movie

Cheap Date. Home for the weekend. #TSJ

Knowing I have the whole weekend with Janet I took my time going out to Connect today, making sure the house was in order before bringing Janet into it. I tried again to time my arrival with the last part of her nap time but like before, she was waiting in the living room with a “I didn’t think you were coming today because it’s so late”. I laughed with her then she told me she was having a good day so far but was unsure of what to do the rest of the day. My suggestion of a short nap was rejected immediately. Lorne reported that Janet had a good morning that included a workout with Karl in the gym. He said he was impressed with her Shuttle session. Hearing that good report I ran a couple of scenarios past Janet as to what we could do before going home and after a lengthy discussion she chose to have a little rest, then pizza dinner, then a little leg stretch in the gym, then home.

The little rest turned into over an hour and a half sleep leading right into the pizza dinner which Janet dove into the second it was placed in front of her. When she was done I took her for the usual bio break and noticed that she wasn’t standing very well during the transfer. She acknowledged it too and couldn’t say why. I tried a few more afterwards with her and felt she was lacking some energy so I called off the gym, packed her up and took her home.

Being home a little earlier than planned gave us time to watch a movie. I wasn’t confident Janet would last through it but she insisted she would. After finishing her first piece of pizza at dinner she took a rather long pause. I asked her if she was going to keep eating and she said “how can I when I have no more?”. There were two other pieces on her plate, both way over on the right and when I turned her head she laughed and started eating one of them. With that in mind I wanted to do a little vision test before we watched the movie. I asked her to read what she saw on the TV screen. It was a still frame of the order screen for the movie we selected. She read the upper left portion no problem but said she couldn’t see the right side of the screen. I went up with my hand and she saw that fine after I made her physically turn her head. Prior to that cue she was still looking off to the left even though I was saying look right. Satisfied that she could see the whole screen I started the movie. We watched Life of Pi and Janet made it through easily, enjoying parts of it, finding some of it “upsetting” and overall feeling happy that she watched it. There were times when I could sense she was emotionally into it, a first I think. I repeatedly asked her during the movie if she wanted to have a snack and or a pop, a family tradition, but each time she declined. Cheap date but not quite as much fun.

There was no argument about going to bed after the movie and I’m praying for a restful night that gives Janet lots of energy and strength for tomorrow. I’m not sure what she’ll need the energy and strength for as we have absolutely nothing planned and when Janet heard that she smiled big and said “good”.

A Moving Monday. Janet rebounds a little. #TSJ

Hoping to get answers to Janet’s lethargy and pain I called her doctor’s office first thing this morning and got the impression I wasn’t going to be able to speak to her as she was booked solid. The lab results had arrived and were just faxed to Connect before I called so that was my next call. Jess reported Janet was OK, oddly complaining about sitting up whereas yesterday the complaints came about laying down. She was slowly drinking a smoothy and seemed relatively fine but Jess had no intention of taking her to the gym or anything like that. Nurse Jen and I talked about the lab results which indicate that Janet’s Dilantin levels are within the therapeutic range but at the low end of it. I’m surprised by that and even more concerned now about Janet’s tolerance for that drug. There are a number of things that could be affecting her though, bladder infection and dehydration primarily. Jess just missed a chance at a urine sample before I got in this afternoon and will try again in the morning and as far as the dehydration goes I don’t think Janet is but she can certainly drink more and maybe needs to do so to overcome the effects of the Dilantin.

Jess had just put Janet to bed when I arrived about 1:30 this afternoon saying the first part of the day had gone fairly well and Janet ate a decent lunch before nap time. She was awake when I went into her room and we had a brief chat before nurse Jen came in to examine her a little. Janet’s vitals are normal and there is no evidence of anything wrong other than she’s a little pale and complains of pain from time to time. The problem is she indicates the pain is in a different part of her body every time you ask her. One area that does get mentioned a little more than others is her left butt cheek. I can’t trigger a pain response there but she does touch it sometimes when asked to show where the pain is.

Jen left just after two and Janet was snoring minutes later and continued till 3:30 when Bob stuck his head in the door on his start of shift rounds. Janet fell back to sleep quickly and save for one more brief eye opening slept loudly till 4:50. It took a little while for her to get her speech going but once up in a sitting position started to come around a little quicker. By the time we were in the kitchen for dinner she was pretty bright and happily started drinking her water then ate a large dinner complete with one of Sandrine’s macaron for dessert. Thanks Kiko and Brenda!

