2012 02 19 Sunday February 19

Post date: Feb 20, 2012 3:38:23 AM

I was finally able to personally visit Martha today. While I was there, Rev. Drew stopped by, too. He last visited earlier last week, on one of Martha's less-coherent days, and she is doing much better now. She was sitting up in her chair, and before Drew arrived she had opened one small present a friend of hers had sent with me. (Thanks to several friends, she is WELL prepared with warm socks!) Another friend brought an artificial flower arrangement Friday, so between the flowers, "Get Well" balloon and the cards covering most of the walls, the room looks quite festive!

Martha is a bit difficult to understand with the Dobhoff (food) tube in her throat, but she was eagerly discussing things with me that she intends to do as soon as she can. She said she intends to make some potato soup (or maybe she wants to eat some potato soup; I wasn't certain). Maybe the tube can come out and potato soup will be on her menu tomorrow! Of course when Drew came in she also asked him for a prayer. I felt like she was very well oriented today. She spoke to Amanda on the phone for a short while.

Martha has a radiographic swallow study scheduled for tomorrow -- they want to be sure she is able to swallow food and drink without aspirating it. I asked the nurses about any other things that might keep her from proceeding to rehab, and they said they are still watching carefully to be sure the Keppra is effectively controlling the seizures she was having on the previous medication. We're hoping for a very good report when the care team convenes tomorrow morning!

(I just called for an update and Martha is sleeping after having been up in the chair most of the day. The night nurse is very hopeful that the swallow study will be the last test before releasing her to rehab.)

Unfortunately Amanda was not able to make it to see Martha today. Since Friday she has been suffering a very painful side-effect of one of the medications, so she has stopped that one and has been treating her symptoms as best she can. Thankfully the weather was beautiful today, and we were able to get out of the house and walk about a half block this evening. We are hopeful Amanda will recover from all her maladies very soon, though it has been slow going. She has really become impatient at being a patient!