Elderly Father In Hospital.

[Bigbad]

My 92 year old Dad has been in hospital for 2 weeks. Unfortunately, he’s completely lost the plot, hasn’t got a clue about anything, and now talks utter drivel. (Yesterday, he’d been to The Isle of Wight the night before, and my sister has just had a baby).

None of the staff are talking to me. (I’m his only visitor). Every time I go, I ask if someone could find the time to have a proper conversation with me at some point, but so far the only people I’ve spoken to are a doctor I’ve managed to pin down for a couple of minutes, and he just asked me questions which he could have found the answers to if he’d bothered to read Dad’s notes, and a nurse yesterday who said they are still trying to find the cause of his ‘confusion’ and waiting to see if he has a UTI and are giving antibiotics.
I said that if antibiotics were going to work, surely there would have been some improvement by now.
No answer!

He has been on 3 different wards since being admitted, and was going to have a Lumbar Puncture, but this was cancelled.

My question is: How do I get someone to talk to me? I don’t expect staff to drop everything just because I’m there, but it just seems like they don’t know what to with him/about him, and some decisions need to be made.

Thanks.

[gness]

Then your experience is lacking, Pixie...you come with me....bring your knitting....sit for an hour or so and tell me what she's saying...

You'll do far better than the rest of us who visit....and the home staff.....

[pixie374]

I don't doubt it :-)

[gness]

And that, Pixie...is your problem.

[Bigbad]

RATTER15. You need to get a grip, get off your high horse, and realise that the words I use about Dad are the same ones he would use to describe the same situation.
You know nothing about me, and have no right to say I’m showing him no respect, when what I am doing is visiting as often as I can, despite it being a 4 hour round trip, and trying hard to find out exactly what is wrong with him and what his future may be.

Pixie, I think drivel is an accurate description. A conversation yesterday was like this - “Remember the gas thing? We were on strike last week, and I had to go to court with the neighbours, the ones with the little kiddies. I don’t know why I had to go, it was nothing to do with me. Have you got my car keys”?

[Giggsie]

I hear where you are coming from bigbad. My mother went into hospital in January she died in February she would have been 92 in May. I felt the same as you got no answers my mum lived on her own very independent until one night she seemed to be a bit muddled which she never was memory was always good. In the morning things were bad we called a doctor in and she was admitted to hospital. There they took her off all meds she was on had heart problems for years. They doped her up she could not even keep her eyes open when we visited. We asked questions about what the problem was . We were more or less told she is old and on her way out. Ok they knew she was dying but she was still our mum. She did know we were there and really tried to speak to us but was so drugged up she just could not. I did speak with her dr but got nowhere. We had to go in every day to feed her as staff had not time they said. This was started after I went in one day and her cold dinner was sitting there and a tub of milk sorry was ice cream. From then on we tried to have one person there all the time. So sorry for people in hospital that cannot have this. Was not happy with her treatment at all. Think it's the same if over an age.

[pixie374]

No, it really isn't, gness.
Bigbad, I do hope he improves soon either way. It makes sense they are checking for infections first. My point was that ratter was entitled to say what he did when these kinds of descriptions are used on a public site- and I doubt you are surprised. I wish him all the best xx

[gness]

Clarify for me, Pixie.......my large family and my mum's friends can no longer understand her garbled words.....have a conversation with her....but you could...you could understand and converse?

[pixie374]

Gness, I don't know your mum- and none of this thread is about you. If I had time and got to know her, then of course. And I'm sure you understand get needs too. Please don't take it personally- I was defending ratter a bit, because he had a point about the language. I have no criticism of anybody here though xx

[Bigbad]

The problem is, pixie374, that people come on here to ask a question, and there is always some judgemental know-all getting on their high horse, when there is absolutely no need. (See it happen a lot in the law section).

If RATTER15 is in a care profession, then why not answer my question about how I can get help?
Lots of posters on this thread have managed to grasp straight away how much I care for/care about my dad, and I thank them.

And thank you for your good wishes too.

[pixie374]

Bigbad, i can only say that he has his reasons today. Please just take anything helpful to you and leave the rest xx

[Bigbad]

I hear you pixie, but cannot let 'RC' replies go unchallenged.

[anneasquith]

RC replies ?

[woofgang]

Pixie this is not a Pixie bash but I spent most of my 27 years of working life as an Occupational Therapist working with people with strokes and/or various kinds of dementia. If you honestly can understand any patient, given time, then you should be writing books and appearing at seminars.

[campbellking]

All I can say is actions speak louder than words. I work in a hospital, and one of the most devoted couples I ever met were in their eighties. She had been in exceedingly poor health, with her diabetes leading to kidney failure and amputations, with him struggling to look after her at home. I remember him coming in to visit on one of her frequent admissions, when she'd had profuse diarrhoea the night before, describing his efforts to clear her up as worse than the stench of sewerage he'd had to deal with in his former job (thankfully she wasn't awake at the time, and didn't hear it) . I certainly didn't think any less of him, the love radiated between them, she got well enough to go home again and lived for another year.

[pixie374]

We all can, woof. Most communication isn't verbal anyway. It's just instinctive in everybody.

[woofgang]

I have never said this before to anyone on here but Pixie you are wrong and dangerously wrong.

[pixie374]

I don't think so. It does depend on how much information you are trying to get from them. But I disagree that dysphasia is drivel. It's very often there.

[Bigbad]

anneasquith, I assume the real word won’t get through the filter.
Just read it as it is!

[Muntin]

Pixie's assertion at 19.26 is neither provable nor capable of being disproved, an 'interesting' point which will not help Bigbad, who has my sympathy and I am sure that of many others on here.

[pixie374]

Thanks, but it wasn't an assertion, just my experience, as I said x