Hello all,

Day7-8 with my grandma in the hospital was great! I've seen her move her right foot at the night of day7, she also can move her left arm quite freely and can raise it to full extent now but we are still keeping her left arm tied to the hospital bed in case she wants to remove her nose feeder pipe. She also farted, yawned, listened to me reading short stories to her with her eyes open, and had even waved to her visitors on day8. She followed my father from 10m keeping constant eye contact to her bedside and tried to make a sound, but the feed pipe and her not having her dental prosthesis did not let that happen, it's too early to say anything about her speech I guess.

The hospital neurology department now says that they have nothing to do as my grandma's situation is stablized. Day9 will be a monday, that is tomorrow, the physiotherapy department will have a look at my grandma's status and may transfer her tomorrow to their own ward. This might give us some time to set her a suitable environment at home as the hospital is trying to push her towards discharge. We as a family will try and purchase everything as the government will support my grandma's equipment up to some extent, 50-60% the total price I believe. I asked the doctors in detail of what the attack was, MRI scan showed ? And they said it was an ischemic one, leaving the left brain lobe with a greater than 2/3 rd bleeding and that they could not start the trombolytic treatment since the bleeding was larger than 1/3 of the brain lobe and that my grandma was over 80yrs of age, which meant a serious life risk. I also investigated some medical statistics in north america (Canada and USA) on strokes happening to over 80 yr olds. I will share the links to those studies in case anyone needs those.

I also started reading the stroke-caregiver handbook on this forum, and it's amazing to read bright ideas. Thanks everyone for following up on my blog on my grandma's fight and your support. I will join the chat on wednesday to meet some of the members of the site.

Day9 will be a new start to a week. My mom is tired, she did not sleep when sitting overnight by my grandma's bedside, nurses kept coming to check on my grandma's indicators, fever, urine level, excreta, serums, etc every 2 hrs. Her Na(sodium) levels were down and that's why she kept on a sleep dominant time on day7 and 8. They installed an IV of a new Na based serum.

Her face looks more alive, her eyes looked more lively to me, and I made her listen to 4-5 songs of turkish classical music, which she loves, she fell asleep as she was listening to the music. Later in the day she had nearly 15 visitors from the family, I think we need to install some rules on her visitors, like;

1. 2 at a time

2. one person talks at a time

3. no negative feelings shown to her face

4. talk to her, don't just stare to her eyes and look sad, etc...

I enjoy my time with her now, but I need to learn how to change her dipers, how to make her lean on one side every 2 hrs, cream her shoulder, etc... I and mom has a lot to learn from the hospital's caretakers =). Besides we can not all do this as a fulltime job, as it really destroys us mentally, when I stay in the hospital for more than 14hrs, I come home feeling sleepy. =( Mom is pushing her limits, I've got to stop her do that, as this is a very long haul process.

Love to all out there, whoever reads this, I pray for more health to everyone. Tomorrow is another day, another hope for us all.

Cagin