Forgot to mention that yesterday the doctor had reviewed Karen’s medication and had moved Karen’s sleeping tablet to the “as and when required” category instead of the daily category. The same goes for the anti-sickness injection in the morning. She didn’t take the sleeping tablet last night, but still had a good night’s sleep which is great. She missed the anti-sickness injection and felt a little nauseous after brushing her teeth but no sickness came so another bit of medication out of the way.

kp enjoyed her bath as usual. It is one of the highlights of her day along with physio. She said she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if it wasn’t for the bath and physio.

Lunch followed snooze followed bath.

Physio today involved them working on Karen’s arm. She mentioned it had been giving her jip. Karen was hoisted from the wheelchair to the bench and she looked really hunched up on her left side. They laid her down on her right side and the main physio moved her left arm in all sorts of directions. He did loads with her shoulder as well. After about 30-40 minutes of these movements (with the odd “ow!”), kp’s movement (without pain) had increased quite a bit.

Towards the end, he was getting Karen to move her left arm in different directions herself. He held her hand so she didn’t have the weight of her hand to move. She did very well. I was uncertain how much the physio was doing and how much kp was doing. I will have to ask kp tomorrow.
We had a conversation today about what the physio had said about her left arm and how it may not get back to full health. She wasn’t overly concerned about it and basically had the opinion on the long lines of “as long as I can still do all the things I used to do”. She thought about it for a few seconds and then said “If I can’t walk the dogs on my own, I will be annoyed.” This made me a little bit sad, because she definately will need 2 arms to walk the dogs, possibly even 3 !

I think, in time, she will realise how much she needs 2 arms and this may get her down, but she is ok for now, and you never know, she could regain enough movement in her left arm to do the things she likes to do, although I personally can’t see this happening, but what do I know : she keeps amazing me with something every week !