Life

I'm finally getting to write again. The last few days have been hectic and I haven't had the energy to post. Donny's still in the hospital. Yesterday was my first day on the job. It's been a hectic week.

Today was not a good day. When I got to the hospital this morning it was just after change of shift and one of the night nurses chatted with me for a few minutes in the lobby. She was telling me that at three this morning Donny was standing at his bedroom door waiting for me. When it was pointed out that it was too early for me to be there he said that I had promised to come first thing in the morning and so he knew that I'd be there any minute. Then they explained that I wouldn't be allowed in until eight. He just repeated the whole thing about my promise. When I heard all that I knew that I was in for it.

I got to Donny's room and he greeted me by telling me that we were leaving. I asked him what was going on and he said that the doctor said that he had to leave. I went and asked the nurse about it, but she wasn't aware that the doctor had already seen Donny, and she couldn't find any discharge instructions. When I questioned Donny about it he told me that the doctor had said that he wasn't sick and that he was a "good for nothing piece of shit". That didn't sound like any doctor I'd met. He then told me that a security guard had come and told him that he could stay. When the doctor got there to do his rounds I asked him about it. He hadn't been there at all yet, so I started wondering if some other man had been in Donny's room, and Donny was just confused about what was said. But when Donny claimed that it was a man who looked just like the doctor I knew what was going on. He'd had a rather good hallucination. I let the doctor know what I'd figured out and then told Donny that the mean doctor wouldn't be back.

Later on in the morning Donny asked me to lean a little closer. He then started picking at one part of my face. When I asked him what he was doing he said that he was trying to get the bug off my face. I guess I should be thankful that he didn't try to kill it while it was on my face. A few minutes later he started using his cane to shoot the bugs that only he could see crawling across his floor. It was interesting.

Today was spent trying to keep Donny calm. He wanted me to fix any problem that he thought he was having. He thought that the nurse wasn't giving him his medicine, so he wanted me to give him some from the stuff that we have for home. Never mind the fact that I didn't have his medicine with me, why on earth would I give him medicine when he's in the hospital? I could kill him doing that. The best possible outcome would be an overdose. He got really angry when I refused to give him medicine or to harass the nurse. I know that she's giving him what he needs, she doesn't need people who know nothing about it trying to tell her how to do her job.

I finally left out of self defense. I couldn't stay and let him call me names any longer. Maybe it's a poor attitude, but I decided to just let the nurses deal with him. They can tell him no every five minutes. They can stop him from leaving, I can't do it anymore. Although the nurses say I'm wrong, I still think that he's got to be calmer when I'm gone. I don't see how the nurses stop themselves from shooting me when I arrive.

What worries me the most is that he's too confused for his ammonia level. It was at 65 today and he was hallucinating. Yesterday they were supposed to do an MRI of his brain to see if they could find other causes for the confusion, but the doctors changed their mind. Apparently they believe that it's just the ammonia level. With any luck his ammonia levels will be normal tomorrow and we'll see if his brain returns to normal. The doctor that's overseeing the resident that's taking care of Donny was talking today about possibly discharging him tomorrow. I just hope that they don't push him out the door too soon.

On a brighter note, My first day in the office was yesterday. I met all my co-workers and they seem like a nice bunch of people. And my manager is a blast. I'm really looking forward to tax season. Does it count as a mental illness that I'm excited about doing taxes? I enjoy it. That's got to be a sickness.