Chaos in Paradise

What a day.   As  usual on getting up I made the usual preparations to go see Kay.  Mainly to have enough to eat if I have to adjust my b/g level before I get back and to have something for her.  When I got to the med room nothing was going on.  Someone told me there was no nurse. She had supposedly  gone to the other facility instead of coming here.  The med tecks can dispense pills but not the insulin.  Even if you want to eat out.  Under those circumstances you take it with you and take a shot when you eat.  No way she cant touch the medicine bag even if you called the nurse and asked if the tech could give it out to the patient.  So my problem is how what to do with no insulin if the nurse does not get here before the shuttle bus arrives to take me to see Kay.  I cant jeopardize my shuttle eligibility by doing a no show so it looks like I may have to eat a no carb breakfast and go without insulin.  The nurse was supposed to go on duty at 6 AM at both places.  But I got everything as ready as I could in case I had to go without insulin.   At 8 the nurse finally got here and as there was a line waiting I knew I could not go through the line and still get my bus.  She gave me the insulin and I went down stairs to catch bus.  The driver whom I have met before informed me that they had my missing jacket.  Great.  

Nothing of note was going on at Kay's and I left at the usual time to come back.

There are a lot of questions to be asked about the debacle this morning.    One thing you can be sure of. What really happened we the peasants may never know.  For one thing.  The shift starts at both places at 6 AM.  So if the nurse from here was there at 6 and the other nu  there or was this nurse the only one there? That looks like to me the person who did the scheduling screwed up.  But if the other nurse was there too why could not these two figure out that something was wrong and one of them was not supposed to be there?  This would be at 6 AM.  At 7 when people were coming down for their medicine we were told the Nurse was coming because she went to the wrong place.   OK this is at 7 but when was she told she was at the wrong place?  The two places are less than 15 minutes apart by car.  The question then was why did it take until 8 AM to get over to the Vista? they knew before 7 where she was.  The other place does not require the large umber of treatments that this place does.  So the question why did not the Nurse start for here immediately when she learned she was at  the wrong place?  It took two hours to go these 15 minutes.  One thing no one here would have the initiative on their own to do  anything to help the situation.  They are scared shirtless about their jobs. 
I asked one of the tecks why not phone the nurse and ask if she could give me my insulin so I could go and eat out.  She could not do that.  Maybe so.  But that is one question I will certainly clarify.  Then there is the question why did the nurse not take care of the patients during the morning hour she could not take care at breakfast because of the large number there at 8?  Instead of, after breakfast, contacting the ones she missed.  They added to the noon glut and slowed up everyone at noon.  I know of one the nurse spent  15 minutes on right at the noon rush.  If they would hire people for ability more than diversity these things would not happen as often.  You would think these problems would be discussed in their meetings and not depend on the individual nurse to solve the problem alone when it hits unexpectedly. This circumstance would certainly be expected to happen.  So why was there no apparent preparation for this?  This place has had a huge turnover of personnel in the past two  or three months. It just seems chaotic.  But this should never have happened and when it is  with proper training the effect could certainly diminished.  Why didn't they have someone to call that could have gotten here in less than 2 hours? I say plan ahead.

I don't expect this to make any friends with the people, it might reflect on, but so be it.  With this heart problem they probably wont have me to kick around much longer anyway.  But then?  I am optimistic. 

Plan Ahead

Normal visit, dirty water

 Everything went well today.  I got there about 1 30 and found Kay in the community room just sitting there with her eves closed.   I took her immediately to out usual place and I gave her a pudding and one truffle.  No more this visit.  She ate both.  A little slow at the end of the pudding. Even though it had started raining when I came in I thought there were two chairs under shelter enough that we could sit outside for a while in the fresh air.  But the wind was blowing enough that  it was getting on the chairs so that scratched that idea.  We went back to her room and I hung out until time to go.  I left her at the elevator door and she accepted my leaving without much of an  attempt to go with me. 

About a month ago the brains in the US beaurocracy decided people living in places like this need some protection from getting scalded from the hot water.  It is set to stay between 105 and 130.   This place has been here about 20 years and I don't  think anyone has been scalded in all that time. But no mind, they were ordered to put restrictors in the hot water taps in the bathroom.  Of course it also restricts the cold water. Yesterday  I told the head (whats the name for female "honcho") That the water was running so slowly that sediment was collecting in the pipes and building up.  No way could that happen she claimed it was coming from the screen in the restrictor. You cant argue with someone who know everything so I just gave up trying to show how it was happening.   Today I looked into the little pitcher I use to boil water for coffee that I make in my room.  It looked like there was a shadow or something on the inside.  I boil the water because I want to rid it of clorine when I make coffee. They must be working on the lines somewhere because the inside was black from dirt or what ever it was.  I took a picture of it and here it is. 

Ictually something in the inside.  My eyes are quite bad and I was not sure until I took the picture.  But here is a picture of the inside. When you get old you get no respect.  I got no respect when  I tried to tell the family that Kay was not eating enough from the type of food they were feeding her.  No, no that is just the way when you get dementia some told me.  You stop eating and die.  Never consider that the foods they are eating there is just contrary from how they ate all their lives and they cant eat the food. How you ate all your life is so powerful that some doctors say it is easier to cure cancer than obesity.  I say that how Kay ate before she moved into the place she is in is the reason why she was losing weight. Mentally she is not capable of adjusting to the diet there.   I may have solved the problem because since I talked to them  about changing her diet she apparently has gained about 3 pounds in the first week. As I said before she always ate like she was starving when we went out to eat at a restaurant.   

   

 It's really looking bad for the Boeing workers who work on the 787.  It is not just necessarily just to fix the problem of the burning batteries but by doing  it the right way.   Other users have solved the problem but Boeing also has to fix it by not increasing the weight.  Other users do it by encasing the battery in an iron case.  Every pound on this airplane is considered.  And to fix the battery problem by substantially increasing the weight is something  Boeing just can not do indiscriminately. I see today in the Seattle Times that each one of the batteries cost $16,000.00. Not much perhaps in the grand scheme of the cost of the airplane but on the other hand nothing to sneeze at.   That's profit your talking
here.   Yep, looks like the 787 production line is headed for trouble.  Boeing said it would be keeping the production line going but how much space is there to store these airplanes?  Looks like Boeing's idea to make parts all over the world and ship them to Everett s for assembly is not working out. Save your pennies Boeing workers for it looks like up you might need them to supplement your unemployment income.

As one of the writers in the Sunday Seattle Times asked "Who is going to get fired over this disaster?"