Dad Walked Today!
Sunday, December 11th, 2022 10:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioI may have spoken too soon yesterday, about Dad being in a tailspin, because today he was doing better than I've seen since the day of the fall, back on December 2nd.
I went to Strive with a box of cookies that had been delivered today from Sheila, and Colleen. This package had been delayed over a week and weirdly showed up on the front stoop on a Sunday.
At any rate I went to his room with the cookies and he wasn't in there!
I asked at the nurse station and they said he was in the PT gym, which was nearby.
I went in there to find Dad FULLY DRESSED, and sitting in a wheel chair, with a walker in front of him.
He still seemed fairly confused, but he was in a better mood.
And then I was AMAZED when the physical therapist had him stand up out of the wheel chair to grab the walker, and he walked TEN STEPS!.. without crying out in pain!
He winced a bit through the process, and he was kinda limping, which is to be expected, but he DID IT! And then, after he sat down in the chair to rest for a bit she had him get up and do ten more steps!
I was cheering him on and telling him what a great job he was doing!
I really was astounded! Up until now he's been in a hospital gown, either in bed, or in a recliner, and the few times I've seen him at the hosipital trying to even stand, he was really howling in pain and saying he wanted to die!
They may have been working with him yesterday when I wasn't around, because the nurse I spoke to yesterday was just coming on shift and didn't know if he'd had any PT.
--<>--
As far as his delerium... it wasn't as bad as yesterday, but it was still pretty bad when I first got there.
But after congratulating him on doing such a great job walking, he seemed to get slightly more lucid.
So I took the opportunity to tell him, "You're experiencing some delerium as the result of the anesthesia from last week's surgery. I only found this out but the anestesia can have longer term effects that last a couple weeks."
And he did seem to grasp what I was telling him. And having that information seemed to help him get even more lucid, as the visit went on.
I wheeled him out to a common area where we could sit together at a table and eat some of the cookies, with a view out to the courtyard... which was quite gloomy, under the overcast skies... but still better than being cooped up in a room.
He drifted in and out of lucidity... at some points being able to hold the thread of the conversation well, but at other points he'd launch into an incoherent ramble, only to fade off to a whisper and then look around confused... until I got him back on point again.
In one of his more lucid moments, when I reminded him again, that he was experiencing some delerium, he said, "when I first got out of surgery... the sheets on the bed didn't feel real."
I liked hearing that, because it told me he understood, and was relating a remembered detail that was relevant to the concept of post operative delerium.
--<>--
So... he showed a lot of progress on the physical front, and some promising hope on the cognitive front, today!
And this was only Sunday!
If he stays on this trajectory... on both fronts... it's possible that he really could come back home in two or three weeks afterall!
--<>--
We went back to his room for a bit, and I found The Weather Channel on his TV. Then I dug through the bags of his stuff that had come over from the hospital to find his shoes!
He'd been disappointed that he had no shoes, on this day he was finally fully dressed again, and I guess the PT nurse couldn't find them, or didn't know they were there.
But I put them in his closet, and then bagged up his dirty clothes to take home and wash.
As our two hour visit ended, I wheeled him back out to the nurse station, and asked the girls there if I could leave him with their company.
"Sure! We'll keep him entertained!"
Dad seemed happy with that, so I said my goodbye with a salute, and told him I'd see him tomorrow.
------------{=0=}------------
In my free hours here and there, I got a start on the Seven of Hearts.
Seven of Hearts is APR 30 - MAY 06, which contains the midpoint between the March equinox, and the June Solstice... celebrated on May 1st, as both May Day, and Beltane.
The only iconic object for Beltane is the May Pole, which... is WAY too complicated for me to try and illustrate... buncha people with colored streamers, braiding them around a pole as they dance around it?.. forget it!
So, for this card, I decided to stick with the largely forgotten tradition of the May Basket, which is a conical basket, full of flowers, that one hangs on the doorknob of a neighbor.
--<>--
As you can see, I'm starting with the doorknob!
The idea here is that the knob itself is sitting halfway between the equiniox line, and the summer solstice line, of the graph.
And I'm gonna have this doorknob and back plate be just floating in the sky, like the St. Brigid's Cross was... without any actual door.
The basket will hang from this knob, full of flowers, but the largest flower, taking the focus, will be created from seven hearts arranged in a circle.
You'll see!
