Day 171 – Sunday 16th October
We were up a few times during the night, but pleased to report no falls last night.
We lay in until 10am. I walked the dogs, kp got up at 11am. She was sweating like a pig last night (she finds the duvet really stifling and hard to move in the night) so we kind of did a stand-up bedbath. Not ideal, but she felt better after it. I am trying to encourage her to use her left hand more. She doesn’t acknowledge it at all, and it’s as if it’s not there, until it hurts. So I have been getting her to hold her toothbrush in her left hand whilst she puts toothpaste on it. She tries to ram the toothbrush into her left hand and needs to be coaxed to open her left hand. It does open on request (but takes a while), and then it closes on request (but not tightly enough to grip anything hard. But my feeling is the more she uses it, the more likely she will regain some practical use out of it.
When she is spitting out a toothpaste filled mouth, loads of it goes on her left hand and she doesn’t realise it. Were I not there to tell her, she wouldn’t clean it up and she would spend the whole day with toothpaste gunk over her hand
I tell her quite a lot to “keep checking your left hand”, but either she forgets or more probably relies on feeling something is wrong with it, but of course she can’t. Quite sad ! One of my concerns is when she has her hot water bottle on her. She likes it boiling hot, and sometimes I have found it touching her left hand. She doesn’t feel the danger from it.
We had breakfast watching the results of X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing (we were too tired to watch the results last night).
Sat out with the dogs for a while before going back to bed for 3 hours.
Got up and she wanted her hair washing. So, head over sink, we washed her hair and I did the new urchin style, which is a cinch compared to her ’70′s bouffante look from before. She doesn’t like her new hairstyle but I think it’s awesome. She thinks it MAY grow on her.
We then prepared for our Roast Beef Dinner (incl Yorkshire Puds on steroids). Whilst it was cooking, kp and I sat out with the dogs again (lovely day) and talked a lot. She is a bit sick of things at the moment, along the lines of :-
- Everything is a struggle
- Her Aches and Pains preventing her from doing anything
- She is p+ssed off only being able to type with one hand
- Having to have her food cut up for her.
- Needing help with EVERY aspect of her life.
- She thinks that she won’t be able to walk properly again
- Etc Etc
It was quite sad to listen to and there isn’t much I can say. The Neuro Psychologist said that when kp gets low, she needs to be distracted to get her out of it, so I will try and arrange some distractions this week and at the weekend.
Actually, towards the end of our chat, Eileen (ace neighbour) came round for a natter which was great. She must have a sixth sense.
Dinner over (she scoffed the lot), we watched Ant and Dec’s Gameshow Marathon before heading back to the hospital.