Activities
Hi Friends,
I spent almost all day with mom, and it was so nice to be able to hang out with her without having to leave to go back to work! Before I left the house, I put some different music on my iPod just in case she wanted to listen to music at all today...I put everything from Madonna (old school) to KT Tunstall to Outkast...all songs she loves. We didn't end up listening to anything today, but now it's all charged up and ready to go.
When I arrived, mom was up in her wheelchair in the hallway, dozing, but she woke up and we ventured down the hall to find the nurse and get a pass to go outside for awhile on a walk. The nurse was in the room with another patient, so we hung out at the nurse's station for a few minutes waiting, and there were a few other patients near us too...one of them is a lady I see all the time who is so nice and really funny, and the other two ladies I've seen around the unit but never talked to before. One of them was telling me how mom was "her girl" and how they were talking the other day and she was telling mom to keep her chin up, and how much better she was doing than when she first arrived at RIC...it was really cute. She told me how she'd had one stroke awhile back (she's young...in her early 40s), recovered from that, and then had another one...she has some paralysis on her left side, but she has a really good attitude and likes mom very much and enjoys encouraging her. The other lady whom I've talked to before now says to "say hi to Bev" everytime she sees me...she's made some friends! :)
We went for a walk outside, and it was an absolutely beautiful day...70s and sunny, with a nice breeze...she LOVED it. We saw lots of flowers, we looked at the lake, and I even showed her the new hospital building from across the street, and she asked if maybe we could go inside and take a tour one of these days...I told her of course we could! She started getting a bit uncomfortable after a while, so we went back and got her back into bed...but then, we "checked out" the big TV with a DVD player and watched "Tombstone" together...one of our favorite movies...she was totally watching it and paying attention, and even pointed at the TV for ME to pay attention at some points...we paused it two or three times for various things...once when the nurse came in, and once when my Aunt Betty called. I put her on speaker phone, and we all had a great, long conversation!!! She did absolutely great on the phone, and I think Betty was amazed at her conversational skills! Mom kept asking if she was still there, cried some, but for the most part made total sense throughout the entire time. She really enjoyed talking to Betty...we'll have to have more conference calls with other people! I don't know that she would know to answer the phone if someone called when I wasn't there, but that's coming soon I think!
After the movie, we just hung out for a bit, and then turned on the TV and found that "Grease" was on, so we started watching that. My friend Natalie got out of work a bit early and came over to hang out. I did mom's laundry (they have a washer and dryer on the unit), and then she watched me fold it and was very enamored with all the clothes she didn't know she had (most of the stuff is new or at least new to her). Then Jillian arrived, having driven in from Minnesota (she spent the weekend there), and mom was glad to see her. We didn't stay long after she got there, and then we all went to dinner. Mom was sad she couldn't come, and I had to reassure her everything was okay and that I would be back to visit tomorrow (although I have to work again so I won't be able to spend a ton of time there).
All in all a good day...the only bad thing was that as the day wore on, mom got more and more uncomfortable, and I highly suspect she is getting a urinary tract infection. At one point, she was saying something related to that, but she said "I.U.D"...I'm almost positive now that she meant "U.T.I" but just got the letters wrong. She started to look flushed to me and feel a bit warm, and she was significantly uncomfortable...I had the nurse take her temp, and she didn't have a fever yet, but I think maybe one is brewing. I asked them to please send a urinalysis and a urine culture, which they agreed to do...in the meantime, they will just keep giving her Tylenol #3 for the pain, and then whey get the lab results back tomorrow morning, they will be able to begin antibiotics (I'm 99% sure this is what is going on...I can just tell). Right after they took her Foley catheter out, she was able to empty her bladder, but then she stopped being able to and they've been having to intermittently catheterize her, so I'm sure that contributes to causing an infection. I felt so bad all day when she would be having pain, and felt helpless to do anything about it...I just will be glad once they start the antibiotics. It always seems to be something.
Okay, I should go...tomorrow will be the first day in the new building that we will have regularly scheduled inductions of labor and c-sections, so it'll be a true test. Jillian is spending the night with me tonight because we both have to be there early and she's nervous about her first day in the new building. Hope everyone had a good weekend, keep sending your love and prayers.
