raining again
Entry posted by swilkinson
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Ray has not had a seizure for over three weeks, hopefully because the medication has reached the therapeutic level. He did have two days in bed last week due to a bladder infection. I think that was down to the catheter though as they finished up taking it out. Today when I visited him he had that spaced out look which is more frequently his expression now. I note the changes in him and try to keep optimistic, I know I can still enjoy the day and not think about tomorrow.
The not so good news is that he is back on pureed foods as he has had to have three lots of antibiotics in the past two months and the doctor is trying to prevent further episodes of aspirational pneumonia as none of us want him to build up resistance to the usual medication. I am afraid this will make him lose speech as well. That can happen because chewing is what exercises the jaw and keep the muscles used for speech going. Of course he manages the spoon better now as he has only to scoop up softened food.
I go through days of feeling hopeful that he will plateau and we can go on at the present level for a while. Maybe this is just living in a fool's paradise but as usual I just want him to be healthy and stable. I think that is all that is possible now. He appears to be okay, so why do I feel I am still living on a knife edge and that any moment something bad will happen? Is it the number of years I have been listening, waiting for him to breathe, waiting for him to moan, waiting for him to call for help that makes me still lay awake at night? I wish i could "just get over it" as a good friend sugested.
After a few days of fine warm weather it is raining again, with rain predicted as likely for most days next week. A wet summer is being followed by a wet autumn. I, like so many others, were hopeful of a warm, dry season so we could catch up on the house and yard work before winter sets in. There are still floods north and west of us and tumultuous cyclones perched off the coasts of both the north and north west coasts of Australia so nowhere has perfect weather. I guess I will just have to stop my whining and make the most of the fine days left to us.
I went to a Caregivers lunch today with my women friends from the stroke recovery group I belong to. I am starting to notice that some have moved away from me now we no longer have the 24/7 caregiving in common. Maybe they are afraid that they too will one day have to put their loved one into care as I have done with Ray. I find now that the ones who sit with me are the newbies, people looking for some support and advice and an outlet for venting. Maybe that is a good thing as I no longer have an urgent need to offload my own troubles so I have more time to listen to others.
I did my first home commnuions yesterday. I have been licenced in several parishes in the past to be a Eucharistic minister so it was good to have to opportunity to do that again. I love to think I am taking something people really need, that my presence means that the church still cares for them and about them, that they are still part of the church community. Eventually I will get four people to look after and that will be good, for now I am just following Kathy around as she ministers to them. It is good to be back in harness again.
One of Ray's female cousins died last week. Although we used to see a lot of that family they moved away a few years ago and I never had a new address. I didn't open Wednesday's paper till Thursday and there was the notice, a funeral locally at 10.30am Wednesday. It is such a pity that the busyness of our lives keeps us out of contact with others. Once it was not so as other family members would have passed news along, but now all the first cousins are scattered and isolated and we don't have the family contact we used to before the uncles and aunts died. I did tell Ray but not sure he understood who I was speaking of.
Trevor called in this afternoon, he had been up to visit my Dad's grave at the cemetery as it was the 100th anniversary of my Dad's birth today. Truly it was yesterday but his father was an Irishman so of course his son was born on St Patrick's Day! My Dad was 27 before he found out his birthday was really 16th of March and as had been the tradition we continued to give him his party on St Paddy's Day. Trevor is the one in our family who cares the most about family traditions, said he misses Dad and misses celebrating St Patrick's Day with him. I am glad someone in the family will always think about Dad on St Patrick's Day even when I am gone.
Thank you to all the people who continue to read this, who comment and share their own thoughts on what I have written. Which means I am not just typing this onto a computer screen I am communicating with good people who care about us. That means a lot to me.
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