Long, but great day today.

kp, normally not vaguely conscious before 10am, was up at 8.15am today. I arrived a little late (rush hour traffic) to get her in the bath for 8.30am.

We met up with the physio who walked Karen into the Ward Flat so she could try walking on carpet.

dp:- It’s not exactly a thick pile carpet is it
Physio :- This is the NHS you know.

The carpet was more like carpet tile and was probably 1mm taller than the normal polished floor. kp had no bother walking on it with the physios help.

Following the guided tour around the flat, kp did a full circle tour of the whole ward and I estimate she did about 150 steps holding on to the physio’s hand.

This reminds me of something I omitted from yesterday’s blog. When the main man was lifting kp’s left leg in to all sorts of unusual positions yesterday, kp felt constantly like she was losing her balance. At one point, she grabbed hold of the lady physio’s trousers and nearly pulled them down. We were all in stitches.

With the physio over, the next thing was the neuropsychologist’s (NP) visit at 11am.

On a friday, we are always keen to get away early to enjoy the weekend to its fullest, so to avoid the long wait we had the other week for kp’s morphine patch, I asked the Sister if we could get it early, but because it is a controlled drug, we couldn’t get it until we were ready to leave, so we had to ask again after the NP’s visit.

The NP arrived and reported on all the tests she had done. There were no big surprises. kp’s stroke has had a “significant, but subtle” affect on her brain activity. I can’t recall all the problems, but things like

• she has a smaller working memory
• she needs to be given lots of facts slowly
• her brain doesn’t work as fast as it did

On the plus side, her long term memory is unchanged

There was lots more, but I can’t recall them at the moment. It could have been so much worse, so we are pleased at the subtlety of kp’s stroke effects.

NP over, all we needed was the patch. I asked the Sister and we waited for a while. After what seemed forever, I asked her again (glad I did, as she had forgot (other things going on)). The patch needs to be countersigned by another qualified nurse and she had just left the ward. More waiting……

When she returned, we found out the patch wasn’t in stock and we would need to wait for it to come up from pharmacy. kp was so keen to get away, we opted for coming back a bit earlier on Sunday to get the patch applied.

Adele was cleaning our house when we got back, which gave kp and I a chance to have a snooze. We had about 90 mins.

kp:- I don’t think I fell asleep.
dp:- You were snoring.
kp:- Oh, I must have then.

It was then time to get ready for the meal out with Tommy and Eileen, which we thoroughly enjoyed before coming home for bed.