Continuing from the Immediately Previous Post
Mom's first significant movement at home + Mom's first nap at home + Mom's first dinner at home
    When the wheelchair transport van carrying Mom and I (in our truck) arrived home, the Hospice Intake Nurse pulled into our driveway at the same time, closely followed by the Hospice Social Worker. I was grateful that I'd insisted that Mom do a bathroom run at the facility just prior to leaving. The outdoor ramp worked spectacularly. I wheeled Mom to our dinette table. She transferred herself easily from the wheel chair to the table chair. This, however, was not her "first significant movement". After a dual, thorough interview of a few hours, in which Mom fully participated, I decided it was time to direct Mom into the bathroom, change her underwear and maybe put her in more comfortable, cooler clothes. She was also hungry. The facility had served her lunch (her favorite, ham) about five minutes before her scheduled pick-up. When the van arrived, one of the CNAs whisked away Mom's lunch tray before Mom had been able to take a bite.
    I pulled the wheelchair right up to her seat at the table and asked if she wanted me to roll her to the bathroom or if she wanted to try to walk it. She glared at me and said, "I'm perfectly capable of walking to the bathroom, thank you." Without a walker (which had been picked up for replacement by our equipment company during the Hospice dual interview, see here for details) and a gait belt, which hasn't arrived and from where I'm not sure will be coming, I was a little nervous but determined to let her do what she could, following her closely with the wheelchair. I am pleased to report that she made it, a bit more slowly and with somewhat more effort than previous to the evening of 5/15/08 (I realized last night, by the way, that I've been misrepresenting that date as "the evening of 5/18/08" in some previous posts), through the dinette and kitchen in her usual manner, passing her hands from this steadying dining chair or that steadying counter and relying on one of my arms for constant support, before her legs gave out and she decided to sit in the wheelchair. Once in the bathroom, she transferred herself from the wheelchair to the toilet in her previously usual manner without any difficulty. She also stood well and sturdily for changing and transferred back to the wheelchair as though we were simply having a "Half Wheel Chair Day".
    After eating a hearty lunch, through which she exclaimed frequently, "This is the best food I've had in a long time," and watching a couple of her Animal Planet programs from her chair perch in the dinette, during which she was delightfully chatty, she plunged into an obvious fade and announced, around 1700, that she was ready for a nap. She made sure that I would awaken her "later". I told her I wouldn't bother her until "about nine", if she was sleeping soundly. She agreed to this. I didn't ask her if she wanted to try to walk into the bedroom, she didn't look up to it. I wheeled her in and she accepted this.
    I kept a close eye on her while she slept. About halfway through her nap I noticed she had pulled herself onto her elbows, sort of face down, although the side of her face was resting on a pillow. I touched her forearms. They were as solid as bricks. I realized she wasn't yet relaxing but didn't awaken her at that time. A little before 2100 I decided it was time to arouse her. She wasn't particularly keen to awaken. It took me about a half hour to coax her into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. I finally bribed her with an all over body rub while she took her breathing treatment. As we were preparing everything for her treatment I asked her if she was hungry.
    "Not very," she said.
    "In that case," I suggested, "why don't we put off the pizza dinner and I'll make you some toast and ginger tea, we'll set you up in here in the wheelchair with the TV table, you can eat and we can chat?"
    She nodded, groggily and said, "Will that toast be with jelly?"
    "Of course, if that's what you want."
    "What kind?"
    "All we have is cherry preserves. Is that all right?"
    "You must have been reading my mind," she grinned.
    By the time she finished her breathing treatment and I completed her body rub she was ready to hit the bathroom. I continued my policy of not pushing anything yesterday and she didn't resist being wheeled in and out, although she performed very well during transfers.
    The entire family settled into her bedroom, she ate, drank all her tea and we chatted, I prompted us to say "Rabbit, rabbit" at the stroke of midnight ("We certainly need to do that this month," she said, "I'll bet we forgot it last month,"; we had) and played with the cats until 0030 this morning. At that point she looked at her clock and said, "My goodness, it's way past my bedtime!"
    While watching her torturous nap style, yesterday, I remembered that, early in her rehab facility stay, noticing that she preferred her upper body slightly elevated during sleep, I'd purchased a low wedge for the top half of her bed. I retrieved it, set it up on the bed, she settled right down and she's sleeping like a satisfied Ancient One this morning. I plan to rouse her around 1100 this morning if she isn't up before then. I promised her ham steak for breakfast.
    I have no way of knowing how much of her previous mobility she'll recover, but she's recovered enough, already, that even if she recovers no more we'll be fine. In addition, it seems I was right in guessing that being home would motivate her previous habits of movement and encourage her to use her muscles. Her performance yesterday was so much better than it has ever been at the facility, even as her first walk wasn't completed. The woman is nothing if not determined...and happy to be home, I'm sure. Actually, I asked her, last night, if she was pleased to be home, remembering how much she enjoyed her facility "vacation".
    She smiled beatifically. "It's as though I never left," she said. "I'm planning on staying home, now."
    I'm planning on this, too.

    Think I'll putter around the kitchen a bit, set up breakfast things, and report on the equipment situation and the Hospice interview...
    ...later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 10:25   email  this post