Hi again-surprise! Two posts in one week.

 

Yesterday was neat. Mary Parsley and Steph and Earl K. stopped in for a visit on their way to the Summit basketball tournament at the arena. They were going to root for SDSU, of course! 

 

Mary looks fabulous, as always, and says she and Juanita are still very busy with orders for their beautiful textile art. She went to Hawaii in Feb. with Sheila, staying with Shaun on Maui. She had fun, but picked up bronchitis along the way, and spent many weeks recovering from that after she got home. Thankfully, she says she is at the tail end of that.

 It was good to get caught up with Steph and Earl and the news of their family, too. Their son, Will, got married and lives in Lincoln now. More Nebraska connection!

 

Mom's friend, Donna Hicks, came over today. Mom was in a quiet phase, but she was a good listener. Donna asked her to sing 'When Irish Eyes Are Smiling", and Mom DID! She got through the whole first chorus (stanza? section?) with no mistakes, and in beautiful voice. It was wonderful! I have not heard her sing by herself and remember all the words in a long time. It was a cool moment, and a testimony to their friendship, I think.

 

Mom is walking so much better this week. We are walking more than using the wheelchair  now. Previously, when she was off the memory meds, Mom had a lot of trouble accessing her feet. They seemed to be 'stuck' on the floor, and we had problems pivoting from, ie. bed to chair.

 

She now also remembers that she needs  to turn around as she approaches a chair or the bed, so that she can sit. That had kind of disappeared for a while.

 

Bedtime is still tough, off and on. The last 3 days have been a mystery. Friday night, I don't think Mom slept an hour. I tried the different prescriptions she has for sleeping and also for pain.

 In the morning, I thought maybe the memory meds that we restarted are now beginning to help her sleep again, and the anti-insomnia med (which we started while OFF the memory meds) was too much, perhaps making her feel restless.

 

So then, Saturday night, I did not give Mom the anti-insomnia meds. She slept like the proverbial, very happy baby. (She was sleeping so well, I could not get her out of bed until almost NOON! on Sunday. Well, that's not entirely true. I could have gotten her up, but she was NOT happy about that possibility, the times that I attempted this. Chalked it up to making up for Friday night.)

 

But, AhHA! I thought. That's it!!  We will skip the sleeping med!  At bedtime Sunday night I held it back again. Strangely, we had another night like Friday night.

Our hospice nurse came today and we hashed all this out. We are going to try just the pain med by itself.  That is the only plan we have not tried yet. If we don't have a good night, I will call them tomorrow and we will come up with a new plan.

 

It is getting a little trickier figuring out what Mom needs, as she is having a harder time telling us what is wrong. We just keep trying different options. Hospice has been very good, and I know they will keep trying to help us work out the details.

 

Okeedokee.....I need to get going. Talk to you later!