If you look closely here, the design on the knob itself is already seven-pointed.
--<>--
Let's see if I can get this card done in the coming week, just as I got Seven Spades done last week.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
I went to Strive with a box of cookies that had been delivered today from Sheila, and Colleen. This package had been delayed over a week and weirdly showed up on the front stoop on a Sunday.
At any rate I went to his room with the cookies and he wasn't in there!
I asked at the nurse station and they said he was in the PT gym, which was nearby.
I went in there to find Dad FULLY DRESSED, and sitting in a wheel chair, with a walker in front of him.
He still seemed fairly confused, but he was in a better mood.
And then I was AMAZED when the physical therapist had him stand up out of the wheel chair to grab the walker, and he walked TEN STEPS!.. without crying out in pain!
He winced a bit through the process, and he was kinda limping, which is to be expected, but he DID IT! And then, after he sat down in the chair to rest for a bit she had him get up and do ten more steps!
I was cheering him on and telling him what a great job he was doing!
I really was astounded! Up until now he's been in a hospital gown, either in bed, or in a recliner, and the few times I've seen him at the hosipital trying to even stand, he was really howling in pain and saying he wanted to die!
They may have been working with him yesterday when I wasn't around, because the nurse I spoke to yesterday was just coming on shift and didn't know if he'd had any PT.
As far as his delerium... it wasn't as bad as yesterday, but it was still pretty bad when I first got there.
But after congratulating him on doing such a great job walking, he seemed to get slightly more lucid.
So I took the opportunity to tell him, "You're experiencing some delerium as the result of the anesthesia from last week's surgery. I only found this out but the anestesia can have longer term effects that last a couple weeks."
And he did seem to grasp what I was telling him. And having that information seemed to help him get even more lucid, as the visit went on.
I wheeled him out to a common area where we could sit together at a table and eat some of the cookies, with a view out to the courtyard... which was quite gloomy, under the overcast skies... but still better than being cooped up in a room.
He drifted in and out of lucidity... at some points being able to hold the thread of the conversation well, but at other points he'd launch into an incoherent ramble, only to fade off to a whisper and then look around confused... until I got him back on point again.
In one of his more lucid moments, when I reminded him again, that he was experiencing some delerium, he said, "when I first got out of surgery... the sheets on the bed didn't feel real."
I liked hearing that, because it told me he understood, and was relating a remembered detail that was relevant to the concept of post operative delerium.
So... he showed a lot of progress on the physical front, and some promising hope on the cognitive front, today!
And this was only Sunday!
If he stays on this trajectory... on both fronts... it's possible that he really could come back home in two or three weeks afterall!
We went back to his room for a bit, and I found The Weather Channel on his TV. Then I dug through the bags of his stuff that had come over from the hospital to find his shoes!
He'd been disappointed that he had no shoes, on this day he was finally fully dressed again, and I guess the PT nurse couldn't find them, or didn't know they were there.
But I put them in his closet, and then bagged up his dirty clothes to take home and wash.
As our two hour visit ended, I wheeled him back out to the nurse station, and asked the girls there if I could leave him with their company.
"Sure! We'll keep him entertained!"
Dad seemed happy with that, so I said my goodbye with a salute, and told him I'd see him tomorrow.
In my free hours here and there, I got a start on the Seven of Hearts.
Seven of Hearts is APR 30 - MAY 06, which contains the midpoint between the March equinox, and the June Solstice... celebrated on May 1st, as both May Day, and Beltane.
The only iconic object for Beltane is the May Pole, which... is WAY too complicated for me to try and illustrate... buncha people with colored streamers, braiding them around a pole as they dance around it?.. forget it!
So, for this card, I decided to stick with the largely forgotten tradition of the May Basket, which is a conical basket, full of flowers, that one hangs on the doorknob of a neighbor.
As you can see, I'm starting with the doorknob!
The idea here is that the knob itself is sitting halfway between the equiniox line, and the summer solstice line, of the graph.
And I'm gonna have this doorknob and back plate be just floating in the sky, like the St. Brigid's Cross was... without any actual door.
The basket will hang from this knob, full of flowers, but the largest flower, taking the focus, will be created from seven hearts arranged in a circle.
You'll see!
If you look closely here, the design on the knob itself is already seven-pointed.
Let's see if I can get this card done in the coming week, just as I got Seven Spades done last week.
°¦}
