Saturday, June 13, 2009

A Bit Unnerved

Everyone who knows me accepts that I'm a plate spinner. I get one thing started, then another, then another. Fellow plate spinners will know that on good days this works marvelously and on bad days not so much. Handy Man Pappy is a different sort all together- he's stays at it till he gets it right. All that to say, I do a lot of dumb things and usually he doesn't. Last night, before I turned in, I asked him if he'd be going out anymore and he said he likely would. I reminded him to please latch the back porch door so no critters could visit the chickie babies. He assured me he would and I confidently went on to bed.
Fast forward to this morning. I wake up and stumble to the kitchen to greet the dogs and start the all important cup of warm and tasty wake-me gently brew. Alas, the back door is open, not the porch door, but the kitchen door to the porch. I almost turned immediately to wake Handy Man up to be the first on the sight, but gathered all my brave reserves and tried to stop and think.
Okay, we never heard the dogs in the night. Nothing appeared out of place, except the door, and most importantly, looking around, I saw no tufts of down floating lazily around the kitchen in the morning sun. I felt pretty sure then that our fifteen week, forty pound, Great Pyrenees had not made a midnight snack raid on the brooder. I gathered my brave chicken farmer reserves and tiptoed out. All twenty two were resting quietly-thank the Lord! I have no idea why Mr. Always On His Game left the door not only unlocked but open, and later he gave no plausible explanation. Mysterious indeed.

I had day shift at the hospital with Kaye, so I was unable to spend much time with my feathered fluff balls and after the coffee took effect, I headed on to the hospital. Pete met with the neurologist last Monday. The doctor reported that most advances are made with brain injured persons in the first three months. After that, the progress is very slow. She shows very slow brain activity. The doctor also said that right side paralysis is associated with language difficulties. As best I understand, the responsive language is more impacted than the reflexive language. Since she isn't totally paralyzed on her right side, I am praying she'll will continue to gain ground with her speech. Maybe you can pray about that too. It is just so dreadful when she is trying so hard to make you understand and you just can't get it.
So, as of today, no infection in lungs or urinary tract, so she goes back to the nursing home tomorrow.
I stayed from 8 to 4 today. About three times she wanted to sit on the side of the bed. She is now able to have soft foods, so in her awake times I tried to get her to eat. She ate a bit of frozen orange juice and some yogurt, like 3 bites of each.
As is typical, she had about 30 to 40 minutes of being awake and somewhat communicative, 2-40 minute periods of sleeping soundly and the rest of the time is so sleepy she can't stay with you and dozey, but not sound.
She met her new grandson today, two week old Everett. Tiffani put him in bed with her and she smiled and stroked his cheek.

After my visit with Kaydle, I ran to the store to make the big organic yogurt purchase, and hurried home to Miss Pasty Butt, who was again pasty with two of her fellow yellow chickies. I mixed the yougurt with the crumbles and they gobbled it up. Now, I'm off to research which of the weeds in what we call a lawn is actually chickweed. Supposedly, the girls will love it, which could account for the name, ya think?

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad she was able to see Everett and love on him!

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