Update on Grace, Wednesday, Sep 1

Wednesday. Latest update 9:00 PM.

4:00 PM - I did go to see Grace just before lunch, and have been so busy until now - maybe I can post just a wee bit here before rushing out of the house again.

When I arrived, Grace was having tummy troubles again, and I felt so bad for her!

I asked her, aside from her tummy problems, how was she doing. She said, "Well, I'm not feeling the best today because I didn't sleep worth a toot last night."

"Aww," I said. "That'll always take it out of the next day." She nodded.

Then I asked her how her leg was doing, and she gave a half-smile. "No problems at all with the leg," she said, patting it. "It feels fine."

We both laughed with the irony. Here she is in the hospital for her leg, and her leg feels fine, and all her aches and pains and ills and complaints have to do with anything BUT the leg.

Then we talked some about legal stuff and paperwork and the transfer that's coming up tomorrow. I told her, "I'm thinking perhaps, and praying it's true, that once you get into the new place, and get settled in there, that the increased activity level there will help you get over all these other things that are bothering you."

"I sure hope so," she said.

Then the nurse came in to take her vital signs, and I showed Grace some pictures I had on my phone camera (you've seen some of theme posted here).

If you remember, Grace hadn't yet seen the photo of the Shelley's ultrasound; I had snapped a picture of it earlier this morning with my phone so she could see it and I showed it to her now. That was a new picture for Grace, but she had seen all the rest before. Even so, she enjoyed seeing them again, and she wanted the nurse to see them too, particularly the photos of Katie and of Shelley's baby.

It was nice to be able to bring Grace some happiness, and some distraction from her tummy troubles.

While I was there, they brought her lunch. It was nice and warm, and it looked quite good. It was ham (which was cut up per earlier instructions) and creamed corn and cabbage. I told her she might want to not eat the cabbage because of her tummy problems, and she said, "I don't think I'm going to eat any of it."

Awww!

She said she just didn't have any appetite at all because of the problems. She did look at the roll that came with the meal, but put it back, and I showed her a piece of pumpkin pie, and she said, "I'm not going to eat that, either."

Hmm. Maybe when we go back soon, I'll take her a piece of Cracker Barrel toast with some cherry butter on it.

She told me she had talked twice to her friend with the broken leg, and that was good to hear she was able to use her cell phone again. Finally.

We talked some about tomorrow's transfer, and then it was time for me to leave to go meet Jan for lunch.

It was so good to hear that Grace's leg is giving her no problems at all, and so frustrating that she's having these other problems. But as I told her, they will go away with time. It's just frustrating while it's here.

Gotta go now. We're going to go visit Grace, then go for the first time to rehearse with the Christ UMC orchestra. I even twisted Jan's arm a bit and got her to agree to come play as well. That's a major yee-haa. I told her she could play the easy notes, and watch the others for now, no problem. She laughed and agreed she could do that.

More tonight, everyone. Stay tuned.

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8:00 PM - Jan got home from work early today, because we had church orchestra rehearsal at 5:30 and we wanted to have dinner, stop by to see Grace on the way to church.

We had some quick but good leftovers for dinner (stroganoff), then headed for Grace's room.

We got there and I asked her how she was doing. She said she was doing MUCH better now than when I had seen her earlier, because most of her tummy problems had gone away! Thank you, Lord!

She said she was actually looking forward to supper tonight, because she was a bit hungry, and she knew if she ate a good dinner, then she could probably also sleep well tonight.

We agreed she probably could.

Jan had brought Grace a suitcase with clothes so she could have something other than a hospital gown to wear for the transfer tomorrow.

She said, "Mama, I brought that suitcase for you. I packed you some of your slacks, with the loosest legs I could find so they'll probably fit around your soft brace, and the shirt with the flowers on it."

"That sounds nice," Grace said.

"Yes, I thought you could use that," Jan said. "I brought a few other things in there that you might need, but there's enough empty space in there so we can pack up most of the extra stuff here in your room, so you can take it with you to the new place."

