Good Thursday AM to all of you!

Things are rocking and rolling here at E&E Elder Care Inc.  Mom is doing wonderful!  She is making alot of her needs known to us.  I don't know if she is getting better at communicating her needs or we are guessing what she wants faster than before.  As I said in a few e-mails before, we are idiots at times with figuring out what she wants.  Some of it is that we now know she wants things done and when she wants them done. 

For example.  Mom WANTS Dad to be in his jammies (PJ's, night clothes) by 7pm.  If he isn't, she isn't happy.  She wants to watch Emeril on the food network from 7-8pm, then it is time for bed.  We are using a peice of paper with YES and NO on it.  We will ask her a yes or no question and then she will point to the answer she wants.  Like last night, I asked her do you want to watch Emeril?  She pointed to yes.  So we switched from 60 minutes.  Also, yesterday Liz and I were talking during the 5pm news and they had a car chase, where there were lots of cars chasing a truck and the truck overtuned, Mom held up a hand to me to quit talking so she could hear the news.  In a nut shell, I think Mom is doing pretty well.  Knock on wood!

Dad on the other hand is a bit different.  He is extremely weak.  I went over yesterday to cook dinner and he was laying in bed in a very strange position.  It was like his butt was gonna fall off the side of the bed.  Liz and I tried to move him to sit better and to sit up so he could take his pills, but he just didn't have any strength to help us.  Liz had to beast him up and we had to pull the bed away from the wall so both of us could get in position to move him.  We finally got him up to a semi-ok position so he could eat.  He wouldn't feed himself.  I had to sit and feed him and he would not really open his eyes.  He would peek at me to see if it was me feeding him.  It took about 1/2 hour to feed him about half a dinner. 

We also are putting him on thicken fluids.  He seems to be coughing when he drinks regular fluids.  The doctor put him on another anti-depressant drug a few weeks ago, and that may be causing some of his tiredness.  He is also getting huge headaches.  The anitbiotic he is on gives him headaches and we looked at the drug profile for this new drug and it does too.  So we are gonna try to slack off on that drug to see what happens. 

It is like Mom has sucked the strength out of Dad and has it now.  She is stronger and he is weaker now.  Hopefully he will gain is strength back in a few weeks and she will get stronger too.  This pneumonia and flu has really zonked it out of him.  They had him confined to bed for a week and he can't even stand up by himself at this point in time. 

I will let you know how it is going and we hope for a speedy progress for Dad.

Love and hugs,  Mary