That went well

    The care planning meeting at Rice Estate went well. Or to be more accurate, it went fine, but aspects of it were spectacular. Because Dad went to his own care meeting. He walked all the way and all the way back, and he had already had physical therapy about an hour before. He made intelligent observations, and signed off at the end, and his signature looked like his signature instead of the shaky thing it was the last time I asked him to sign something.
    The staff still feels that he needs in-out catheterization and thus that he has to learn to do it himself. That was certainly the goal when he moved in, but since then he's been able to go to the bathroom on his own. Their scanner shows that there's a lot of pee retained in his bladder when he feels like he doesn't need to go. I pointed out that since Baptist he's been getting in-out cath and nearly every time the nurse told him how much came out. When the quantity reflects the kind of numbers their scanner is showing, he felt an extreme degree of bladder fullness. I also pointed out that he was a lot less alert and aware then than now. They said they were getting a new scanner and getting the old one calibrated. So we'll see. (Or somebody will; I'm pretty much out of the loop.)
    The problem being that they won't allow him to move to Assisted Living until he can do in-out cath for himself, and they won't be happy about him leaving until he's done about three weeks in Assisted Living. He doesn't see much point to either in-out cath or Assisted Living. Gail assures us that he's at risk for urinary infection if he's retaining urine. (I think urine is sterile, but what do I know?)
    The other thing Dad was concerned about was physical therapy. He wants it 5 days a week; really seven. He was getting it three days a week instead. He says a day without physical therapy is a day wasted. The physical therapist, Kayla, said they should put that up in the PT room as a motto. Anyway, they agreed to 5 days a week. And the dietitian promised to redouble efforts to double his portions. So a good day, on the whole.