Mom’s back to the rehab facility and hopefully will be
home in a few weeks. Her skin graft took
extremely well and her leg looks amazing.
I am in awe and bow to modern medicine when it comes to her kind of
treatment. We gifted the Burn Unit Doc
and team with a candy machine full of Skittles.
The PT gals at mom’s facility diagnosed and are treating
mom’s right hand and it is nearly 80%!!
Why I couldn’t get any doc interested in that hand is a mystery. It is the #1 block to mom’s full recovery. I see Skittles in another’s future.
With mom starting to use her right hand and her legs becoming
stronger, we are getting excited to have her home. Of course, now, we’ve begun thinking about
her life going forward.
Things will not change I am afraid. She has no desire to make any lifestyle
change. Therefore we will be going
through all of this again relatively speaking, and next time she may actually
break a bone or something that will land her permanently in some sort of facility. This is infuriating to me because I rabidly
cling to higher expectations for her……but….
I watched a TED talk the other day about optimism. (www.TED.com). And in a nutshell the presentation
proved that as humans we are wired to be overly optimistic about ourselves –
not for others, only for ourselves. So,
the, “it won’t happen to me” syndrome is not just the invincibility of
youth. And my mom is somewhat justified
in her thinking as she is human and wired that way. And I am still pissed.
I have perched myself on the periphery of dad’s life at
home, watching how he gets along. I am
not cooking for him. I am doing his laundry, cleaning once a
week or so and will daily clear and sanitize a swath through the kitchen. He appears to be getting on just fine. Here’s a typical day:
Dad gets up between 9 and 10 am, gives the dogs a treat, makes
coffee, dons his blue work/jump suit (the same one he has worn all week) and
sits at the kitchen table reading the newspaper with his illuminated magnifier. He may eat a bowl of cereal. Then he disappears. He may be in one of four of his
workshops/garages here at the house or he may go somewhere.
He leaves the back door wide open so the dogs can let
themselves in and out. (Enter leaves, bugs, sticks, hot air, live birds and
once, when the dogs were sleeping in the back bedrooms where it manages to stay
cool, a curious squirrel.) He leaves the
downstairs stereo blaring an oldies station or his new favorite Mariachi CD my
sister gave him for Xmas (which I can recite by memory.)
Sometime after dark he reappears, dirty faced, head
bandana’ed with the mail in hand. This
time he has a Manhattan in hand when he sits
at the kitchen table to read the mail. Dad keeps the booze on the cabinet in
the dining room. He concocts his sugary
libation there and spills it through the room to the kitchen table. Oh, I forgot to mention the ANT problem.
He turns on his living room TV set that he can view from
the kitchen. He says he doesn’t have a
hearing problem. I beg to differ. And this is where he spends most of his
evening. Reading materials galore, sports
blaring, many, many moths joining the party (the door is still open) and eating
his dinner. This particular night dinner
consisted of a half bag of sun chips, trail mix, canned tamales and ice cream.
He eventually ends up on the couch or in front of his
computer for his evening nap. I can’t
tell you when he actually goes to bed. I
can tell you he doesn’t tidy up a thing beforehand.
No comments:
Post a Comment