Support

Nursing came through today, according to mom - three times a week they'll come by for vitals, in-home occupational and physical therapy and all covered by Medicare huzzah!

I can't tell whether I'm being completely pessimistic or realistic or clinical or callous anymore. Alone, I'm eight years old and terrified that Daddy isn't the same and never will be the same and who knows how long he'll be here. With my family, I've been charged with Knowing Things. Knowing what to expect, what to look for, why he's doing something or not doing something else or what the doctor meant when she said that. I turn into a consultant. And I honestly don't feel like I really know fuck-all about what's going on, apart from the definitions of confabulation and apraxia. I'm trying to read scholarly journals occasionally, about delirium and generally they say that it's a high predictor of mortality in 6 months, institutionalization, dementia etc, but of course my school doesn't have access to these journals so I can't find out what their population was (were they independent beforehand? what were the medical precursors? average age?) or how strong a predictor of poor prognosis delirium is (are we talking 5% of the variance or 50%? what else was in the model?).

But I feel like I can't talk about it as much. I don't want to ruin anyone's day or be a huge bummer. I don't want to be the one raining on everyone else's parade if Daddy's a little more lucid for a couple days in a row. But if I'm supposed to Know Things, am I not supposed to Say Things?