Monday, Mar 9th, 2020…… Same routine, another day. Sis
came by and drove us for the morning visit. We knew she would be in dialysis
and went straight there and only stayed a few minutes because she is relaxed
and sleepy while they do exchange. She is feeling good but has slowed down on
her food intake. She still struggles with swallowing plus some of the food
still tastes terrible. She said she threw up yesterday after they squirted a
tube of something or other in her mouth and she had trouble with that, probably
just too much volume, but is ok now. We
headed back and stopped at Lois’s apt. to pick up a piece of furniture to take
to Habitat for Humanity for her before she moves. I came back home and rested
and played with Rylee a bit before going back in the afternoon for a few hours.
I have the routine down now so Rylee and I don’t miss dinner at home. Plus, on
the dialysis days, the visits are shorter so she can catch up on her rest. The
physical therapy that she is getting is on Tuesdays and Thursdays and has been
going well. She is standing with assistance and hopes to be walking in place in
a day or two.
Tuesday, Mar 10th, 2020…… This morning we had our meeting
with my favorite doctor NOT, to discuss next steps. Dr. Steele has a way of
taking waay too long to get her point across. It drives me crazy! Anyway, she told
us that Lydia was at around 24% of her goal in consuming her calories. No
one had told us anything up to this point and Lydia thought she was doing pretty good with meals, so she was very disappointed and started
crying. I lost it and was rather rude to the doctor. She strongly recommended that
Lydia be put on a stomach feeding tube. I knew she didn’t want that and said so
and we were told, “It’s her decision!”. Yeah, that’s true but no reason to be
snotty about it. Now that we know what’s ahead, so later, with
the nutritionist, we came up with a plan for the immediate future and the tube
would be put off for now. Today was not a dialysis day so she was hungry and
did eat a good meal.
Wednesday, Mar 11th, 2020…… Maryanne is here and Lydia was glad
to see her. This was a typical dialysis day and she was pooped and wanted to rest
so we made today’s visits a bit shorter.
Thursday, Mar 12th, 2020……
Today was a really good day! She has been working with the physical therapists
and today was her first time sitting in her chair!
They say
she needs to be able to sit in a chair for 4 hours at a time when she does her
dialysis offsite in another facility, so this is a good start. She also needs
to be ambulatory and they are working on building up her atrophied muscles so
she can get to the wheelchair and to the bathroom. She has been medically
cleared, which means she is off all iv meds and the doctors can release her
when she gets the strength she needs.
Today I
went by myself early to see her. I then headed north to Cabela’s. They had a
sale that started today and I wanted some things. It was the first time I had
for me and I enjoyed it, just taking the backroads and cruising the countryside
driving the 55 miles to Tualatin. I got what I wanted and made my way back for
the afternoon visit. Penny and Maryanne had been there and would be coming back
after I left. She has been at 95% on her meals so that’s a great sign! They told us they have a dialysis chair and
she will ‘test drive’ it tomorrow to see how she does.
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