Ended on a good note
Hi Friends,
Today was a markedly better day, I'll start off by saying. We awoke and immediately started checking out the status of Betty's flight online...we discovered that although at that time it said the flight was on time, there was a notice on the airline website saying they were offering transfers of flights to later days due to the ice storm warning...we looked at the weather forcasts online and finally after some debate ended up calling and transferring Betty's flight to Thursday instead, so she is here for an extra day and a half! :) That meant she was able to come to court with me!!! Yay!!!! But I'll get to that.
We got to the hospital around 9:30am and went to mom's room. She was doing fine, and was just hanging out...they had discontinued her IV fluids (she still has the IV itself in, but there are no fluids running anymore), and she is no longer on pulse oxymetry (to measure her oxygen saturation). We couldn't stay long because we had to get downtown to court, so we left around 10:15am or so with the reassurance that we'd be back soon.
Court was much quicker and less painful than I thought it would be...for those of you that have never had to go (and I hope that's most of you!), it was really a lot like you see on TV. It really did look like a courtroom, albeit small, and the judge was really wearing a black robe. We had to "approach the bench" when our case and name were called, and I barely refrained from actually saying the words "Your Honor"...I just felt too funny. But I did have to raise my right hand and swear to tell the truth, I had to answer a few questions about mom and how she was doing...the judge was very nice and seemed genuinely concerned about mom and our plight...and she asked me if I was prepared to carry out the duties as legal guardian. The lawyer was standing up there with us (Betty had to come up too, since she was there), and the judge was having trouble keeping track of her papers so he was very solicitous of her and provided her with extra copies of documents very promptly...there was a stenographer, and also the bailiff had to remove someone's coat that was haning in the courtroom because a cell phone in the pocket went off during the hearing...the judge was NOT happy about that....thank goodness it wasn't mine! All in all we were only standing up there for about 5 minutes or less. The only thing she didn't do "as seen on TV" was to bang her gavel...oh well.
After that, Betty and I briefly wandered around a German Christmas market outside the courthouse building, though it was too cold and rainy to do much, briefly watched a dance recital happening in the lobby of the courthouse building (3 age groups...3rdish grade, middle school age, and young high school age...tap, ballet and jazz) which was cute...then headed back to the hospital.
We arrived there only to discover they'd transferred mom to her new room while we were away...we walked in and some old man was already in her room, and we were taken aback for a moment! She is now on the subacute rehab floor (not the skilled nursing floor...what an unexpected, fantastic windfall...who knows how long her insurance will cover it, but we'll take whatever we can get and run with it!) at St. Joseph Hospital, and when we got to her room, she was glad to see us. Her emotions were very labile today (rapidly going from one extreme to the other), probably in large part due to the change of room and the increased awareness of her new surroundings...she was quite tearful at times, but we constantly reassured her that she was doing great, the worst was behind her in terms of her surgery and recovery from that, and that we could only move up from here. She napped in the afternoon, and then we decided to get her up and out of bed for dinner. She actually ate more than she's eaten in a few days...some mashed potatoes even (they'd been giving her a liquid diet till now and I think that was getting really old), and a few bites of my keilbasa and sauerkraut! I think tomorrow they'll start ordering her a regular solid diet since she's tolerating food just fine.
After dinner, she stayed up in her chair and we toured the new unit a little bit...looked at the Christmas tree in the waiting area, and the other decorations, the statue of a religious figure (not sure who it's supposed to be, but there's at least one statue on each floor of the hospital), and then checked out the activity/dining room. There's a piano in there, and mom has always LOVED to play...I had been curious as to whether she would still be able to play, and when we put her in front of it, she did really well! She was playing some chords, and I tried to play some one-handed Christmas songs which she did much better than me at...I've never been able to play the piano, but she has always had a great ear for it and hasn't ever really used sheet music...it will take some more practice, but she has definitely maintained her ear for it, and the more she does it I think the better she will be...it will be a wonderful thing for her to do for the fine motor activity with her hands, hand-eye coordination, and just good for her psyche in general...she always used to call playing the piano her "therapy," so I'm so glad they have one for her to use. I will bring her in there to play often. :)
All in all, she stayed up and out of bed for over 2 hours...more tonight than in the last 4 days combined! :) She looked in the mirror at her head tonight and burst into tears...that will take some getting used to for her....but she was talking up a storm during and immediately following dinner, and Betty was asking her what it felt like for her with her thinking these days, and what it felt like to her with her aphasia and trouble getting the right words out...I quote (because Betty wrote it down word for word as soon as she said it): "A picture that knows it has to stay there for now." Fascinating. So she must think in pictures, and then putting the pictures into words is difficult for her...but she was able to identify for us that at first, she wasn't even able to form a concept of what the particular thing she was looking at was, but now that she's been working on it, it's gotten much better and easier. She knows she still has far to go, but I'm glad she was able to identify it has gotten better...it will give her some encouragement to continue on and persevere. Very fascinating to talk to her about it, though, a bit.
Tomorrow is her first day of therapy...she has PT, OT and speech, twice each tomorrow...I'm sure that will exhaust her. I have to work unfortunately, but Betty will be there with her all day, and I'll call to check in. SO glad Betty is still here, even though it wasn't in the plan...yay! Thanks all for your continued support and love...things are looking up a bit, so please continue to send good thoughts. Peace to all.
