Watch Out for Lost Underwear

Unwritten rule 36: All clothing brought to a skilled nursing facility for a patient in rehab must have the name of the patient on it.

Our immediate family has been very healthy. Giving birth to two babies, one broken arm, and outpatient surgery all resulted in the patient(s) being released from the hospital to home without any stop in between.

Dad, on the other hand, has needed more time to recover. So out of the hospital to a rehab facility he went. The first time I had no clue there were rules about laundry.

They asked me (by long distance phone call from New Jersey), “Who is going to bring him more clothes and wash his dirty ones?” Whoa, what was that? Medicare doesn’t pay for laundry so the facility has the family do it.

The second time Dad went to rehab I thought I was better prepared. I packed a week’s worth of underwear and clothes and left them at the hospital for his eventual release. This rehab facility would wash his clothes.

Two weeks into his stay there, he complained that he didn’t have any clothes, especially underwear.  But, I had packed 7 pairs of underpants for him. Where did they go?

Well, it seems that if there isn’t a name on it when it comes out of the laundry, the staff don’t know who to return it to.  Ok, that makes sense.  I wish I had known before I left the clothing and got on that plane back to California.

I used to write my children’s names in all of their clothing from the time they started pre-school. It just made everyone’s life easier.  I just didn’t know that Grandpa would need that, too.

So there is a box on the way to my Dad with new underwear–all neatly washed and labeled with his name. I just hope it is the right size!