More Food and More Socializing! – Monday, June 5

Sunday was a pretty quiet day so there’s not too much to report for that day. She didn’t have any therapies which was a good opportunity for her to try and catch up on her rest. Fortunately she got a good night’s sleep so we spent the morning getting some fresh air. We sat inside the campus of the apartments and we sneaky peeked how residents decorated their porches for ideas 🙂 She had a few visitors later in the afternoon, one of them being her neighbor H and her favorite furry pal Nicky. In fact, I looked out the window and saw his head sticking out the window barking – Nicky made it pretty clear he was telling her he was on his way! My mom, H and Nicky went for a walk outside in the early evening for a last bit of fresh air before getting ready for bed while I was at the house with Sam for dinner. Upon our return, she was a bit of a crabcake and I think it was due to the heat and also not getting any therapies that day. She doesn’t like sitting idle for too long and who can blame her? With no therapies and activities scheduled on Sundays it can be quite boring. Since she was already transferred into her bed for the night I set everything up for her on her tray so that she could brush her teeth in bed. She looked at the clock and didn’t want me keeping Sam here too late so she told me to take her home. All in all a low key day.

This morning I arrived to already find her in the gym waiting for her PT session with T! She had her OT session with H this morning and didn’t feel like going back to her room to wait for PT so we sat at the table and watched all the action in the busy room. H did notice during OT that the tone in her left hand is increasing which means that she is getting more painful cramps. It’s a bit of a catch-22 because while she is strengthening her muscles and starting to use them more that also means she will develop more frequent contractions which is apparently normal. H ordered another apparatus for her to wear which will arrive in a couple of days that will help alleviate the pain.

Her PT with T went incredibly well. She stood for seven minutes and, with assistance, took seven small steps!!! T said she did much of the standing and balancing on her own. For the walking portion, I stood on her left side, T guided her in front and another therapist stood on her right side. After she took the steps T asked the other therapist how much she helped and she said it was minimal! After that she went on the stationary bike where she told me and T that she wanted to work out more. She is so motivated! T was so happy to hear how much she wants to keep going and explained to her that within her therapy session, the goal isn’t to add more and more time to tire her out (at least not at the moment). The goal is to continually increase the intensity of her therapy. She currently is at 40 minute sessions and T said that it’s possible that she could eventually extend it to 60 minutes depending on how she feels. In addition to that, she gave us a workout band to take back to her room with us and showed us some more exercises to do on our own time.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that the dietician started scheduling bolus feedings on Saturday. She gets them twice during the day, the first between 12 noon-1pm and the second between 4pm-5pm. What’s great is that since she isn’t on a constant drip and attached to the bag during the day we can take her out for walks or activities without waiting for a nurse to clamp her tube. So after her bolus feeding around 12:30 she had another feeding just an hour later…with real food again! Today she had butternut squash pureed soup, pureed green beans, applesauce and thickened apple juice. She actually got so full she couldn’t finish everything 🙂

After that we went to the Caribbean social at 3pm where they had non-alcoholic pina coladas (all the ladies were asking for rum. Ha) and chips and salsa. Everyone showed up with sun hats and put on leis. When we arrived my mom wasn’t sure where to sit but her new friend T waved her over to sit next to her. She chatted my mom up and introduced her to everyone which made me feel really good. She can be quite shy up front until she gets comfortable and it’s so nice she’s made a friend that tries to get her out of her shell a little bit. I think it’s also comforting for my mom to get to know her and talk to her because T suffered a stroke, as well, about ten years ago and really seems to engage mom in conversation. After everyone started drinking their pina coladas my mom was watching all of them and looked at me and asked if she could try some. It broke my heart to tell her she couldn’t have any and that all I could offer her was some water. However, I am so proud of her for attending a social event that’s centered around food and drink when she can’t have any of it. That takes courage. We stayed for about 20 minutes and then she asked to walk around the second floor to look at the other areas of the building. After that we headed back to her room because she was pretty tired. She had a really full day!

I had to head out for the night but I made sure she got transferred to her bed before her next bolus feeding. She had more cramps that came on more frequently as the day went on which got me pretty worried. I know that it’s common but I hate seeing her in so much pain. Just imagine constantly getting a charlie horse in your hand. That’s what’s happening to her now. And I’m worried that the cramps will wake her up throughout the night. She also was very concerned about getting her scheduled shower which I couldn’t stay for to make sure she got one. One of the care associates said they were one person short and weren’t sure if they were going to get everyone’s showers done. So that also makes me concerned. I’ll just have to see if she got one when I come in tomorrow morning and hope they didn’t rush it since they were short handed. Until tomorrow….but I still say that today goes into the win column!