Shop Til You Drop – Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Yesterday was generally a good day for mom. But unfortunately she was overlooked for her Sunday shower (a bit frustrating) so her care associate T made sure that she was taken care of so she felt much better. The other thing that she brought to my attention, around 2pm, was that she didn’t get her peg tube flushed out in the morning because she was getting the shower. When her nurse came to flush it she said she would be back after the shower and she apparently never did. Because my mom’s short term memory is affected she often forgets that she actually had something administered so double checking with nurses and care associate staff can sometimes make you feel like you are not believing they are doing their job. Well, this time my mom was right. Around 2, I went to the nurse’s station and found her nurse and followed up about the peg tube flush. She said she hadn’t been able to do it this morning and that she was going to “come right back.” Does it take seven hours to come right back? She’s supposed to get a flush at 7am and 7pm. I hope that things aren’t slipping back to things being way off schedule. After she was done she did apologize so that does count for something. At least it wasn’t her meds that were off by hours…

We’ve been really good at doing transfers from the wheelchair to the toilet and vice versa without anyone else – just me and her (and Kim has been doing the same)- so yesterday was yet another great toilet transfer day until she laughed so hard that she peed on my feet. In sandals. Twice. And for the record she wanted to make sure that I enter this in the blog because she thinks it’s so damn funny!! I told her she’s in a potty timeout with me for a while and that a care associate is going to be doing the transfer for a while. Fool me once….well. It happened twice. So there you go.

Today was a great day – she went out on her first shopping trip! First she had physical therapy where they worked more on her balance and walking. Today was 18 feet, less than the past, which was an indication that she was pretty tired since the day began. During speech therapy she had ice cream and jello, ate all of both bowls, without any coughing! She also had hot tea and her success rate was at 71% without coughing – an improvement from Monday which was at 63%.

After lunch, instead of her usual short bed rest, we went to Target!!!! And boooooy, did she shop. You only get an hour once you arrive so it was a little bit like Supermarket Sweep but I felt so happy that she got a little bit of her freedom back. Being able to browse the aisles, pick out clothes, try on shoes, little bits here and there that gave her the power to choose things. I know there were a couple of things that she didn’t really NEED but that wasn’t the point. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she didn’t need this or didn’t need that. She had her wallet, she had her own money, and she has the right to get whatever she wants. I knew that it wasn’t a moment that I couldn’t take away from her. This wasn’t the moment for the child to be the parent. This was the moment for the parent to be herself.

After we got back she was really exhausted since that was her usual bed rest time so now she’s in bed after a really good dinner, laughing a lot to herself about how she peed on my feet. I’d say, despite that (for me!), it was a really really great day. 🙂