Welcome to Our World

As far as the infectious disease part goes, Kaye continues to improve. Her improvement is of course aided by the above daily doses of medicines that Pete is in charge of. My brother thought it prudent for someone else to know how to do the antibiotic for her picc line in case Pete was, for some reason, unavailable. So, I received my first lesson in nursing training Friday evening. It takes less time to run the med in than it does to prepare the med, hook it up and unhook it. Four syringes, two vials of antibiotic, drip bag and line and a half a dozen alcohol wipes plus an hour and your all done. She will have to have this for three more weeks.
For the rest, if they aren't liquid, they have to be finely ground, mixed with water and sent in via her feeding tube three times a day. Then, of course, insulin injections multiple times.
Other areas of improvement, she's needed no cath for several days, thank you Lord, and she's grasping more with her right hand. She talks all the time, but most of it is still not clear.
There are still many challenges that leave me exhausted and wondering how in the world Pete is hanging on. She is very emotional, moving between anger and tears. Saturday afternoon she wanted Pete to go to the store and get her some clothes. Over and over she'd say something like, "I need one, 2 and two thirds, no four and that's all." In order to finally solve the problem we ended up having to drag out half her clothes. She insisted a pair of pants fit and pajamas that didn't, so we had to try them on. Welcome to the Keystone Cops. She can't stand up without a solid gripping foundation, so she has to have her tennis shoes on. So, on go the shoes, Pete stands her up, I pull down the pants,Pete sits her down, I take off the shoes, pull off the pants, put on the pants in question, put on the shoes, Pete stands her up, pull up the pants, I hold her up while Pete fastens the pants, sit her down and she sees now for herself if they fit or not, then start again. Now, before this she was freezing and demanded the ac be turned off, so after three pairs of bottoms, we're all sweating, but now she understands that she really doesn't need Pete to go to the store for anything.
Then there's the eating. She thinks she knows what she wants, but can't remember the names. We play twenty questions. The problem is, sometimes even when you say the name, she isn't able to make the association and still says, "No." Needless to say, this is very frustrating for all parties. Then, even when you get it right and she loved it yesterday, she might hate today. She can stand to eat very few things. Mostly she tolerates soup and yogurt. If she says she likes it and it's really good, she'll eat maybe one fourth to one half a cup.
Though much of her pain has been resolved with ridding her of the raging infections, she still has what they now say is diabetic nueropathy. Now, all of her muscles have atrophied, leaving little protection for those nerves. Still, it's nothing like before.
Pete has another situation that is very demanding of him, so they both continue to need your prayers.
If you know someone who is the full time care giver for a brain injured person, be sure and give them a hug and a kind word when you can.
In other family news, Mom was admitted to the hospital last night with pain in her arm and memory loss. We will know more tomorrow.
There are days when I feel my spinning plates are about to come tumbling down.