Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Gilbert and Sullivan eat your hearts out!


Penzance
Originally uploaded by jacquichris.
Yesterday was a good day in many ways. We had a particularly rough start for a variety of reasons but stuck it out and the day got better. Mom has been doing so well with her respiratory therapy exercises that she has graduated from supervised work. As long as she does okay with doing her exercises three times daily, they will only be back to check the final closing of her stoma.

In addition, Mom continued to knock the socks off of her therapists with her gains in all areas. She is currently working pretty intently on increasing her endurance for physical activity and actually has been sneaking in a little extra exercise with me in the evening when she is restless. She is hopeful that this will aid in normalizing her sleep cycle.

Her depression is a bit better and she is starting to look for ways to facilitate her return to work, albeit in a limited capacity. She knows it is still too soon and that getting home is our first priority. But self-stimulated problem-solving is a very important marker of certain stages of mental healing.

Mom and I took some time over the weekend to make lists of short, medium and long term goals so that Mom has a better ability to gauge her progress. This should help with her depression as well as focusing her energy. We also got her a journal to track each day's activities in and record her successes and challenges. As with everything else, this is a process of trial and error for us, but generally it is going well.

Well, off to spend time with my favorite lady-

j.

2 Comments:

Blogger David R. Linn said...

"O, better far to live and die,
Under the brave, black flag I fly, ..."

No, scratch that - "O better *far* to live"!

Now, Pam needs a suitable bandanna for her head and perhaps a parrot for her shoulder. (Perhaps one of the bears will do in a pinch.)

10:18 AM  
Blogger Jacqui said...

That is a very good idea. I may even know where I can find a wooden parrot!

10:24 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home