The Malik Report

Once again, my apologies for not being on the blog today, but yesterday night, we moved Aunt Annie from Beaumont’s cardiac ward to sub-acute health care (a.k.a. a rehabilitation facility); it sounds like things are still being worked out, so I need to get over there ASAP and make sure that she’s getting her pain medications and whatever else she needs.

Sometimes you have to be a pain in the ass to get things done, and as the caregiver, it’s my job to be that PITA.

I hope to be back and on Twitter for tonight’s game, but one never knows. I hope you all are doing well and I miss talking hockey with you very much.

Tomorrow marks two weeks since my aunt fell down the stairs. She is still hospitalized at Beaumont as of this morning, but we are hopeful that she will be transferred to a nursing home/rehab facility in Novi sometime this afternoon.

Aunt Annie had a heart catheterization on Monday, and it showed no blockages, but the cardiologists also diagnosed the chemical present when heart muscles have been damaged, so she’s had a heart attack of some sort at some point. We’re following up with the head of cardiology at Beaumont.

At this point, they’ve decided to treat AA’s heart failure (a condition that is surprisingly survivable!) with medication as opposed to placing a pacemaker with a defibrillator inside her. I’m not thrilled with that decision, but it’s not mine to make.

Ideally speaking, once she gets placed in the nursing home/rehab facility, and it’s up to her standards in terms of post-acute care, then a week or two of PT should help her regain her ability to get up the three steps on our porch and finally come home to Netflix and her JUUL.

Continue reading Still fighting it

I’m incredibly likely to miss the Red Wings-Penguins game tonight (7:30 PM EDT on Bally Sports Detroit Extra and the NHL Network [edit: as well as WWJ Newsradio 950]; I’m DVR’ing the game) because today is “Game Day” at Beaumont.

Aunt Annie is having her cardiac catheterization procedure at 4 PM EDT, and if the doctors don’t find anything, they’re going to discharge her tomorrow…

To nursing home care. Regrettably, she’s far too fragile to be discharged to home care, so she needs some institutional rehabilitation and PT/OT. We’ll be picking a nursing home/rehab facility that’s closer to South Lyon today, regardless of her discharge date.

Continue reading A different kind of game day: AA’s catheterization supersedes Wings-Pens for me

My aunt’s family physician for the last forty years said something that shocked me yesterday: “Well, your aunt’s in heart failure, but I’m fairly optimistic that with the right combination of medications, we should get this looked after.”

And that is where we’re at right now. Aunt Annie is in Beaumont, and, technically speaking, she is in heart failure. Her heart’s running at about 20% efficiency, and her pulse is somewhere around 110 beats per minute as the fluid around her heart and in her lungs continue to make it harder for her heart to pump blood around her body.

Continue reading Living with (heart) failure

Just a quick update: it sounds like dear Aunt Annie is going to be spending the weekend in the hospital, and may have a cardiac catheterization of some sort on Monday. Details are murky right now, but the Friday doctors are still making their rounds, and I’ve been asked to come to the hospital later today, so I’m kind of stuck doing caregiver stuff instead of blogging.

Not being on the blog for a third day is absolutely driving me crazy with frustration, and I miss talking hockey with you all very badly, but right now, when Aunt Annie calls, I’ve got to haul ass to Royal Oak. I am hoping to return in a day or two, especially given that AA is going to spend the weekend in the hospital before the catheterization on Monday.

It also appears that we’ve gotten good news on the hockey front: the Red Wings Tweeted out an indication that tonight’s game vs. Washington will be streamed on DetroitRedWings.com as well as broadcast on WWJ Newsradio 950…

Continue reading Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with AA

I’m opening up the laptop at 9:09 PM at night after closing it just after 8:13 AM.

I’ve driven more than 300 miles today, and 238 of them were coming back from Traverse City. The rest of them were driving to and from Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

My aunt is in the cardiac unit at Beaumont. She has fluid around her heart and fluid in her lungs. That should be taken care of via diuretics and whatever the cardiologists determine when they meet with her and do an ultrasound of her heart tomorrow morning.

