We Were "Dumped"

Yesterday we got a phone message from Wasatch Care Center telling us that they were sending Sheila to McKay-Dee Hospital Emergency Room for a medical evaluation to see if there was something that was causing her emotional changes.

We immediately rush to the nursing home to check on Sheila to find that she was in playing Bingo with the other residents. She had no idea that anything was going on. The nursing home director, Kim MacFarlane, asked to meet with us, along with Lori Hensley, the director of nursing. They said that they wanted Sheila to be checked out medically to rule out any medical reasons for her emotional changes. They said that if it did not come back as anything medical then we would have to look at possibly finding another facility that is better equipped to take care of her. They said they had gone to talk with Sheila’s doctor and he agreed that she needed to be seen at the ER and he would order more tests to rule out anything medical.

We told Sheila we would be going with her to the ER to make sure everything was alright. We all rode with her in the WCC van so she wouldn’t get scared. When we got to the triage desk they handed the nurse orders for a psych evaluation. They take us to a very sterile looking psych holding room. After the doctor comes into the room, and talks to us for a minute, he said that she was in the wrong room and needed to be in a medical evaluation room. In the meantime, the nursing home tells the ER staff that they needed their wheelchair and their other equipment back before they left.

Over the course of the night we met with: the ER doctor, a crisis worker, and a social worker. A CT-scan done last night showed a little change from the one done in October 2008. The crisis worker told us this was not a psychological case and was sending us back to Wasatch Care Center and for them to make a referral to Weber Human Services for counseling to help Sheila deal with the physical changes that she is experiencing.

The next thing we know is the nurse comes in and tells us that a social worker will be in to talk us about finding a new care center. I mention to the nurse that we were told Sheila was going back to WCC. She tells us that WCC would not take her back. Several hours later when we met with the social worker she told us that because of the time of day that we would be spending the night in the ER and the social worker in the morning would work at finding a new care center that can better help Sheila. I expressed to her that I felt like we were dropped off at the ER and left to find somewhere to take Sheila. All of the social workers told us that Sheila was indeed “dropped” at the ER so the nursing home didn’t have to deal with her.

During this whole time Sheila kept asking when we were going back home. It was so hard to tell her that we wouldn’t be going back “home”.

When we met with the social worker Friday morning, we expressed to her that we needed some place close by as we would have to take the bus to see her since our car’s transmission died over the 4th of July weekend. Several of the nursing homes that were contacted could not adequately take care of Sheila since a lift has to be used to get her in and out of bed. The social worker was finally able to find an opening at Mt. Ogden Health and Rehabilitation Center in Washington Terrace, UT.

When we finally got to Mt. Ogden HRC at around 5:00 PM, the administrator from WCC had already packed up Sheila’s things and brought them over to her new place. The room is smaller than what she had at WCC and she will not have her own phone so she won’t be able to call us when she is feeling lonely or just wants to talk.

We are also disappointed that the UTA bus does not run to the nursing home on Sundays so we won’t be able to attend church with her until we resolve the car issue. We really enjoyed attending church with Sheila while she was at WCC and it became a highlight of her week.

We will go home and get some sleep as we weren’t able to sleep in the ER.

Saturday we will go and set up Sheila’s new room so it feels a little more like home.