I spent almost all day with mom, and it was so nice to be able to hang out with her without having to leave to go back to work! Before I left the house, I put some different music on my iPod just in case she wanted to listen to music at all today...I put everything from Madonna (old school) to KT Tunstall to Outkast...all songs she loves. We didn't end up listening to anything today, but now it's all charged up and ready to go.
When I arrived, mom was up in her wheelchair in the hallway, dozing, but she woke up and we ventured down the hall to find the nurse and get a pass to go outside for awhile on a walk. The nurse was in the room with another patient, so we hung out at the nurse's station for a few minutes waiting, and there were a few other patients near us too...one of them is a lady I see all the time who is so nice and really funny, and the other two ladies I've seen around the unit but never talked to before. One of them was telling me how mom was "her girl" and how they were talking the other day and she was telling mom to keep her chin up, and how much better she was doing than when she first arrived at RIC...it was really cute. She told me how she'd had one stroke awhile back (she's young...in her early 40s), recovered from that, and then had another one...she has some paralysis on her left side, but she has a really good attitude and likes mom very much and enjoys encouraging her. The other lady whom I've talked to before now says to "say hi to Bev" everytime she sees me...she's made some friends! :)
We went for a walk outside, and it was an absolutely beautiful day...70s and sunny, with a nice breeze...she LOVED it. We saw lots of flowers, we looked at the lake, and I even showed her the new hospital building from across the street, and she asked if maybe we could go inside and take a tour one of these days...I told her of course we could! She started getting a bit uncomfortable after a while, so we went back and got her back into bed...but then, we "checked out" the big TV with a DVD player and watched "Tombstone" together...one of our favorite movies...she was totally watching it and paying attention, and even pointed at the TV for ME to pay attention at some points...we paused it two or three times for various things...once when the nurse came in, and once when my Aunt Betty called. I put her on speaker phone, and we all had a great, long conversation!!! She did absolutely great on the phone, and I think Betty was amazed at her conversational skills! Mom kept asking if she was still there, cried some, but for the most part made total sense throughout the entire time. She really enjoyed talking to Betty...we'll have to have more conference calls with other people! I don't know that she would know to answer the phone if someone called when I wasn't there, but that's coming soon I think!
After the movie, we just hung out for a bit, and then turned on the TV and found that "Grease" was on, so we started watching that. My friend Natalie got out of work a bit early and came over to hang out. I did mom's laundry (they have a washer and dryer on the unit), and then she watched me fold it and was very enamored with all the clothes she didn't know she had (most of the stuff is new or at least new to her). Then Jillian arrived, having driven in from Minnesota (she spent the weekend there), and mom was glad to see her. We didn't stay long after she got there, and then we all went to dinner. Mom was sad she couldn't come, and I had to reassure her everything was okay and that I would be back to visit tomorrow (although I have to work again so I won't be able to spend a ton of time there).
All in all a good day...the only bad thing was that as the day wore on, mom got more and more uncomfortable, and I highly suspect she is getting a urinary tract infection. At one point, she was saying something related to that, but she said "I.U.D"...I'm almost positive now that she meant "U.T.I" but just got the letters wrong. She started to look flushed to me and feel a bit warm, and she was significantly uncomfortable...I had the nurse take her temp, and she didn't have a fever yet, but I think maybe one is brewing. I asked them to please send a urinalysis and a urine culture, which they agreed to do...in the meantime, they will just keep giving her Tylenol #3 for the pain, and then whey get the lab results back tomorrow morning, they will be able to begin antibiotics (I'm 99% sure this is what is going on...I can just tell). Right after they took her Foley catheter out, she was able to empty her bladder, but then she stopped being able to and they've been having to intermittently catheterize her, so I'm sure that contributes to causing an infection. I felt so bad all day when she would be having pain, and felt helpless to do anything about it...I just will be glad once they start the antibiotics. It always seems to be something.
Okay, I should go...tomorrow will be the first day in the new building that we will have regularly scheduled inductions of labor and c-sections, so it'll be a true test. Jillian is spending the night with me tonight because we both have to be there early and she's nervous about her first day in the new building. Hope everyone had a good weekend, keep sending your love and prayers.
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