Well, it's September and Dad still hasn't moved to the new West LA Veterans Home. Our family is scraping up the extra money he needs to pay for his care. But I'm starting to think that we might need to move him temporarily until the VA opens... $700 extra is what he needs per month and that is just too much. Ugh... moving.
On another note, Dad has scabies AGAIN. This is his 4th or maybe 5th time... I don't know because I stopped counting. I walked into his home to pick him up for a routine Psych visit and took one look at him and knew. He was scratching in all the same places. Luckily since we were going to the VA clinic already, I begged and pleaded to be seen so that we could get the medicine he needed for his skin. Success! I saw the problem, tackled it, and solved it all within hours! All with a baby on my hip and one eye on the old guy with Alzheimer's! Sorry for tooting my own horn, but normally the Scabies situations are much more drawn out. (Although, the Nurse Practitioner didn't think it was scabies -why is it so hard to diagnose?- and I politely told her that I disagreed. At this point, I know exactly what it looks like and how my Dad reacts to it, plus I did find out later when we arrived back at Valley View Gardens, that another resident also has Scabies.)
Scabies is highly contagious but I have never contracted it from him... my main worry this time was Emry. I made sure she had absolutely no contact with him, and I probably washed my hands 20 times that day.
Dad also had another staff infection but this time in his armpit and it was really painful. We opted to go to urgent care instead of sitting for hours at the VA ER. $200 later, they gave him a very painful injection of Lidocaine, lanced it open, squeezed the heck out of it, and sent us home with an antibiotic and an order to come back two days later. Again, I washed my hands countless times that day.
Anyway, wish there was more exciting news to tell. The Alzheimer's Walk is less than two months away and we're having a big fund-raiser at the end of the month. More info on that coming soon!
