" status - we're getting there.

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