{Karlton Bontrager}

Each time Karlton has made a move to a different ward or hospital, we’ve decorated his room with the cards he’s received, photos of family and friends, and the beautifully patterned panels of cloth that Alexa brought back from India for him. Psychologically, it just may be more effective for us than it is for him in creating an inviting and secure home away from home.

Yesterday Choy-Lang and I headed up to ISIS to retrieve those things as well as the clothing and other items that have begun to accumulate since he went into rehabilitation and his friends from Queenstown have brought more things from his flat there. The ISIS people informed us that we needn’t be in a hurry to take his things. They will hold his room for him. Regardless of how long his stay is at Dunedin Hospital, his next step will most likely be rehabilitation at ISIS. And we can rest assured that his room will be there for him.

What a gift that was! No, systems do not always work efficiently when they interact. In fact, they regularly do not in so many ways. Yet here is an example of one way that one system has remained open to flexibility. It helps make the bitter pill of the previous day’s inefficiencies easier to swallow.

Back at the hospital, the antibiotics made Karlton drowsy. He slept for long periods of the day. A number of friends stopped by to visit, and he was able to be alert enough to make conversation and a few humorous remarks with them.

Karlton complained much less about the light. More and more here lately he objects to noise. We did all we could to make the room quiet, speaking in low voices, limiting the number of people in the room, and closing an outer door so that the conversations and ringing telephones at the nurses’ station will not upset him. Yet the machines that deliver his antibiotics use sound to alert the medical staff to problems in delivery. Closing the outer door means that nurses don’t hear the beeps, so the machines sound them longer.

A bouquet of balloons from Choy-Lang’s sister’s family arrived yesterday. They add friendly color to the room especially now because we haven’t managed to get the usual decorations up yet. In the afternoon when Karlton was sleeping peacefully, however, one of the balloons popped and made us all jump.

Karlton is so afraid of drinking water. It used to be his favorite drink, but now he’s afraid of having to cough, thereby increasing his headache. Yet he doesn’t object to drinking diluted cordials (sweetened, flavored water), not realizing that they have the same risk of making him cough. Yesterday when he had an eye patch on to block the light, Choy-Lang gave him a drink of water. She told him that it was the same kind of cordial but without the sugar and the flavoring. He tolerated it quite well. Later, after multiple drinks of that same concoction, he noted that it tasted just like water!

This morning when I stopped by his room, Karlton was alert and giving a hard time to his nurse for the day. He had already been up in a chair to eat breakfast and was back in bed again. During the night he had taken off the bandage around his head, and the bubble area had grown noticeably again. His nurse re-wrapped it once again. We’ll see how far we get today at keeping it on. Meanwhile, Karlton drifted off into peaceful sleep as I rubbed his feet for him. (How he loves to be pampered!)