When I posted Tuesday’s blog, I omitted a couple of important things, so I am adding this mini-blog and have amended Tuesday’s blog very slightly. There are 2 blog entries for Tuesday, this one should be read AFTER the first Tuesday entry.

The amendment was the visiting hours. Although they are 11am-1pm, 4pm-9pm. I have changed that to read the afternoon visiting finishes at 8pm to allow kp + close family some private time.

Couple of omissions of note. I’ll do the negatives first so I can end on a positive.

Karen’s eyesight is worse than I first realised (because of the stroke). This became clear today when I showed her a photo of herself on the camera. She put the camera all the way upto her right eye. She did this with the Acorn Antiques program also. It was a little upsetting to see. It is her LEFT side that is affected by the stroke, but her right eye can’t see at all. Apparently, (I checked this with a nurse), this is not unusual as there is some crossover in the optic nerves. I confirmed this by blocking each of Karen’s eyes and asking what she could see. She could see nothing when her left eye was blocked.

On the positive side, she CAN still make out things at a distance and closeup (presumably with her good eye). I can stand in the hallway (quite a distance from her bed) and wave when I arrive and she sees me fine and knows its me.

Another bit of a negative is that Karen struggles to remember the nurses names. This in itself is not unusual as there are so many on ICU, but what is a bit more disconcerting is the names she remembers them by. Karen loves having her hair done by a certain nurse, but Karen remembers her as “Split” or “Planet” and she really thinks this is her name. (No doubt these names will soon catch on with the rich and famous, I can see “Split Beckham” and “Planet Cruise” for their next offspring).

One of her nurses for the day had been Wendy, Andrea + another name I have forgot. So, the nurse has been calling kp “Tinkerbell” until she gets it right. She is still “Tinkerbell”

Finally, a lovely positive to end on.

If you have read the blog in the right order, you will know about the Acorn Antiques aspects of the day.

I showed Karen one part of the program that really made me laugh and I knew would get her going. Now its only funny if you know the character Mrs Overall played by Julie Walters. It is a page that is selling the old Acorn Antiques clips on DVD.

Well, I showed this to Karen and I read out the line above (in a poor Mrs O. impersonation), but kp produced the biggest of grins and grabbed her stomach for a little belly laugh.