Thursday April 17, pap had a “pre-op” appointment with dr. Plehn, the surgeon.

In preparation for this, I had the home-care-giver service started on that day.  We knew we were expecting a Yolanda from CareNet LA coming at 8:30am.

That morning, starting at 7:30am, we started getting calls (yes, multiple) from Yolanda asking for direction.  She seemed to be very confused.  By 8:45am when we need to leave for the appointment, she was not there at the apartment yet.  Well, plan B.  I had her sit with mam at home, while I’d take pap to the doctor.  Also, because the caregiver was not there yet, and only pap’s cell phone can open the apartment building, and mam is not capable of using pap’s cell phone, I had to take pap’s cell phone with us and leave my cell phone at the apartment.

Pap’s appointment went ok, except that I didn’t know it would take 3 hours.  It turned out it was a 3-way appointment.  After meeting dr. Plehn, we had to line up to be briefed by a team of anesthesiologists, and then we had to line up again to complete paperwork and taking care of the co-pay.

Pap’s cell phone rang once and I ran outside of doctor’s office to take the call.  I was expecting that this was the caregiver in front of the apartment building expected to be buzzed in.  Well, it was someone at the front door, but it wasn’t the caregiver, it was FedEx trying to get into the building because they needed to leave a package for our neighbor.

Not getting any other calls, by the time we’re done at the doctors’ (3 hours later), both pap and I sure thought the caregiver just decided to bail on us.  But we actually found her eating lunch with mam at the apartment.  She sure likes to talk, not shy, and was suggesting quite a few of things.  Unfortunately, I think some people quickly offer suggestions when the thing to do is to observe and learn the situation first, and THEN make suggestions.