Not the best day today.

But to start on a positive note she had a brilliant night’s sleep. She was dreading another restless night and took a full tamazepam and it paid off. She was over the moon, only getting up once for a commode experience.

Incidentally from Tuesday to Friday this week, kp has to measure everything she drinks and everything she wees as part of the investigation into her bladder problems at night. On Tuesday night, she got up 6 times during the night and 15 times in total over a 24 hour period. We can’t afford to maintain such a toilet roll expenditure, so something has to be done about it, and it pisses Karen off of course. This is one of the other things that was getting her down the other day. Another thing I forgot to mention.

But, last night, she only got up once for a pee that she could recall, which is great.

Today, we started off with hydro. It went very well. And then Karen had wanted to go to a bathroom showroom in Stockton. I had no idea why, but was happy to be taximan. On the way there, I started thinking if we really needed an en-suite and mentioned it to her with all the pros and cons. She found this tricky to take in, despite a few attempts at explanation.

Once we had parked up, I got the floorplans and 3d mockups out to explain how it would be different if it wasn’t en-suite. She just couldn’t understand what I was saying. She couldn’t understand the concept of me moving a sink to one place and rotating a shower in another direction. She wasn’t crying at this stage, but was close to it, with the frustration.

kp:- Why can’t I get it ? It seems easy when you explain it ?!

dp:- I think it’s the stroke love. I think it has left you finding this kind of thing hard.

I think they called it spatial awareness.

So, we went in, I was none the wiser about why we were going in, I had assumed Karen had wanted to check prices and see other designs.

She started looking at things. This was nice, this wasn’t nice etc etc….

When we got to the showers, she couldn’t grasp which bathroom was having the walk-in shower and which wasn’t. Such a simple concept, but she simply couldn’t grasp it, no matter how many times I went through it. It was as if her mind was full up and was in information overload.

At this point, she got very upset. She couldn’t hold back the tears………

kp:- I don’t know what we came for ? I don’t get what we are doing.

It was so heartbreaking to listen to. I led her back to the car and we both had a bit of a cry in the car. We comforted each other and went back home. A completely pointless trip.

We both felt exhausted mentally and neither of us could be arsed talking bathrooms.

I tried to convince Karen that the bathrooms we have are fine, but she can’t be swayed and wants new ones.

Anyway, bathrooms aside, we have had tea and are both feeling a bit better just being back at home and together. VD and Jane are coming for the weekend so that should take our minds off BLOODY BATHROOMS !

I’ll end with a photo. kp was out in the sun all day yesterday with Angela and Sisters. She caught the sun on her left shoulder and it looks really painful.

But, here is one good aspect of her stroke ! She has reduced sensation on her left side and she can’t feel a thing !