Thursday on the 6th floor

Shortly after I posted last night, the night nurse agreed that Diana was sleeping a lot more soundly than she had been the previous night, so she talked to a doctor, and we made the trip down to the third floor for a CT, just to make sure. dp slept through all the preparations (unhooking all of her leads from the room monitor and connecting her to a portable monitor, and 'hep-locking' her IV. Just as we were getting ready to pull the bed out of the room, she woke up, chipper and coherent. We did the CT anyway, but she was clearly on top of it.

I got in this morning in time to meet the physical therapist, who did a basic assessment of dp's abilities. Her strength is good, but her balance keeps pulling her to the left. She walked about 70 feet with two of us helping her to keep her balance (but no other assistance) and then 40 more with a walker.

This therapist is also recommending pretty strongly that we go for residential rehab in CR. She says that dp would get three hours of therapy a day, and that the whole program is set up to encourage her to do stuff for herself, as opposed to the hospital mentality (which I probably share somewhat) that the less she tries to do for herself, the less likely she is to hurt herself. We're still discussing it.

She's still on the thickened liquid (disphagia I) diet. We passed on the pureed seafood and pureed beefsteak, and opted for tomato soup, applesauce and pureed mac and cheese. The chocolate pudding was stock, and pretty tasty, according to dp. According to the social worker, the rehab people would teach her exercises to get her swallow back, too.

She still has an IV, but the leads and blood oxygen monitor came off just before lunch, after she finished her last bag of pottasium chloride. The plan is to spend most of the day her chair, sitting up for thirty minutes or so, and then reclining until she's rested. Right now, she dozing and listening to Barenaked Ladies on the iPod. Ah, domesticity...

Time passes, and yet he does not post.

Okay, it's 8pm now, and there's a new development. Marie is downstairs in the ER. Apparently, there's been no output from the catheter for two days now, and when the VNA nurse straight-cathed her, she got nothing. After I told dp, I went down to check on her (Connie came in with her), and she says she feels fine. The ER nurse was shrugging and saying they had flow, but they only got a little, so there's still a lot of liquid to be accounted for.

Somehow, we'll probably get mother and daughter to see one another, but that's the next task. For now, let's post the update.