Handrail

The handyman is here and just installed a second handrail along the stairs. Ma has already tried it. I also had Pa go up and down the stairs. He said it's much easier having two handrails.

We finally got an aide to come out and help Pa take a shower. We already had a shower chair from when Ma was sick, and the showerhead is attached to a hose, so that made things easier. Isa & I will try helping Pa take a shower this afternoon.

It looked like a combination of Trazadone and Benadryl helped Pa stay asleep, but it stopped working after just a couple of days. Last night we tried Trazadone and Ativan, and that seems to have worked.

We saw Pa's cardiologist on Thursday. He was very nice and very helpful. He didn't like Pa's EKG results and had cut Pa's heart medicine in half. He wants to do another EKG on Monday to see if cutting the medication makes a difference.

Safety Recommendations

The physical therapist made several recommendations. Among them:

• Add a second rail to the staircase.
• Remove the shower doors and replace them with a curtain.
• Get a bed rail for the bed.

I found a hand rail at Home Depot but have no idea how to install it. Use L brackets maybe?

I think the shower doors can be removed easily enough. The reason the therapist wants it removed is so that there will be a wider opening when entering the shower stall.

The bed rail makes it easier for the patient to get out of bed. I'll order one from Amazon. There are versions that can be installed without tools.

All these suggestions should have been done when Ma was sick, but she never got physical therapy, and no one ever checked the house for safety. When she goes upstairs, she goes up one step at a time and uses a cane. She said she doesn't have trouble getting out of bed and apparently can take a shower standing up. I did get her a shower chair, but she's used it only once. The shower stall actually has two seats, but they're full of shampoo bottles and shower gels.

Home Therapies

Since Monday:

• The physical therapist has stopped by twice and put Pa through some exercises. I told her to work on his balance.
  
• The occupational therapist has also visited twice. She knew who Pa was because Pa would send patients to the home health company she works for.
  
• The speech therapist, who also knew Pa from patient referrals) thinks Pa doesn't need anymore help in that area. His speech isn't totally clear yet, and he still needs his food pureed, but continuing with his facial exercises is supposed to help with that. He also has more trouble than usual drinking water, so I bought a product called Thick-It to thicken his water.
• The nurse stopped by twice and thinks Pa is healing well. She suggested Benadryl to help him sleep, so we'll try that tonight. The Restoril he'd been taking has nasty side effects and doesn't keep him asleep.
  
• I made up a schedule for Pa so that we can do his home exercises in between visits from the therapists. I've been making Ma go through the physical therapy exercises with Pa to strengthen her legs. She always walks so slowly.
  
• Pa visited his PCP, Dr. Hsu, and underwent an acupuncture session to help his stroke recovery. He'll be getting acupuncture once a week for a while.
• Lots of friends have been dropping off food to eat, mostly soups and desserts.
• Pa fell tonight, sort off. He slid off his chair and onto the floor. He had been sitting on the edge of the chair to put on his shoes, and thought he could get up from that awkward position. It took three of us to get him on his feet again.
• I went home for two nights to take a break. I can't wait to move back home again. My cats, however, are perfectly happy, and think they own the place. They've been terrorizing Isa's cats.
  

Physical Therapy at Home

Pa woke me up only 2-3 times last night. He slept all the way through from ~2:00-9:30. I woke him up at 9:30 only because the physical therapist was stopping by to evaluate how much therapy he'll need at home. She said he has a lot of potential as long as he does the exercises. She wrote down some exercises he can do and said she'll be stopping by maybe twice a week for the next 3-4 weeks.

We already had a bunch of exercises that the physical therapist at the hospital gave us. We're supposed to do them all several times a day. I think we managed to do them just once. Pa gets tired easily. He needs to build up his stamina.

Pa has been sleeping in late since he got home. Tomorrow I plan to get him up by 8:30. Otherwise there won't be enough time for all the exercises he needs to do. It's not just physical therapy but also occupational and speech therapy.