Being difficult

Hi Friends,

Once again, I'm exhausted and looking forward to crawling into bed, so I'll try to be brief. Work today was a bit better in terms of orientation to the new unit and building, so it was a BIT less stressful, and I didn't end up with a splitting headache tonight. Still wasn't able to go see mom during the day, and I unfortunately missed this week's Circle of Caring session, but what can I do? At least I'm off for the next two days.

Pam, once again, was so wonderful to go spend some time with mom again today...when she first arrived, mom was actually gone having a CT scan, which I'm still unclear as to exactly why they did...I will be able to find out more about it tomorrow when I'm there during the day...nothing happened per se, but I'm not sure it was routine. I'll keep you posted. Anyway, she got back to her room shortly after Pam arrived, and then she had a couple therapy sessions. Apparently, her speech therapy is still not something she enjoys AT ALL, and is beginning to refuse to participate. I'm VERY discouraged by this, and tonight when I got over there after work, I told mom we had to have a talk. I told her I had heard about her bad attitude, and that I was not happy about it...I told her I was not mad at her, but that I needed her to stop refusing to participate because this is the only way she's going to get better. I told her nobody said it was easy, but that this was her job right now, and she simply MUST do it, that it was non-negotiable. I don't know how much actually sunk in, but I'll be there for her therapies tomorrow myself, so I guess I'll just wait and see. They gave her a dose of pain medication about 30 minutes after I arrived (yes, she is still having pain, although it's hard to tell exactly what kind of pain it is because she cannot communicate it very well...it's the same as it has been, though), and she started to get sleepy. She dozed off, and I got emotional (which I haven't done in several days, so I guess it was about time), and then she woke up and saw me crying. She asked me what was wrong, and I told her I was scared and sad that she wasn't wanting to do her therapies...she was starting to get kinda loopy from the pain meds, so her words weren't very clear and her eyelids were very heavy, but she took the tissue out of my hand that I'd gotten for myself and dabbed at my face with it. Then she slowly dozed off and stayed sleeping, so I straightened up her room, rehung the pictures that had fallen off the wall (the tape doesn't stick that well when they take them up and down to show her during therapies and such), and just tried to busy myself quietly in her room until I made sure she was going to stay asleep, and then left for the night. At least she's getting some sleep.

Here I am at home, still an emotional wreck at this setback with her attitude...all I can do is be there when I can for her therapies and be her cheerleader, I guess, and keep having talks with her (though I don't know if those really do anything since her short term memory is still not good). I cannot do this for her, however much I wish I could...I hope there is not some other underlying problem that is causing her to be difficult...I hope I can help rally her. Once again I'm appealing to you all for your love, thoughts and prayers...she needs you now more than ever...this is the hard part for her. And I need you too.