Day 274

Day 274

Friday, February 21, 2014

Physical:

This was a little bit better day.  DH stayed in bed until close to noon.  He was awakewhen he got washed up, but was persuaded to stay put since the dialysis nurse was coming later.  After that, he went back to sleep.

Once up, he dozed a lot in his chair.  At one point he wanted me to help him get up .. said he wanted to lay down on the sofa!  I convinced him to settle for laying the chair back.  He wasn’t happy, but didn’t argue; but then he did say he “didn’t hurt”.  Since he’d never said anything about hurting to start with, I’m not sure what he meant (and he couldn’t tell me).  I tried to give him some lunch, but he refused to eat; but then I fixed supper a little earlier, and he ate a (small) 2^nd helping of spaghetti. 

By 8:00 he was ready for bed as normal, and went on to sleep.  He slept all night, but at times his breathing sounded labored .. he sounds very congested.  Early in the morning I went in and put on an extra blanket, and he seemed to *settle* a bit so maybe he was on the edge of too cool.  He’s usually OK in the day, but at night wants a lot of covers.

It’s still too early for him to be up (though on a week day the CAN would be here now); but he got a coughing spell that seems to have gotten him awake.  I’m hoping he’ll go on back to sleep .. there’s just no point in getting him up too early and then he just sleeps in his chair.  If he sleeps in bed longer, he tends to be awake more of the afternoon.

People:

The CAN came early per the new schedule that I’m very unhappy with.  But since DH didn’t insist on getting right up, it was OK.  The dialysis nurse came around mid morning to draw blood for next week’s appointment.

Late last night DSS called to see how things are going and ask about my weekend.

Emotions:

I didn’t sleep well, and have absolutely no idea why.  I tried to just stay in my chair anyway; but I couldn’t “turn my mind off”, and started getting very weepy  I got on up, and found a few things to do.  Now I’m headachy – probably from not enough sleep; but I also feel like my eyes are getting inflamed again.

I don’t much like Saturdays any more.  The majority of the time anyone that comes here does it on week days.  The hospice people don’t work weekends (well, some do, but not “our team”).  Even TV is boring. 

I think I will try to see if I can doze for an hour, then take DH pills, then get a shower.  Since changing his room around is going to be a project (which I’ve been offered help with, and I am ecstatically grateful for that!), while he’s up during the afternoon I will try to start sorting some of the random *stuff* that needs to be eliminated.  I mentioned the idea to him last night .. when, once again, getting him into the wheelchair was difficult .. and he seemed OK with it.  At the time he was understanding my point about not having to use the wheelchair so often.  I know he’ll forget and I’ll have to explain more than once.  My only fear is that he’ll feel “banished” to the one room.  I’ll just have to try to get him to understand (as much as he’s able) that this plan is a good alternative to him having to be completely bed-bound.  I will have to relocate the monitors so I can hear him if he needs something, and not just hear the TV.  There’s a lot of furniture moving involved, but I do think this will be a better plan.  At least, I hope so.  The whole point is to only have to move him from bed to lift chair, and skip the wheelchair step that is getting increasingly dangerous.  But it would be totally mean to just put the lift chair in his room and leave it like it is, so he really would be abandoned  Some of the people that at one time came to see him have pretty much stopped coming by.  It almost feels like they all thought he was worse off than apparently he is; and since he’s not on his death-bed, they don’t bother to come visit so much now.   But Sundays can be the same, just in a different room (DSS can just lay on the sofa and choose what they watch, and DH will be fine with that).

Anyway.  A lot of stuff needs to come out of that room, so perhaps today I can start on it.