Carole Ann and Jack will go home on Monday, as Jim and I come back down to spell them for the week.
Jim figures with things calmer he may actually be able to work remotely. The pandemic has been good for flexibility on this point!
We learned today that there may be a rehab facility willing to take in an asymptomatic, fully vaccinated, Covid-positive patient! Since we would very much prefer that Carole gets professional help with her speech and movement, this is very exciting. She is spending another night in the hospital, one which we hope will be the last before she moves places.
Her heart is doing great – seems they do finally have the meds worked out.
We really thought Carole was moving today but it is not to be. She tested positive for Covid (she is fully vaccinated and asymptomatic) and so will not be accepted at the rehab place. She will be going home for 10 days, and then we will try for rehab again. The family is working out who can stay with Harry and Carole for this interim period.
Carole was much more cooperative yesterday, and had a quiet night last night. They are making one last tweak to her medication, and moving her today to:
Rehabilitation Hospital (yes, that’s the actual name of the place!)
2776 Cleveland Avenue
Fort Myers, FL 33901
We are excited, hoping she will find this new place much more comfortable, and we are looking forward to great strides as she gets the intensive therapy the folks there provide.
This place is also much closer to the house, which will be a nice thing for the rest of us!
Carole will not be going to the rehab hospital today, because a communication lapse led to her being injected with heart medication last night instead of being given it orally. For obvious reasons, the rehab wants her meds managed orally before she comes over there.
In the meantime, the lady who was writing nonsense words in all caps 2 days ago is writing understandable, correctly spelled words in her impeccable handwriting!!!!
Sentence structure is not quite there, but still, we are very excited!
Carole has decided she is done with being imprisoned. She waited till Carole Ann was asleep last night to make a break for it – nursing staff found her wandering down the hall. She is apparently completely over being in the hospital, and is rebelling in some fairly amusing ways – she ate her pudding FIRST at dinner today, eyeing Jim, seemingly looking for him to object. She did well with PT and OT but was pretty mad at both Jim and Carole Ann who are taking it in stride.
They expect to move her tomorrow to
Rehabilitation Hospital (yes, that’s the actual name of the place!)
2776 Cleveland Avenue
Fort Myers, FL 33901
I will confirm here when she has indeed moved.
They didn’t really monitor heart medications over the weekend, so it’s taken a day to get things changed up (they are moving Carole to oral meds) and then to make sure they are working ok.
As the meds kick in, Carole’s heart is behaving itself better, making it more possible to make the move to the rehab place.
Carole Ann is spelling Jim tonight. We had a facetime call a little bit ago in which Mom “sang” the abc song (not much volume but we can see that she is making her mouth move appropriately) and tried to say “I love you” to Harry.
Jim had conference call tonight in which his boss asked everyone to pray for Carole (gotta love Catholic Health Care!)
Carole can say “No” (what a surprise!) and “spoon” now.
She drank ensure with a straw in the morning, by evening she drank water directly from the water bottle.
She can touch her thumb to each finger of the same hand.
She’s grumpy because the TV channel changer is glitching, so it feels like we have her back.
Lack of sleep is starting to show among the rest of the crew. The support team follies today were minor, thanks to vigilant guardian angels. Harry had a fall this morning and bought himself 4 stitches in his elbow and an nice fat bandage on his shin. He may have strained a groin muscle as well, but is bearing up. Val spent a lot of quality time in the Publix parking lot, while Peeb enjoyed running back and forth trying to remember who needed keys in the hospital parking lot. Jim is staying with Carole again tonight.
Looks like she may go to acute rehab tomorrow.
Jim and I got in around noon. John kindly picked us up at the airport, dropping Jerry off to go home at the same time. (It’s spring break, so there is not a rental car to be had) John took us straight to the hospital, where Jim went up to see Carole, Harry, and Carole Ann. John then took me to Harry and Carole’s. A little later, Carole Ann and Harry returned. All three of these intrepid souls grabbed a much needed nap. Darling sister-in-law Kim made us a really yummy taco dinner, which was much appreciated.
Carole had an MR this afternoon – I have not heard any results, but it’s Sunday, so that seems pretty normal.
Jim is very happy with how alert and oriented Carole is. They have already shared some laughs.
Carole Ann helped Carole FaceTime with Jim and Kate and me this morning. She showed off her latest trick, which is that she can mouth the words to a song she used to sing to Jack when Carole Ann starts the singing. The speech therapist has come in this morning and explained that it’s sort of as if her mind is a filing cabinet — all the files are still there, but someone came in in the middle of the night and mixed them all up. Their work is to find them and put them back in order. Jim cracked “that sounds like something I would do!” and she laughed right away. So she’s understanding subtle things like jokes! The subject changed, and at one point, Carole voiced a spontaneous and in context “uh-huh.” Yay!