I tried getting Janet to make her March Madness picks the way she used to, by choosing the team with the nicest uniforms, but I couldn’t find a website that made it easy to do that so I just had her pick the name of the team she liked best for each match up and she ended up picking Indiana as her winner. A pretty good choice I think. It was movie night in the neighboring house and Janet agreed to go over there with me to watch for a while. Unfortunately the movie was one of the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels which Janet found to be very uninteresting but she enjoyed being there with the other residents and hung in for about an hour. I gave her a bio break once we got to her room and she thankfully and surprisingly had a bowel movement. I was way more happy about it than she was and she says she wasn’t feeling any better because of it. Still a really good sign and hopefully Janet will realize some benefit by the morning. We read some news articles on the iPad for a while after that. I asked her to read and she would get two or three words at a time but no more and was starting to lose her speech and agreed to go to bed at 8:45. I was pleasantly surprised at how long she lasted tonight and by her increased brightness and I must credit the long nap for that. To me Janet is still showing signs of an intolerance to Dilantin and there probably is something else going on but today was much better than yesterday.

Janet’s doctor never returned my call but I’m confident she will tomorrow and I plan on taking Janet in to see her Thursday after swimming as long as she doesn’t get any worse. It certainly appears she’s getting better but we still don’t know the cause of all this. Praying for another restful night and an even brighter day tomorrow.

Free Friday. Home for the weekend. #TSJ

When I arrived at Connect this afternoon Janet was just about to take another successful potty break. Today was very good in that department and I’m very happy about the improvements she is making there. She wasn’t interested in wasting any time in going home but we did stop and have nurse Jen look at her former peg site to see if we needed to keep the wound care protocol going. Jen suggested we give the whole thing a rest for a couple of days and see how it goes. I brought the kit home with us just in case but so far it looks like it is continuing to heal very nicely and some air will probably do it good.

With our only plans being to watch a movie tonight Janet thought that reason enough to avoid having a rest. I explained I’d like her to stay awake during the movie so carried her straight from the car to the bed so she had no choice. She didn’t sleep long but it was long enough to give her a nice energy boost for the rest of the night.

Janet’s training as a prep cook continued tonight as she tore lettuce and chopped peppers by herself with the rocker knife and sliced grape tomatoes with my help. The only help she needed in setting the table was identifying my napkin. She hasn’t grasped the concept of the napkin ring that’s on it even though it was her idea way back when we got married. An outstanding job none the less.

Comedy was the genre of choice for our movie and without searching too much we chose Easy A. Turned out to be a good choice as Janet said it made her laugh. I saw her smiling but didn’t hear any laughter. She said she “was laughing on the inside”. I thought the movie had just the right pace for Janet to keep up to and some of the jokes were quite intelligent and certainly not crude. A good Janet movie.

Thinking she had a second wind Janet thought she could stay up late and it was already nine when the movie ended. She was sound asleep by 9:45. So much for the second wind. Our time today was nice and relaxed, unusual enough that Janet even asked a couple of times, “how much time do we have” when I asked if she wanted to do something. It was nice to be able to say “as much as we want”. Praying for a restful night of healing and a relaxing day of learning tomorrow.

Helpful #TSJ

I took my time before going out to pick up Janet today knowing she’d be home all weekend. After doing some minor chores around the house I went for my first bike ride of the year. It was a beautiful sunny day and warm enough for shorts. Barely.

Janet was waiting patiently in the living room for me and after a final check of the wound care protocol we took off for home. We got there a little too late for a walk as the sun still sets a little too early so Janet played with Nash for a bit while I got things set for dinner. My plan for this weekend is to have Janet help out around the house as much as possible and tonight was a good start. She set the table for us and with no coaching got it all right except for missing forks and putting the knives and spoons on the wrong side. She pulled salad ingredients out of the fridge for us and I taught her how to tear the lettuce with one hand. She caught on really fast and after I chopped the peppers and tomatoes she added the croutons and tossed it all up. High five! Putting things back where they came from was a little challenging for her and she needed quite a bit of coaching on that. She also needed some help when it came to eating as well tonight. We had penne with meatballs thinking that would be easier to eat than spaghetti. But she struggled with the concept of stabbing with her fork, she always wants to scoop.

Friday night is turning into movie night for us and while scrolling through titles we came across The Kids Are Alright. I asked Janet if she remembered seeing it before and she said no but as I contained scrolling she said “there it is”. That was the one title she could read on the screen so we watched it “again”. Janet did not remember any of it but enjoyed it “again” and was able to give me a reasonable summary afterwards. Of course we paused about half way through for dessert. Vanilla frozen yogurt with butterscotch sauce is Janet’s new favorite.

The bedtime routine is a little longer now with having to change the dressing on her former peg site. It looks like its healing well to me. Janet fell asleep quickly and is looking forward to a fun day tomorrow. Praying for rest and healing tonight and recovery and learning tomorrow.