On Saturday, Grandma got to sit up in a fancy lounge chair for most of the day, rather than lying in the hospital bed! Probably a nice change of scenery for her.
My mom/Rosemary went to the hospital this day with my sister Elizabeth, who was unable to visit earlier in the week since she had ben fighting off an infection (cold or flu I think).
Grandma looked great this day! She is no longer hooked up to any IVs, just the NG tube down her nose/throat, and a port for medications in her arm. The nurses check her vital signs manually every few hours (as opposed to in Critical Care when she was hooked up to machines that checked everything constantly) and her vital signs have been great: blood pressure back down, fever was down, and she was responding very well to the antibiotics she had been given for the urinary tract infection. Sounds like it was another good day.
Although she still takes a lot of naps during the day, Grandma is able to spend more time awake and alert; last week when I saw her on Tuesday she would last about 15-30 minutes before feeling sleepy and taking a nap, but on Saturday my mom reports Grandma was able to sit and chat and "socialize" for an hour, hour and a half at a time! It is still important that we let her rest when she gets tired because she needs that time to heal, but it is great that her "endurance" if you will is improving. (Entertaining all these guests is hard work! ha!)
Mom reports that a Physical Therapist came by to check how Grandma was doing as far as movement. She can bend her knees, move her legs around, can shrug both shoulders, and point her toes! Although she has some trouble raising her right arm (the stroke side), she can fully extend it with some encouragement. Awesome!
When I first saw Grandma on Monday afternoon, she had a hard time keeping her eyes all the way open and was "in-and-out," talking a bit and then napping again. Saturday I'm told her eyes are much more open, and she can move her eyes around a lot better, even looking to her right (stroke site), which is terrific. On Tuesday she had trouble seeing the clock on the wall in her room; Mom told me Grandma can now see the clock just fine. (She is able to look around better which is probably a contributing factor in that progress.)
I think Grandma is eager to get moving again. She has been a little restless, wiggling her legs around. (She's not one to sit still for long, and she's now been in the hospital almost a week!) She continues to get some cramps in her legs, but as she starts using those muscles again that should go away.
As far as Grandma's attitude, I think she has good times and not-so-good times, which is rather understandable. She acknowledges that she is 90 years old and "not many people make it to this age," and when we tell her how her progress is going beautifully she feels pretty encouraged by this news, but I think she also has her moments where she feels like, "I'm not sure if I can do this." Thus, it has been really important for us to remind her that things will get easier and will get better. How she is now is not how things will be forever; this is just a step. Sometimes it can be a challenge to keep her spirits up, but I think the past couple days' progress have been so encouraging, both for Grandma AND Grandpa that even though there might be "good" days and "bad" days, the general trend is one of improvement!
(Mom, let me know if I missed anything or if there are any other little anecdotes to add...?)
I'll post on my visit today (Sunday) very soon. <3
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