Hello All,

It was day10 yesterday, Tuesday,8.12.14, and my grandma was moved to her house. An ambulance was hired, loads of food in mini bottles and etc were arranged. The bed was prepared, with many pillows to keep my grandma on a certain angle, so that she can be nose fed through the piping that goes (NasoGastric intubation) to her stomach.

The house, bed, was brought to the living room, an airbed was installed(basically air moves through the bubble like structure of the bed, an inch thick neoprene made bed lining), bed sheets, a bed protector, and that was it.

The room was AC controlled to 24-25°C,which was ok I guess. I arrived the house at 7pm when everything was set, mom told me to step away and skip the day, but I couldn't resist not seeing my grandma. Anyway, the tragic comedy started after I went there. There were 6 of us facing grandma, and bless her, she was trying to focus on everyone of us, first mistake. I won't let that happen again! There must be rules installed, but they were tired (my mom, uncle and their sister) I guess...anyway, while they were trying change the diaper of my grandma, they failed, and my mom noticed that the NG piping has came out, all the way from grandma's stomach. Of course, everyone did panic, mom called the turkish 911, which is the 112, and they said they can't come for this issue, and that we should try and find an MD to insert another sterilysed NG to my grandmother's stomach through her nose. We jumped on the car, went to 2 private hospitals in the district,and they said "we can't let our MD leave the ER, can't you bring your patient here", I said no we can't, tried to explain them the situation, then got angry and was nearly swore the guy and said "so I'll let her sit there and call an ambulance to take her from her house to a a hospital just to have her a new NG piping be installed"....anyway, mom called back and said "come home, 112 ambulance has accepted to come"...the procedure is that if it's not an emergency, 112 does not come. But who decides if it's not or it is...how do you know if it's urgent upon a caller's description? don't you have to get there anyway to see if the situation is urgent?...anyway we got back home, 112 ambulance came, they said they have to take my grandma back to the hospital to insert a new NG piping...we called in another private ambulance company medline, they said they can insert the NG at home but that it's not silicon based, it's polyurethane made, we said OK, please come quickly. They did come, a smiley health specialist, he did explain this could happen, etc... and that he will replace this tomorrow with a silicon and a smaller diameter pipe so that my grandma would not be troubled that much (the polyurethane pipe was a large diameter one but the only temporary solution at hand). Anyway, everything was back to normal after 2 hours of panic. Grandma tried to speak to me I guess as I layed down on her right side, her paralysed side, and talked to her, again I told her "she has seen too many people, moved from the hospital and back to her house, and that she should rest" told her to close her eyes and she did...then of course she opened them again in 2 minutes as the living room is always full of people, I have to act like mad max in order to empose that rule of thumb that max 2 people should be in her room, and one should talk at a time.

Everyone agreed on the fact that at the hospital everything was done by professional male caretakers;

- changing my grandma's sheet, diapers, position-

and it was done so professionally, it lasted 2 mins.

At home, while trying to change the position of your loved one, someone stepped on the NG piping extension, and while grandma was turned to her other side, the NG piping has came out! Disaster...

Mom has now realised how hard this task is, and today, day11 we will try and find a 5-6 day / week health specialist, a professional caretaker to help my mom and me or whoever is there with grandma, the speacialist is to be paid every month a salary, etc... We need to take care of her 3 more weeks before she goes back to the phyiso therapy department in the hospital again for starters.

Things to be done at home are, to make sure my grandma gets;

- her nose fed automatic machine running 5 times a day (water and special food mixture of a total of 300ml / feed)

- her massage to her body 3 times a day

- her water which is injected to the pipe externally via a syringe for 50ml 6 times a day

- her position shifted every 2 hours daytime, 3-4 hours night time (that is nearly 9-12 changes a day)

- her diaper and sheet changed every 3 hours a day or when checked and found to be full

- her eye drop dripped to her eye 2 times a day

- her medicine crushed and mixed with water and given 2 times a day

- her head washed 1 time a day with a special very little water requiring solution,sponge

- her body rinsed via a wet towel every 2 times a day

I don't know but you can't do those alone, can you? I'm so confused and sad we failed to do anything from the first hour she came to her own house. Thank god grandma has somekind of retirement salary (that is passed on to her from her husband, a great turkish children's story writer-poet and turkish literature teacher my grandfather, Ibrahim Zeki Burdurlu, the one we lost back in 1984, 30 years ago, at the age of 62 from a heart cardiac arrest, when I was 8) that could pay her healthcare specialist.

I'll go there today at 9am, it is 7:40am in the morning now. Lots to be done, the learning curve continues to challenge us.

Thanks for reading.

Healthy and happy days to all of you out there.

Love,

Cagin