Today was a markedly better day, I'll start off by saying. We awoke and immediately started checking out the status of Betty's flight online...we discovered that although at that time it said the flight was on time, there was a notice on the airline website saying they were offering transfers of flights to later days due to the ice storm warning...we looked at the weather forcasts online and finally after some debate ended up calling and transferring Betty's flight to Thursday instead, so she is here for an extra day and a half! :) That meant she was able to come to court with me!!! Yay!!!! But I'll get to that.
We got to the hospital around 9:30am and went to mom's room. She was doing fine, and was just hanging out...they had discontinued her IV fluids (she still has the IV itself in, but there are no fluids running anymore), and she is no longer on pulse oxymetry (to measure her oxygen saturation). We couldn't stay long because we had to get downtown to court, so we left around 10:15am or so with the reassurance that we'd be back soon.
Court was much quicker and less painful than I thought it would be...for those of you that have never had to go (and I hope that's most of you!), it was really a lot like you see on TV. It really did look like a courtroom, albeit small, and the judge was really wearing a black robe. We had to "approach the bench" when our case and name were called, and I barely refrained from actually saying the words "Your Honor"...I just felt too funny. But I did have to raise my right hand and swear to tell the truth, I had to answer a few questions about mom and how she was doing...the judge was very nice and seemed genuinely concerned about mom and our plight...and she asked me if I was prepared to carry out the duties as legal guardian. The lawyer was standing up there with us (Betty had to come up too, since she was there), and the judge was having trouble keeping track of her papers so he was very solicitous of her and provided her with extra copies of documents very promptly...there was a stenographer, and also the bailiff had to remove someone's coat that was haning in the courtroom because a cell phone in the pocket went off during the hearing...the judge was NOT happy about that....thank goodness it wasn't mine! All in all we were only standing up there for about 5 minutes or less. The only thing she didn't do "as seen on TV" was to bang her gavel...oh well.
After that, Betty and I briefly wandered around a German Christmas market outside the courthouse building, though it was too cold and rainy to do much, briefly watched a dance recital happening in the lobby of the courthouse building (3 age groups...3rdish grade, middle school age, and young high school age...tap, ballet and jazz) which was cute...then headed back to the hospital.
We arrived there only to discover they'd transferred mom to her new room while we were away...we walked in and some old man was already in her room, and we were taken aback for a moment! She is now on the subacute rehab floor (not the skilled nursing floor...what an unexpected, fantastic windfall...who knows how long her insurance will cover it, but we'll take whatever we can get and run with it!) at St. Joseph Hospital, and when we got to her room, she was glad to see us. Her emotions were very labile today (rapidly going from one extreme to the other), probably in large part due to the change of room and the increased awareness of her new surroundings...she was quite tearful at times, but we constantly reassured her that she was doing great, the worst was behind her in terms of her surgery and recovery from that, and that we could only move up from here. She napped in the afternoon, and then we decided to get her up and out of bed for dinner. She actually ate more than she's eaten in a few days...some mashed potatoes even (they'd been giving her a liquid diet till now and I think that was getting really old), and a few bites of my keilbasa and sauerkraut! I think tomorrow they'll start ordering her a regular solid diet since she's tolerating food just fine.
After dinner, she stayed up in her chair and we toured the new unit a little bit...looked at the Christmas tree in the waiting area, and the other decorations, the statue of a religious figure (not sure who it's supposed to be, but there's at least one statue on each floor of the hospital), and then checked out the activity/dining room. There's a piano in there, and mom has always LOVED to play...I had been curious as to whether she would still be able to play, and when we put her in front of it, she did really well! She was playing some chords, and I tried to play some one-handed Christmas songs which she did much better than me at...I've never been able to play the piano, but she has always had a great ear for it and hasn't ever really used sheet music...it will take some more practice, but she has definitely maintained her ear for it, and the more she does it I think the better she will be...it will be a wonderful thing for her to do for the fine motor activity with her hands, hand-eye coordination, and just good for her psyche in general...she always used to call playing the piano her "therapy," so I'm so glad they have one for her to use. I will bring her in there to play often. :)
All in all, she stayed up and out of bed for over 2 hours...more tonight than in the last 4 days combined! :) She looked in the mirror at her head tonight and burst into tears...that will take some getting used to for her....but she was talking up a storm during and immediately following dinner, and Betty was asking her what it felt like for her with her thinking these days, and what it felt like to her with her aphasia and trouble getting the right words out...I quote (because Betty wrote it down word for word as soon as she said it): "A picture that knows it has to stay there for now." Fascinating. So she must think in pictures, and then putting the pictures into words is difficult for her...but she was able to identify for us that at first, she wasn't even able to form a concept of what the particular thing she was looking at was, but now that she's been working on it, it's gotten much better and easier. She knows she still has far to go, but I'm glad she was able to identify it has gotten better...it will give her some encouragement to continue on and persevere. Very fascinating to talk to her about it, though, a bit.
Tomorrow is her first day of therapy...she has PT, OT and speech, twice each tomorrow...I'm sure that will exhaust her. I have to work unfortunately, but Betty will be there with her all day, and I'll call to check in. SO glad Betty is still here, even though it wasn't in the plan...yay! Thanks all for your continued support and love...things are looking up a bit, so please continue to send good thoughts. Peace to all.
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Pat
love-stef