Another appointment

Today I took my dad to VA for two appointments--one with the psychiatrist and the other with the Physician's Asst. He hadn't been there since all of this bad stuff with his health started, though there were some impending signs of it at Christmastime when the PA noted his swollen legs and worried about CHF (congestive heart failure). She told me to take him to the ER if his legs became more swollen, and I didn.
The psychiatrist noted that he had gone down hill quite a bit, but he spoke to dad respectfully about the Great Depression and about his limitations since this last bout at the hospital. Dad said for the first time that he is angry he can no longer care for his plants, but I explained why the caretakers had to impose that rule on him, and he understood, though of course, he was not happy about it. We tossed around some ways he might be able to continue gardening without the major expenditure of energy that he had been doing, when he went outside with his cane instead of his walker and fell down a couple of times a day. It was clear he was not coping with the tasks gardening required, and the caregivers were concerned about it. The psychiatrist suggested bonsai, I suggested dish gardens, but he was not interested. He wants his fruit trees and roses.
Then we went to see the PA, who put all the changes in his medications into the computer, and put in orders for a new cane to use around the house and a new walker that he will pick up next week when the caregiver takes him to LB VA Hospital to pick up his new hearing aids. Then, he said, he will consider going back to the Center at least once a week.
He does look more rested, despite the frustration and the fact that his pants, dragged down by the urine tube, are falling down. He refuses to wear a belt and I don't know what size pants he ought to wear since he lost all that water weight.
Afterwards we went to a kosher deli where we hadn't been before and had matzo ball soup and half a turkey pastrami sandwich on rye. Wonderful! The bread was freshly baked, still warm, firm, but with a decent crust and just enough give when you squeezed the half a sandwich between the fingers! The pastrami was thinly sliced and not overly spiced, as pastrami generallly tends to be. It was delicate pink, like the inside of a conch shell. When my uncle comes in this Friday we'll go back there and eat again, taking my mom next time.