Archive Notes: This is an English translation and rewritten version of a blog post originally published in Japanese on October 24, 2019. [Japanese version]
It was a rainy day today.
Because of the weather, my daughter and I decided to head to the hospital by car.
Even though we left home super early, the traffic on the roads was unusually heavy. By the time we finally arrived, we pulled in at the exact same moment as the care manager.
Our meeting started at 3:00 PM, and since I was in a bit of a rush, we wrapped everything up by 4:00 PM.
As I had expected, the main thing—and pretty much the only thing—we needed to decide was the official discharge date.
On my end, I had already been making various preparations at home, so we were basically ready to go as soon as the nursing care bed arrived.
So, when the medical equipment representative said, “We can deliver the bed on Monday,” that was it! The discharge date was officially set for Tuesday.
Since the hospital is an emergency medical center, they definitely seemed eager to free up the bed as soon as possible, too.
Nowadays, thanks to the long-term care insurance system, we can access so many helpful home-care services. But back when my grandmother passed away peacefully at home, no such system existed. Thinking about it now, my mother must have had an incredibly tough time taking care of her all on her own.
I still have so many uncertainties about what life will be like starting this Tuesday, and honestly, we won’t fully know until it actually begins. But I’m confident we can get through this!
We’re going to make it work!
After all, we just have to find a way to power through, no matter what!
