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.