Ten days later

Ten days later and we are really in the routine. I have started going home for an occasional overnight. They have given me the key to the family apartment at the home and it resembles a Motel 6, without the shampoo. But it is excellent having a place to lie down, take a nap, take a shower or just hide. At first I set my alarm for every 2 hours during the night, and gradually went to 3 then 4 then visited around 5 am. I would walk down the looonnngggg hall, check on her and sit if she was nightmaring or awake, or go back to the room if she was asleep.

The good days are great, the bad days are better than the best days last month. Yesterday we actually played solitaire with her telling me where to put the cards. She doesn't have enough fine motor control to put the cards where she wants them, but she has me. And when I remember that for two months she didn't remember how to play solitaire, I have hope that she will make a decent recovery.

We are visiting the hospital every 36 hours for antibiotic infusion. It takes from 2 to 5 hours to do it depending on personnel, and whether she needs a pre and post blood test. The days that we go at 6 pm are exhausting and require a day of napping to recover. We get back to the home around 10 pm and normally I feel lucky to keep her awake until 7 pm.

This weekend, the temperature dropped to 22 degrees. My sandals are not warm. I continue to scrounge her clothes to find sweatshirts that fit, and today I ordered a pair of silk long johns. The people at Alco are getting to know me well as I am dropping in daily to buy socks and yarn. I'm on my seventh scarf.

News! My cousin Eileen has offered to come down from Colorado to spend a week while I go to California and pick up some winter stuff and visit the family and friends. I am ambivalent, concerned but excited at the same time. We will see....