Week 8 of Jim's Recovery

Well, Merry Christmas! Christmas was a little bitter sweet this year. Sweet because we had Dad here. I can't imagine and hate to imagine where we could have been this holiday season. Bitter because for some of us Christmas doesn't bring any relief from our sorrows, being several loved ones were missed this season.

Let's see what happened this week. Oh, I did forget to mention that we found out that Dad's foot was broken. Mom took Dad to a foot specialist and they x-rayed Dad's foot again. The podiatrist asked who looked at Dad's foot at the hospital because the foot was obviously broken. In fact the bone that was broken has been shattered and the doctor is hoping he does not have to operate to remove the part of the bone that was broken. In the doctor report from the hospital it states that there was no fracture found. Hmmm, need some better people reading x-rays then. Well, at least Dad's brain is healing! Hope the hospital didn't overlook anything there! So now Dad's foot is in a "wet" cast and he has a boot on. He walks, OBVIOUSLY, much better now and only needs a crutch to walk instead of a walker. This doesn't make Mom any less nervous with him going up and down stairs! Ice is our worst enemy right now! And avoiding falls is our main objective.

Some of you may have received a phone call or an e-mail from Dad this week. Pretty awesome, I know. The fact that Dad can call/e-mail friends is amazing since we didn't think he would be talking at all. If you got an e-mail or phone call you would understand that Dad still is having difficulty with his speech. The best way to describe Dad's speech problem is that he seems to forget nouns or the subject of his sentence. He can't think of the word. He can explain it or maybe draw a picture, but he calls lots of things "stuff" or "things." E-mails are a little bit harder to understand but if you read them more phonetically you will be able to understand Dad's e-mails better.

We do have a request for those that are receiving calls or e-mails from Dad. If Dad invites you over to the house PLEASE call Mom first before making the plans official. Like we have said before, Dad gets tired very fast, and Mom may have plans for Dad that he can't remember. So please e-mail or call Mom or ask to speak to Mom if Dad makes plans with you. Right now is a very, very, very frustrating time for both Mom and Dad. Dad is bored and is worried about friends that don't know what might have happened to him. Dad starts to obsess about things, like visiting a friend, or if his dogs are okay. Mom is trying to take care of Dad. She sees what makes him tired and how he acts once he is tired. She tries to tell Dad what he needs to get better and Dad will get extremely agitated with her. We were told this would happen but for Mom to have to take care of Dad all on her own and have him continually get angry with her wears her down.

We didn't do much for Christmas this year. We wanted to play things by ear because we wanted to see how Dad was feeling. So Christmas eve we didn't do anything, well together as a family. Dad was going to play at the Midnight Service at church but became too agitated to be able to make it. So I didn't see Mom or Dad on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day we had dinner at Erin's house. Erin made a delicious turkey dinner. Dad has gotten his appetite back, finally! Dad had two giant helpings of turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Dad kept insisting that it would be okay to give the turkey bones to the dogs and we had to continually remind him that turkey was like chicken and the bones could kill the dogs. After dinner and the kids opening presents Dad got tired, so we took him home. I think Dad was only out of the house for two hours with us before he was tired. See he gets overstimulated very quickly. And that was our Christmas.