From: ekovar at att.net
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Fwd: I have something I need to ask the WSFA list
Date: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 11:54:02 +0000
Cc: eva at evawhitley.net
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

------ Original message from "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>: -------

> Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 18:54:34 -0500
> From: Eva Whitley
> Reply-To: eva at evawhitley.net
> Subject: [WSFA] I have something I need to ask the WSFA list
>
> Carroll County Hospital is having a hard time finding a temporary
> nursing home placement for Jack in the Baltimore area. (There are only
> 8 facilities for ventilator weaning in the Baltimore area, and one of
> those is in York, PA and another is in Hagerstown.)
>
> It seems to me that our pool of possible nursing homes might be bigger
> if they included Washington DC area facilities but I'd only be able to
> get down to see Jack on weekends and I'd worry that he'd go nuts only
> getting company on weekends.
>
> If around 6-8 people in the Washington area would like to volunteer to
> visit him on a weekly basis during the week, I'd feel comfortable asking
> that Washington area facilities should be investigated by the hospital's
> social worker. Could you re-post this to the WSFA list and have anyone
> willing to commit contact me off-list? Thanks.
>
> (The doctor is vague on how long Jack would be in the nursing home--the
> ear, nose, and throat specialist "sold" it to us as nursing home
> placement would only be for a few weeks but now we're hearing a month or
> two, maybe three. Apparently, there's a lot of ambiguity with Chronic
> Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.)

<snip> and the following is from me, not quoted, I just have an
awkward interface.

Keith,

I'm dealing with email via a webpage as I'd only planned on logging on
briefly so did so via my mother's account and was then hit with some
other things before this one..

Would you be so kind as to forward this message to Eva?

Eva,

If Jack is in the D.C. area of course I'll make a commtiment to visit
him once a week and will see what I can do to collect others to help
cover the other days.  I'm living between D.C. and Baltimore so
Virginia would be harder for me but if that's what's needed I'll do my
best to corral folks.  Rather than discussing it via email give me a
call when you have the chance.  Home phone is 301-483-3601 and cell in
301-512-1157 but I'm down at the folk's place in Southern Maryland
until Monday night so won't get messages for a day or so.

I've some experience with dealing with folks who are dealing with life
threating illness and we should probably talk first to make sure that
my way of handling things meets with yours, that you know of and are
comfortable with my limitations, and all the rest of those pragmatic
matters.  At the same time I'm more that willing to discuss things
honestly with the hospital's social worker (which has had positive
results in past situations) and to sit down with you and some other
D.C. folks to try to arrange to rope in others locally to cover things.

Elspeth