Monday 12/26/2016
( I guess I should quit apologizing for these being so long… there’s so much going on, let’s face it… they’re NEVER going to be short. And I’m not actually sorry. So… here’s the last two days!)
Just turning in for the night… it’s about 11:15PM
The weekend passed in a blur. Between what’s becoming the normal of linen changes, early stage therapy visits, basic hygiene tasks, and doctor relays, I managed to get mom to start moving her shoulders more and lifting her head so that I could start washing her hair and putting her back together into someone that more resembles that Colleen we all know and love. I was careful on Friday and Saturday not to push too hard in any given sitting so that Sunday/Christmas could be as special as possible… and it was!
One of our wonderful nurses, Ann, was with us first thing Christmas morning (6:30am – 6:30pm) and she brought a cute Santa hat for Mom so that she wouldn’t feel embarrassed about her hair-do. We got Em all dolled up and listened to Christmas music. Mom loved Em’s dress and we giggled and made faces with the baby until Mom fell asleep…. about 12 minutes later… About 8am Mom woke up again and we took care of teeth brushing and neuro checks and tried to get lots of our other “chores” done for the day. Then we let a few of Mom’s neuro-checks go so that she would be really well rested for her visitors later. The therapists really wanted us to try to get Mom in a chair again on Sunday and we were hoping to coordinate that with her visitors because we knew that sitting up in the chair was going to be really exhausting for Mom, but that she would feel really good if she could do it!
And… it was. I wouldn’t change a thing about our day, but we definitely tuckered our tough lady out! Sunday night saw the highest fever spike yet and another round of blood tests pinpointed a brand-new, tiny infection in her brain drain… nothing to worry about, very normal stuff, but definitely explains the fever we’ve been fighting. She’d just finished a round of antibiotics… Antibiotics round 2 are now on and we’ve adjusted BP meds AGAIN! Whew.
After a fitful Sunday night, we spent a long day Monday being very disoriented, and pretty cranky. Okay… REALLY cranky… It’s time to start “challenging” Colleen’s system to work more on its own and to start working out more of these tubes as we can… and it’s not a happy time for poor Mom.
On top of which, Mom’s digestive system came alive at long last Monday… I’m sure you can all figure out what that meant for all of us… The poor thing really had a lot on her plate Monday… her legs bothered her from Sunday’s work out, her face, neck, arms, and hands feel swollen… I read to her for a long while this afternoon to get her mind off things and at one point she interrupted me to say: “sorry I’m such a mess.”
“Fake it ’till ya’ make it, Mama!” I reminded her. (Thanks Judy!) “We only train badasses here!” (Thanks Mama D!)
At one point, moving her back into the bed from the chair, she was practically in tears and she said “I think this is going to take a little longer than I thought…”
“To heal?” I asked her.
“Yes.”
“Well, how long were you thinkin’?” I asked curiously. She furrowed her brow slightly into “think face” and slowly replied back:
“A week or so ought to do it.”
I couldn’t help laughing. Mom smiled back at me, her stiff grin as big as she could make it.
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