Week 14—Continued Progress

Kathy is continuing to make improvements. It’s really encouraging to see the progress. She's able to do more and more than she was able to do just a couple weeks ago. Now she is able to reach for her own cup of water on the table, provided it isn’t too heavy. She is able to tolerate sitting in the wheel chair for 2-4 hours. Her core is getting stronger and stronger. She would be able to tolerate even more if it weren’t for a small bedsore. She does get moved and rolled often but she’s been in bed for 14 weeks. Some small bedsores are inevitable.

Her legs are also getting stronger. Yesterday she was able to use her legs to lift her lower body just a little bit. She can move her right leg easily. Her left leg is still weak but continues to get stronger.

Her ankles muscles are doing better with the boots and the new high-top tennis shoes. They aren’t hanging in atrophy like they were. Hopefully with these muscle groups getting stronger they’ll try to get her on her feet again sometime soon. I feel like she’s a lot stronger now than when they tried to get her on her feet several weeks ago.

Over the weekend I took her dog, Zorro, to visit her. Kathy was happy to be able to pet and spend time with him. We walked up and down the hall with Zorro and mom in the wheel chair. We made several stops along the way to let other residents pet him. Next weekend I plan on bringing my dog to visit. My dog is a little taller and easier to reach from a wheel chair. My dog also knows the command ‘paws up’—front paws up on the bed.

I’m also trying to figure out how to bring in food that mom will like. The nursing home food isn’t very good. They used to have a donated microwave, but it died. It’s a long way from my house to expect food to stay hot even with an insulated container. This week I’m going to bring chicken salad. I can just throw that in a cooler. I’m also considering foods that can be warmed up in a mini-crockpot like maybe barbecue chicken. Unfortunately her food allergy makes it difficult to just get take-out and bring it in. Her food needs to be mostly prepared from scratch.

Part of spending this much time in a nursing home means getting to know the staff and other residents. Everybody is really nice and for the most part it’s a generally positive place. There is one resident who cries all of the time. I think it must be a symptom of her illness because I can testify that she’s not being ill-treated. She just breaks out into a wail for no reason. But we just kind of laugh it off now.

Kathy has a roommate named Tommie. Tommie communicates in barks. She has some sort of impairment and can be hard to understand. But she can tell us that she’s hungry or needs help with something. Tommie is always hungry and that makes us laugh. I try smile at her and acknowlege her when I arrive and leave. We’ve only seen Tommie have one visitor in the three or four weeks since we’ve been roommates. That makes me sad for her. Tommie seemed to enjoy Zorro’s visit before she went off in search of a cookie.