I brought him a Subway sandwich and it took him about an hour to warm up to talking. He's just been sleeping, not listening to audiobooks or the music I brought in for him. According to Jenny, they want him to be reading to stimulate his brain. He complained about being freezing cold so I got him a 2nd blanket and turned up the thermostat and reminded him that this is what the staff was paid to do. He was in low spirits about "never getting out of there". I relayed that the social worker called me this morning about transferring him to rehab perhaps on Thursday. She was supposed to talk to him about it today but he said she did not. If that's true, I'm super-annoyed. I reiterated the differences between last summer and this summer, and that in fact, I should take down his decorations on Wed before going out of town for the weekend.
He requested nail clippers so I brought those. He did ok using his right hand (supposedly weak side) to cut his left fingernails, but asked for help using his left hand to cut the right fingernails. His left hand is puffier, Jenny thinks bc he is using it less. I cleaned up the job he did on his left fingernails, too. This is the first time I have cut another person's nails. He cleaned it all up with a file and said he felt like a new man.
Right now everyone (NP, social worker) is obsessed with figuring out rehab. I have brought up that AFTER rehab, he needs to go back in network with the VA for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of care at UMMC. The social worker requested an email recapping the reasons I mentioned (transplant, getting rxes filled, emergency transportation), of which I've run an outline by Jenny & Jaron. Daddy does not want to bring it up for fear of hurting UMMC staff's feelings but we had a long convo about that today. Jenny has tried, I have tried, and guess what! We are there to sign consent for stuff that the medical staff has already decided to do, and provide morale--not advice on his care. Same thing I ran in to last summer for 5 weeks trying to get him in to an LVAD program after discharge. And trying to get him sent to Richmond for a transplant evaluation. They wanted to hear from him (not me anymore!) and he was not ready to talk to them.
I told my dad that, having actually seen his balls, I knew he had them and that he needs to sack up and tell people what he wants. Asked if that's what he wants. He said yes. So I wrote it up on his whiteboard in his room, will send this email to UMMC staff, and will send it to someone at VA. But HE needs to bring it up. He asked why no one has ever brought it up with him, and I asked whether he would ever tell a customer to go talk to Paul Jones (his main competitor). Of course not. UMMC wants to keep him in their program, either out of moral obligation or because they need people on their program. I am certain that the VA will be happy to have him back in-network.
They are mainly waiting on his INR to come up to 2.0 before transferring him to rehab. It's 1.5 but was 1.7 & 1.8 over the weekend. Last CT scan was on Sat 7/4 and they will scan him again when it gets to 2.0. I'm having deja vu and will be talking to neuro on Wed afternoon when I am there during business hours. Because this neuro bleed is not 100% resolved, he'll be doing rehab locally. (And the Richmond VA does not have neuro, surprisingly.)
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