Notes from the front lines

When I left my mom yesterday she was asleep. It was probably a good thing, otherwise I would've had to look into her eyes and say goodbye. It was amazing to see her progress last week and get to know the incredible staff. By the time I left I was buddies with several of the nurses, the PT (Heather, who mom swears is crazy for "hallucinating" that mom can walk), the OT (Michelle, who mom has given our family's full history to...you know what I mean), the speech therapist (Val, who reported mom was "in a mood" yesterday with a supportive pat on the back) and last but certainly not least the fantastic receptionist. Her name is Deborah and LOVES Stan, because who doesn't. She sits at the front desk and laughs and chats with everyone who walks by. The woman is an angel. Of course, mom doesn't believe that she's making progress, but everyone around her repeatedly reminds her how far she's come. Yesterday she walked with a cane and also climbed stairs. She needs full support on both sides when she does it, but she still does it. And then of course she bitches about it, apologizes to "these poor people for breaking their backs" (which they all scoff at), swears she's going to quit PT all together and then keep on trucking. Her left leg continues to make a little more headway every day and she also is getting more rotation in her neck.

Dad, DM and I started surveying skilled nursing facilities as well. We visited Glenview Terrace and Whitehall (the Disney World of skilled nursing). Both were great, packed with supportive staff, friendly folks and each providing exciting things such as aviaries and ice cream parlors. Here's the catch though, both of those are fairly far from our family nest in Evanston, not to mention epic journeys from downtown where my dad would be coming from after a full day of work. So we need to rethink our search. The place needs to be downtown or closer to home and has to come with incredible post-stroke rehab. You would think that's any easy thing to figure out given the world wide web, but it's much harder than a simple search. As far as we know we have a week to figure it out as she's still supposed to move on September 21st - the day before her birthday. As soon as we figure out what her next residence will be I'll let you all know because I expect a few of you may want to send her some seriously deserved birthday cards.