That was the story that I was told when I was there to see her, and I hope that things hold out that way. She’s a lot more humble than I’ve seen her in a long time regarding her health, though my dear aunt remains as insolent and willful as you would expect from the plucky 80-year-old.

Long story long, however, if she hadn’t fallen down the stairs, suffering compression fractures to her back and neck, she wouldn’t have gone to Providence and they wouldn’t have diagnosed her sodium levels as near fatally low…

Continue reading A funny thing happened on the way to the cardiac ward

Hi everyone,

I made it back safely to South Lyon, but I was surprised to not find my Aunt Annie at home. I’ve been informed that she had to be admitted to the ER at a different hospital after deteriorating last night.

She’s going to be admitted to the facility with fluid around her heart, and she wants me to come across town to see her, so I may it may not be able to update the blog at all this evening.

My apologies for any inconvenience.

USA Today’s Mary Clarke asks “one question” for every NHL team, and here’s her question for the Red Wings:

Detroit Red Wings: Can they play spoiler to a playoff team?

The Red Wings are in a tough spot in the 2022-23 season. Given all their offseason additions and the the return of the reigning Calder Trophy winner in Moritz Seider, the Red Wings should be a playoff team. However, the strength of the Atlantic Division is nothing to scoff at, as the Red Wings have stiff competition in the form of the Maple Leafs, Lightning, Panthers, Bruins, and likely Senators.

If one of the Atlantic’s heavy hitters falters, look to the Red Wings to potentially take their place if everything goes according to the Steve Yzerman plan.

Continued

The Detroit Red Wings play the Chicago Blackhawks tonight at 7:30 PM EDT, and the game will air on TV via Bally Sports Detroit Extra, and Ken Kal and Paul Woods will narrate the game on WWJ Newsradio 950.

Update: The Wings confirmed the broadcasting set-up on Twitter:

Home ice! #LGRW

🏒: 7:30pm ET
📺: @BallySportsDET extra
📻: @WWJ950
🤝: @UWMLife pic.twitter.com/uZvdn8X5B9— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) September 28, 2022

Detroit won a 6-2 decision over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, and coach Derek Lalonde hinted to DetroitRedWings.com’s Jonathan Mills that the “B Team” will get today off.

That means that the Larkin-Raymond-Seider group will probably play tonight’s game vs. the Blackhawks, who lost 4-1 to St. Louis last night at home.

I am going to be making the 4-hour, 238-mile trip home around the time that Detroit holds its morning skate, and as my Aunt Annie is being discharged from rehabilitation care today, I have no idea whether I’ll be able to cover tonight’s game in any way, shape or form.

As I said yesterday, I’ve got to go with the “family comes first” mantra here, and if I may be frank, she’s an utter mess after having fallen down the stairs after fainting due to near-fatally-low sodium levels.

Things have improved over the past five days, but she’s refusing to go to a rehabilitation center, so I’ll have to take care of her and her injuries at home (hopefully with the help of some home health care nurses).

Anyway, long story short, blog updates will be sparse today, and we’ll take it from there.

The Free Press’s Helene St. James discusses the possibility of Jonatan Berggren making the Red Wings’ roster this morning:

Berggren, a second-round pick from 2018, will have a chance this exhibition season to stake a claim on a spot on the Wings’ roster, or secure his name high on the depth chart should they need a call-up during the season.

“I just want to show them that I can play on this level, and come to know how to play at the NHL level,” Berggren said Tuesday. “Just go out there and have fun.”

Berggren got some looks on a line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond during training camp, and made a good impresson.

“He has to continue to play at the level he has, and he has played very well,” coach Derek Lalonde said. “Now we want it consistently; now we want an every-day mentality. He’s had a really good camp, had a really good Red-White game. Now you’re doing it against live bullets, if you will, top NHL competition. I think it’s a really good test for him.”

Berggren benefited from Tyler Bertuzzi being sidelined the second day of camp with a flare-up of an undisclosed injury. Lalonde said Bertuzzi had a really good skate Tuesday morning, and that “he was out almost 40 minutes with our skills coach. He’s coming along nicely, and we are expecting him shortly.” The Wings host the Chicago Blackhawks Wednesday.

Continued