Thursday, December 9, 2010

Oh my goodness. I have had quite a couple of days! Dad had his eye surgery yesterday morning. We left the house at 8:30. On the drive to Morganton, he asked about 100 times where we were going and why. I told him over and over - "We're going to Morganton to the eye doctor. He is going to fix your eyelid." He would ask how long it took to get there. I kept telling him about 30 minutes. That was about the extent of our conversation! The folks at Morganton Eye were great. The nurses and Dr. Lowery were especially comforting to Dad. They had to talk him through the surgery, but said he did well. His bottom eyelid and tear duct was drooping away from his eye. It was causing him to rub his eye a lot, causing sores under his eye. Dr. Lowery did a procedure that would make the bottom lid adhere back to the eye. After receiving post op instructions we headed home. I was suppose to keep Dad from rubbing his eye or from taking off the shield he had over the eye. I didn't realize what a task that would be! He dozed some on the way home. After lunch, he sat in his recliner. He kept trying to remove the shield. I would say, "Dad, you can't mess with that. You had surgery this morning and you have stitches around your eye." He would say, "Okay." Ten seconds later, he would reach up again and try to remove the shield. I sat by him all afternoon, keeping him from pulling off the shield. I think I explained why about 1001 times. Several times, he got really annoyed with me and tried to push my hand away. Once, he fell asleep. I thought I would try to hang up some clothes in the basement. I tiptoed them down and as soon as I started, I heard him walking upstairs. I ran up and he was walking in to the bathroom, no shield on his eye. He had pulled it off and laid it on the couch. As soon as he got to the bathroom, he looked in the mirror and started rubbing his eye. I got the shield back on and sat with him the rest of the day. At one point, he started walking around the house and said he needed to "work". I said, "What work do you need to do?" He said he needed to clean the floors. I told him our floors were clean. He said he needed to clean something. I took him in to his bathroom and gave him a sponge and he washed his sink with water. Then I asked him if he wanted to fold some towels. He didn't. We sat at the bar and I had him draw a picture of a man. Then I had him spell some words for me. He spelled these words correctly: surgery, North Carolina, pediatrician, hospital, pneumonia, grocery, mountain, Christmas, envelope, medical, Duke University, Chapel Hill, school, elephant, telephone, television, intestines, stomach, laugh, finger, kidney, blood vessel, shoulder, wrist, and addition. He only missed: Missippi/Mississippi, geraphic/giraffe, achidemic/academic, ankile/ankle, spighetti/spaghetti, and cheeta/cheetah. It was a long day and we both fell asleep, me on the couch and Dad in his chair, about 10:00 and I woke up at 11:30. I got him up and in the bed. I was exhausted. I checked on him twice during the night and attempted to change him the second time, but he wanted no part of it. I was too tired to argue. I had already decided I needed to stay home from work with him today. They didn't need to worry with this at Life Care. He got up at 7:30 this morning. I took him straight to the shower. He really needed it. I wanted to get him in before I took the patch off because he can't get his eye wet. He did pretty good. I took the patch off and put on his ointment and his drops. He started rubbing his eye and I knew I would have to keep the shield on his eye. They had given me an extra shield, so I put it on with tape. It was clear and didn't have the gauze under it, so Dad tolerated it much better. I had him ice it a couple of times, and he tolerated that fairly well, too. He did better today than I thought he would. I should have rested myself, but I ended up doing things that needed to be done. Maybe I can catch up on my rest this weekend! We just finished supper and I'm going to chill out in front of the tube. Thank you for your prayers - I think he's on the downhill slope! He should be fine to go back to Life Care tomorrow.......... Susie