"About the only thing that won't fit in there," she said, "are the flower arrangements. We'll come back after orchestra tonight and pick those up and take them home, then bring them when you get settled in your new place."

Grace had the TV on when we arrived, and it was on a channel that was showing an NCIS marathon. Grace remembered the episode that was on, reciting whodunnit. Not long after that, the top of the hour passed, and a new-old episode came on, and Grace remembered that one, also.

This was excellent, that her memory is coming back as sharp as ever. It's still not back completely, we think, but seeing that she remembered these things is a very encouraging sign.

Grace told us then that earlier today she'd had a bath, and she said, "and it felt sooooo good!" She squirmed her shoulders in the bed in pleasure at the memory. "The nurse who gave me the bath, she's very good. She even gave me a massage."

While we were there, Grace's supper arrived. When the door opened and the nurse brought in the meal, Grace got a big smile on her face. "It's the bubble lady!" she said.

It was the same nurse who had given her the bath.

She was a very nice lady, and obviously had a good deal of affection for Grace. They smiled and joked back and forth as the nurse set up the dinner for Grace.

Then she stayed and held circle of hands with us while we prayed the blessing over Grace's food. She said, "I need every prayer I can get!"

Grace's dinner actually looked pretty good. She had chicken (cut up), green beans, rice, prune juice, and vanilla ice cream.

I told Grace I'd ask her about the meal when we got back from orchestra.

Jan said, "We need to leave now, Mama. It's time to get to orchestra, and this will be our first rehearsal.

So we passed out hugs and smooches and left.

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In case you're interested, it was a fun orchestra rehearsal. I haven't played in a church orchestra (except for a couple of out of town one-time performances) in just about two years.

It was very good to get back into playing again.

But the wonderful thing is that Jan had a great time also, and she did an excellent job.

She said she did a lot better than she expected, and when the really fast notes came, she just watched them go by, and played where she could.

I told her that's exactly what she needed to do right now, and she did fine. I could actually hear her playing, and it did sound good.

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9:00 PM - After rehearsal, we went back for one more visit with Grace.

When we got to her room, there was a nurse in there with her, so we waited outside for a few minutes.

This time it was a male nurse, and when he came out of her room, he said, "Oh were y'all waiting. You could have come in, we were just chatting, I was running my mouth."

He was very pleasant and cheerful, and Grace told us he would be the night nurse tonight.

Then Jan reported on the orchestra rehearsal, saying she thought she did quite well for not having played for so many years. "At least they didn't throw me out," she said. "I was sitting right in front of the director, and I know he heard me play wrong notes, but he just kept conducting."

Jan and Grace both laughed at that.

We again chatted about taking the flowers home tonight and packing everything that was left into the suitcase, and Jan reminded Grace that her clothes were in the suitcase, if she wanted to wear them for travel tomorrow.

It was a pretty short visit, because everyone was yawning, so we soon made our farewells and headed for home.

As we were carrying the flowers out of the hospital, we noticed they were quite a bit past their prime. About a third of the blooms were starting to wilt, and petals were beginning to fall off some of the flowers.

Hmm. We might see if we can put the freshest blooms into a single vase. But then, even if we do that, they'll still be more than a week old and won't last long. Maybe we'll just get some new flowers.

Tomorrow is moving day.

Grace will be leaving Select Specialty Hospital and checking into Lakeland Rehab Center.

I'll be with her as much as I can during the transfer, as far as checking out of one place and checking into the new place. I'll see that all of her "stuff" is gathered from her current room, and I'll see about getting her set up in her new room.

I won't be able to ride there with her, because they are arranging a wheelchair van for her to ride in for the transfer.

After she gets settled in, I'll post an entry here on the blog, telling you more about the new place, including the address and her phone number there.

She WILL be having a roommate at this facility, so let's pray that she gets a roomie she enjoys.

It seems to be a very nice facility, and the people I've met there so far seem very nice and filled with caring concern.

I'll let you more later. Starting tomorrow.

We hope your week is going well. Take care, all!

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