When I get home from the hospital and the craziness my dad calls and asked what time I will be dropping off the kids the next day.  I tell him I’ll keep them in the morning till mid-afternoon before I head down.  I figure that way, I could drop off the kids while the rest of my brothers and nieces are there to help watch them during family dinner night.  It would be a balance.  I would keep the kids in the morning so I could stay longer into the night with him without feeling even more guilty (I already have so much guilt for leaving them 13+ hours yesterday) about leaving them with my parents.   But, he starts in on how I should go to work, I can’t take all these days off, if I lose my job then I’ll have even more problems, blah blah blah.  My boss has always been very supportive and amazing.  But, he’s right.  If I lost my job on top of everything else, it would be that much worse.  I know I try to keep things in perspective and say you need your health and loved ones, but being employed pays for the meds, mortgage,  food, clothes, hydro for home hemo, etc.  So, even though I explain I have 20-vacation days I can draw on, he brushes them aside, and I have to get a little snippy with him (which as often as it happens I still have Asian guilt of being a bad daughter).

His seeds of reason have been planted and although I am tired, I access work from home to see if there’s anything pressing and to prioritize my tasks for the next day.  Guess who I see on line, my boss.  She asks how Franklin is and tells me to get off the computer.   I ask if she’d mind if I worked from home tomorrow and she tells me to give myself a break.  Bless her.  But, I will work from home tomorrow so I can save my days for when I can’t get childcare, Franklin’s recoup days, etc.  I know I should take a day to myself.  I am feeling mentally and physically hanging on by a thin rope at times.  But, it feels like I would ‘waste’ my favours if I took time for myself.   Woman/Mommy/Wife guilt.  We put everyone else first.  Meh, I’ll psycho analyze that at another time.

After work, I drop off the kids and start making my ways at 4:15pm.  Not as early as I’d like, but at least it was a productive day. I completed work stuff, 3 loads of laundry, swept the main floor, changed all the bedsheets, washed the sink full of dishes.  I was tired, but when the kiddies get up at 6am, you have to get up with them, so an early start helped get alot done.  .

I get there to see his youngest brother and his girlfriend are there.  Franklin tells me what has happened since I left.  After therapy last night he went to the floor he’d be staying on after being admitted from Emerg and said the nurse on night shift was nice.  It comforted him to know that it wasn’t a total uncommunicative jerk (which he’ll have to deal with in the morning) and he fell asleep.  The doctor came by while he was asleep and changed the ‘script to every 3-hrs instead of 2-hrs.  Which is fine if the next day’s nurse communicated that.  So, when Franklin buzzed to get his pain relief medication, she’d come in, say dismissively “it’s not time yet” and just walk away.  He was timing it himself also, so not to ‘bother’ them when it wasn’t time.  So, he buzzed again at 1:45pm, but no one came until 3pm with the morphine.  He ‘fired’ her as he explains it.  It’s when she finally explained that the ‘script had changed that he understood why she wasn’t giving it to him.  He’s not an asshole you stupid bitch nurse, he’s just asking what he’s expecting while he’s in pain.  Set expectations like all the other good nurses.  Not sure if it was due to the ‘firing’ but, when I was there, the next nurse advised when the next dosage would be.

He shouldn’t feel that bad, because when their own fellow nurse buzzes asking for help with her patient in the next bed, no one comes either.  She explains in a hushed tone that that’s how it is.  The other nurses are only concerned for their own patient.   They need a team bonding activity, STAT.

I stay until 9:15 and make the 1-hr trek to pick up the kids and get home.   At least Franklin feels hopeful he can take himself off the morphine tomorrow and has rounded the corner to recovering.

Updates to come….