"Everything good happened today!!!"

My mom/Rosemary went to Annapolis again today and just sent me a very encouraging email! Here's most of it:

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Hi Teenbelle, Joyce and Elizabeth,

I love you girls. Here goes, a very long status update:

I am glad I did not talk with you last night, Christina…. apparently yesterday was another very discouraging day according to Johnny and dad.  Johnny and daddy came home very disappointed.  First that stupid cardio doc came in and acted like he did not want to really talk about anything and was very negative, then he left.

Mom was sleepy all day, and very quiet. She had a fever in the morning.  Well it was discovered that she did INDEED have a UTI for two days at minimum. So she is on antibiotics now.

She also has a small NG tube for food. She can eat food though. She ate today.

Everything good happened today!!! (They knew I was coming) -- the neuro guy came early; I do not know if Johnny and daddy were there, but they shared that the neuro doctor ran some tests on mom's brain. That information came back very good.

The crappy skinny short measily cardio doc had the day off, so another cardio doc came and Johnny and dad said he was very pleasant and wanted to answer any questions. He was easy to talk with, and encouraging!!

So that was good. I arrived at 11:00.

While I was there, we also had a visit from the Speech and Swallowing therapist and mom ate food, as explained above.

She had a visit from the Occupational Therapy (OT) lady, we got mom sitting up. She was excellent. The OT told me that the OT at the Heritage Harbor rehab center is her friend and she is excellent at rehab. After this sitting up exercise, stretching legs attempt, wiggling feet, mom's BP was kinda high, 170/90 I think…

We learned that we really need to make an effort to stand on mom's right side and get her to move her head and roll her eyes over to the right.  She looks left. That is the stroke, her right side weakness. The OT girl was marvelous.

We met with a Care Coordinator. She discussed what goals need to be met in the immediate time frame, mainly stabilization and treating the infection, and how we should go ahead now and insist on a private room for mom at HHRC because that is what daddy wants.  She said we should keep pressing for that.

We also discovered that mom contracts her right leg in bed, then when trying to straighten it out we got a horrible gracillis muscle spasm which took a long time to massage out, at least 5 minutes of my massaging and rubbing. I think that will be a constant issue until she gets more tone in her right leg. If you push on the ball of her right foot, she is likely to contract her entire leg, so I feel like she needs massage therapy to get those muscles loose.

Okay what else, what a full day.

OH! She got a package from the church. They made her a prayer shawl. [In her favorite colors, Mom says! -CHA]  I opened it for her. She looked at it and touched it, and said "oh, oh" so sweetly about 100 times. She loved it. Mom is so sweet. Then she finally with her left hand picked it up and I thought she wanted to cover her self in it, but no, she attempted quite well to wrap it around her neck, so daddy and I helped her, then Johnny got some pics. [Will try to get one of those this weekend -CHA]

While we were at lunch (mom was sleeping soundly) apparently Physical Therapy showed up. I was told the got her up on the side of the bed again.  Well, when we came in the room, I asked mom how it was going, and she told me that someone came and made her sit up again, and then she sounded very VERY discouraged. She said, "I do not know why my blood pressure goes so high, I don't know why." I told her not to worry, it would get better. She was quite sad, so opening up the package with the shawl was a great diversion.

I think we will see more improvement as the UTI is treated and she feels better. I would believe that the past few days of lethargy has a lot to do with that.

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So yay!  After two more discouraging days it's wonderful that today went so well!

I hear that Shelley and Sally also went out today, and Johnny is headed home tomorrow morning.  Elizabeth is finally over her virus/cold (yay!) so she, her fiancé Jerome, and Mom will be going to Annapolis tomorrow (Saturday).  Jason and I plan to go out on Sunday. What a popular lady! ;)