Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2006. Mattie was around four years old and a live wire. As you can see he and Peter had transformed our living room space into a tinker toy city. Mattie absolutely LOVED building and creating with Legos and Tinker Toys which were the perfect tool for him. I remember soon after Mattie died, I was besides myself (for so many reasons!) because our home seemed so empty. There was no life, no activity, no noise, and NO MATTIE.
Quote of the day: Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. ~ Ambrose Redmoon
My dad's back looked burnt! It was his skin's reaction to adhesives they put on his back to prevent bed sores. Well he did not get a bed sore, but instead got this! No amount of lotion and ointment helped this. He needed oral prednisone to manage this, and he has been on the steroid since Saturday. Right now his dosage is being tapered down and his last pill will be on Friday.
His PT (name: Ashraf) is excellent. I got to observe my dad being transferred from a wheelchair to bed and back to the wheelchair. We transferred him in and out of my car, he did seated exercises and I wrote them down so he can do them daily, and I got to see how he goes up and down stairs. We literally went to the hospital staircase and my dad went up and down. Here's the kicker, he is being taught to go down the stairs backwards. I am NOT a fan of this but the therapist said this is the safest way to go down stairs. I told him he is lucky he wasn't working with me because there is NO way I would go downstairs backwards. Psychologically it is a problem for me.
Then we met with the Speech and Language Pathologist (name: Sam). Sam and I met before and she knew that I already do daily logs with my dad and keep a master calendar by his side of the table. However today we talked about setting up the same kind of station by my dad's recliner in the family room. So I am working on this and am even considering using a Boogie Board Tablet instead of a white board. What I have observed after these two weeks in the hospital is that my dad's memory is even worse than I thought. Which coincides with his anxiety. He constantly was checking the schedule and white board within the hospital room, which leads me to believe that without constant visual cues he is LOST (in terms of what day it is, what month it is, what time it is, what he is doing that day, etc). So I need to fix this at home. MORE WORK TO DO!
After speech therapy, we met with my dad's occupational therapist (name: Mike). Mike was also excellent and a lovely person. He told us about his traveling therapy experience all over the USA during COVID. I will spare you the details, as it isn't my story. But I was shocked by how badly he was treated. Mike worked with my dad to give him a shower today! So I got to observe that process too!
My mom and I needed a break today. So I ordered lunch from the Cheesecake Factory and we ate it in the hospital's atrium. The atrium is a lovely sunlit space and it helped to get off the unit for a while. It was that kind of day..... so the chocolate came out!
Meanwhile Peter sent me this photo today! Sunny was basking in the 70 degree weather! Got to love this fellow!
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