Five years ago, I could not comprehend how my father’s two-day stay in the hospital resulted in a three-week stay in a skilled-nursing facility and a permanent decline in his functional abilities.
My father had Parkinson’s. At the time, he also had a form of low blood pressure that occurs when you stand up from a sitting or a lying-down position. It can make you feel dizzy or lightheaded.
The condition can even cause you to faint, which was what happened to my father and what precipitated the hospital stay.
My mother called 911 and my father was taken by ambulance to the emergency room and later admitted for observation.
Before his hospitalization my father could walk with a walker, he could assist if someone helped him off the toilet, he could feed himself and he was cognitively fit.
After two days in a hospital bed,