Tonight's picture was taken in December of 2008. The hospital discharged Mattie for Christmas. I know the thinking was that kids and families wanted to be home for the holidays. True in theory, but sending us home managing both physical and psychological issues was truly over the top. It was a very difficult last Christmas with Mattie. We tried to make Christmas special and as you can see Peter was helping Mattie open up Christmas gifts. Mattie was intrigued and his curiosity got the best of him as he joined in with the fun.
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 20,623,578
- Number of people who died from the virus: 351,450
When I tell you I never stop moving all day long, I am not kidding. I honestly do not know why life here is so chaotic, but it is! There isn't a minute's peace here in "paradise." I get up each morning at 6am. I make the bed, shower, and get dressed. If I don't get dressed as soon as I get up, I won't have the time the rest of the day. At 7am, I start chores like unloading the dishwasher, throwing out garbage, and making breakfast for everyone. At 7:30am to 8am, I start chopping or cooking things for dinner. I know you must be saying..... she's cooking dinner at 7:30am? I have to do this for several reasons. When my dad's caregiver arrives at 8am, it is then hard to focus on things in the kitchen until she leaves at noon. My dad likes eating by 1:30 or 2pm. Yes dinner is at that hour! So if I don't start cooking early in the morning, there is no way I can put a big meal together by 2pm. For the past two weeks, I have cooked daily. Given that my dad is VERY finicky about food, I feel as if I am cooking a 'Sunday Dinner' every day of the week. It is labor intensive on top of everything else I am balancing.
By 8am, the caregiver arrived and at that point, my mom came downstairs and we had breakfast together. My dad got downstairs around 8:30am, and once he is downstairs the activities begin. Once he finished eating breakfast, next is cognitive brain exercises. Each day he does a numbricks puzzle, a reading comprehension exercise, and a series of word scrambles (all activities I have added to his day!). My dad dislikes these activities, but I tell him they are crucial, and I don't just hand him exercises to do, I sit by his side coaching him. After brain games, we then went on a twenty minute walk in the neighborhood. It is sad to me, because when he walks his head is frozen looking down. He doesn't look around, he isn't interested in looking at the trees, flowers, or houses around us. All he wants to do is walk the 20 minutes and get it over with.
Once the walk was done, my dad sat on the patio and did another 15 minutes of PT and OT exercises. While he did these exercises with his caregiver, I ran to the grocery store to get food and supplies. I literally had 45 minutes to get this done before the caregiver left today. It is like running on a treadmill all day. Got home from grocery store and put everything away. Then continued cooking dinner and served it around 2pm.
After cleaning up, I started putting away Christmas decorations that I set up during my last trip here in November. Hopefully I can get this done in the next day or so. At around 3 or 4pm, my dad becomes totally exhausted. So I typically help him to his motorized reclining chair to rest, while my mom and I go out for a walk in the neighborhood. If we don't use his rest time wisely, we won't have a minute to ourselves.
It is really at 6:30pm when I get a break. During the break I write the blog and then watch TV with my parents. By 9:45 or 10pm, I am helping my dad upstairs for bed. He can't take his own clothes off, so he needs help with this as well as getting situated in bed. This is my daily routine when I am here, so when I get into bed at night, I literally pass out from exhaustion.
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