There have been no more falls in the last few days. On Sunday he got off the bed ... I don't know if he fell or got off on purpose. He'd been napping, and when I went back to check on him, he was on his knees. He insisted he was looking for something. He actually got back on by himself.
Sunday night, however, was rough. He woke up (and sat on tubing, causing the alarm to go off, which of course got me up) around 4 AM. I hesitate to say he was "confused" or "disoriented", yet I don't know what to call it. The conversation was sort of like this:
Me: What are you doing?
Him: Waiting for someone to get back.
Me: Why
Him: So I can go home.
Me: And where are you now?
Him: At your house (said in a tone that implied I was asking pretty dumb questions).
Me: So we've lost 30 plus years of marriage and are now back to separate homes?
Him: (puzzled) No. What did the doctor say?
Me: It's 4 in the morning. Don't be worrying about doctors and houses. Go back to sleep.
Him: (as I was walking out the door) Betty is going to be wondeering where I am.
It took me over an hour to get back to sleep (he did not have any trouble at all!). Then I had to get back up at 6:30 because it was supply delivery day. So, anything else that happened all day was shaded by my being so very tired.
At 9:30 he called me. Now, "normal" is to go in about 10:00, take his B/P, disconnect the dialysis, change the bandage on his catheter site, then put his pills and protein drink where he can reach. After all that he gets dressed (or goes back to sleep). So, I go back and he's semi sitting on the side of the bed (he actually can't sit up at all without some sort of support, or else he must be holding on to something, such as a railing). He asked me to hand him his jeans. Why? So he can get dressed. Why this time of day? Because that's what you do in the morning. While he wasn't as "off" as during the night, that was still a confused conversation. At some point I asked him where we were, and he guessed Smithfield (a place we've never ever lived!).
I did finally get him up, dressed, took his pills. Since I can't read the guage, I asked him to check how much oxygen was in his portable tank. First he said it was full; but I knew that wasn't possible. After looking at it some more, he said it was "half" full. We had to go to the clinic (to make up the visit he missed last week). It was tricky getting him and the tank loaded, but I managed. At the clinic, they were super slow. This new nurse is nice and all, but I sure liked the other one better. Oh well, it's not about what we like. When they brought him back out to go, she informed me that his tank was nearly empty! Well, we'd been there well over an hour .. so they used up my "spare" time. I stopped at the pharmacy for refills, and we went straight home. No grocery stop. He wanted to just lay down .. and never got up again. He refused to eat, too. Later in the evening - later than we normally have supper - he finally ate one pot pie. During the time I was trying to get him settled in bed and the dialysis started, he made the comment "something is wrong". He couldn't figure out what, but something was really confusing or bothering him.
He did have a quiet night though. I hope he actually slept most of it!
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