I will be glad when the weather warms up enough to get Gary out again. It's been a really chilly couple of weeks and I haven't let Kelly, his caregiver, take him out for walks or over to the clubhouse to shoot pool. The last thing we need is for him to catch a cold and me have to lose more sleep at night caring for him when she's not here.

Christmas Eve Day Gary had a fall first thing in the morning. I had just gotten him out of the shower and let him drive his power chair over to the grab bar in the bedroom where I usually dress him. I left him sit for a min. or two while I straightened out his bed and cleaned up the water mess from the bathroom floor, when I heard a "thud." He was down on the floor, head in the carpet..ass in the air between his power chair and the futon that sits at the end of my bed. He had leaned too far sideways while drying his legs and tumbled over the side of the chair. I yelled at Dan, who was in his room at the other end of the house, and he came in to help me get Gary up off the floor. At the time, we didn't see any obvious signs of any trauma from the fall.

We celebrated a late Christmas with our middle son, Joel and his wife and our grandson the Saturday after Christmas. Joel cooked a wonderful turkey dinner, and we exchanged gifts and watched some funny utube videos. Gary was still doing fine, aside from not getting a nap that day. We stayed home on Sunday and then on Monday Kelly was here to care for him for six hours. She called me about half way through the morning to tell me he was having trouble hearing and wondered if I had any of the candles to try candling his ears. I told her I would come home early and maybe we could do that together, as it usually takes two people to do it safely. I came home around noon, and since the weather was half way decent - low 60s by then, we took him out on the patio and I trimmed his hair, and then tried some ear wax removal in his ears and got a ton of wax out of both of them. He still was having trouble hearing but could hear a bit better than before. I decided to wait with the candling and try putting more of the wax removal solution in the ears first and give it a chance to work. By early the next morning, I got more of it cleaned out and then did the candling method. After all that, and removing a bunch more wax, mostly left ear, yesterday morning, he is still yelling at me constantly when he's up and awake - what?? I can't hear you!

I've always thought most of Gary's hearing problems were "selective hearing" but he's never been this bad before. I remember one time on vacation in Oregon, long before he had his stroke, we had to make an emergency appointment with an ear Dr. to get his ears flushed because he had so much hard wax buildup in one of them, his face was actually swelling. I think we're at the point now that I need to get him in to an ear Dr. again, but with the holiday weekend, I can't even call anyone until Monday and then it could take up to a week or more to get him in since our regular family Dr. won't do the ear flushing. In the meantime, he could literally drive me crazy with his yelling - and demanding that I turn the television up for him to hear, which doesn't work anyhow. We had actually blown the speakers on our last television because of his not being able to hear it. I keep telling him it's loud enough to wake up the dead at the cemetery a mile away, and he still can't hear it. We also have a son living with us who sleeps during the daytime hours when we are up and about, and his room is just off the living room, so I don't want to wake him when he has to work night shifts and needs his sleep.

I told Gary last night that I can't do anything more for his hearing problems until we get him to a Dr. and if the Dr. suggests he needs hearing aids, then he better cooperate. He insists he will not wear them .....if that is the case, I told him that I can no longer care for him at home. His comment was "then I might as well be dead." All I could say after that was "jackass." He heard me just fine when I said it ...even laughed, like this is all a game to him.

Sarah