A Somewhat Better Morning
Entry posted by avantgardener
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I walked into Larry's room this morning with trepidation, not sure if I was entering a peaceful room of healing or a bomb factory, and prepared for either eventuality. Fortunately Larry was feeling better this morning - he was half way through breakfast and ate a good part of it, after having eaten pretty much nothing all day yesterday. He smiled at me and did not point at the door or make loud sounds to indicate that I should leave. I did not bring up home repairs, car problems (there was one today), the mouse in the house that I had to catch and dispose of, the big black widow spider that I found while trying to trap the mouse, or the weird giant cockroach that I found sticking out of the heater vent in the living room and had to catch and destroy. (It was a big day for me in terms of vermin, spiders and car problems - my 3 most favorite things in the world!).
I spent a lot of time telling Larry that he is doing an awesome job on his treatment plan and is far ahead of what the original goals are (this is true on some of the things, like being able to navigate the wheelchair on his own). He was still pretty depressed, and I have a meeting tomorrow with is case manager, the PA, the physical therapist and the head nurse to assess where he is in the treatment plan and find out if his anti-depressant needs to be tweaked. At least he was better than yesterday and cooperated with his therapies. They had him standing between the parallel bars again today, and that's about the toughest thing for him physically right now, and he did it.
I went to a seminar today about elder law and learned a lot. For going to the seminar you get a free one-on-one consultation with an elder attorney, so I'm getting my questions together about Medicare, Medi-Cal and VA benefits. After that they want to you to retain them, but it's several thousand dollars and they will really have to convince me that they know something pretty big before I will do that. The seminar was interesting though, and I learned a lot.
After that I went back and saw Larry again. He was napping, so I did not stay too long.
I went tonight to the annual awards dinner at his university. His department chair had done a PowerPoint about Larry's academic carreer, grants, awards, publishing, and pretty much everything he's done professionally, and she had lots of pictures that she borrowed from me. She did a great job, and they presented him with a lifetime achievement award. I felt very honored to be able to accept it for him, and tried my best to say a few words; I knew I was going to cry, so I kept it pretty short. Tomorrow I'll take the award to him, and his chair agreed to email me her PowerPoint so that I can put it on the laptop and show it to him in the SNF. I know that will mean a lot to him. It was wonderul to see how many of his colleagues and students came up to me asking how he is doing and were genuinely concerned, and how clearly beloved he is as a teacher. I know that will make him feel good. Fortunately he was retiring anyway, so I don't think he will construe this as being forced out because he's ill - he would have been honored at this banquet regardless, because he won the award before all this happened, and because his retirement was already scheduled.
So, it was full day, and better than yesterday. Getting things done is good, and seeing Larry willing to eat and do his therapy is even better. He's not 100% up to speed, but I think he'll be doing better again tomorrow.
xxxoo
..jm..
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