The Ghost of Puck

I decided to make a last minute trip to Chicago for Columbus Day. So I'm sitting here at Westminster Place, watching her sleep and enjoying her cable television. Dee and I spent all day yesterday here so she could teach me the ropes. I learned the art of menu ordering for the week...she's sick of eggs (you have to remind her of that), make sure to order the sugar substitute so she can put it on her Rice Krispies, if dinner options look questionable there's the back-up menu of grilled cheese or a hamburger or spaghetti. I learned about speech therapy exercises....push the tongue depressor with your tongue, bite you tongue and swallow, and make sure to use the straw during reading practice because the kindle is a touch screen. I know where the stash of cranberry juice is and I know that sometimes they sneak meds in it, so never accidentally sip the cranberry juice, you never know what it's spiked with.

I also met the PT, Suzanne, she can't be more than 5 feet tall, but she's all business and has mom practicing walking. Then there's Rebecca from St Louis. She's the OT. Young, super friendly and I can tell she loves mom because she banters with her and when mom threatens to slap her for stretching her left wrist too far Rebecca doesn't flinch and simply says "thanks for warning me". Then there's John. He's a young assistant who just graduated from University of Illinois. He's mom's favorite. He laughs a lot, talks to her constantly and takes all of the shit she gives him for moving back in with his mom. All in all, you can tell mom has charmed the folks around here. What a surprise.

As far as how she's doing, her vision has improved a lot with the new prism glasses. She makes eye contact when she talks to you now and her reading is getting better every day. Physically, she's still trying to work on walking. The PT says that she can feel mom trying to activate her left quad, which is great because that means that the connection is there, but she still needs full support when trying to walk. Mentally, she's pretty with it most of the time. Her wit is here, most of the time her memory is here, she can explain the biology of white blood cells, she can deduce the definition of word by it's Latin roots, but sometimes when she gets tired she starts to hallucinate a bit. Yesterday it was about a little white dog and chipmunks. It's just part of the brain injury and she's with it enough that you can tell her it's an hallucination, but of course we both are wondering if Puck has come back to haunt us.