Boring, but I suppose important information. We visited the neuro surgeon on Monday (Dr. sea-foam-green-scrubs Cerullo, not Dr. I-saved-her-life Farhat), who told us that according to her CT scan there haven't been any changes. The fluid is draining as it should be and there's no other damage beyond what originally occurred. He also shared that with this certain type of injury recovery can take a year to a year and a half. Then Wednesday was the visit to the neurologist (Dr. Castle) who said he's going to start weening her off the anti-seizure medication in hopes that she won't be so tired. Since she's never had a seizure, don't think not taken the meds will be a huge issue. He also explained that with this injury she has lost her ability to recognize humor or sarcastic intonation. And that's when we all pretty much decided to disregard everything he said. Mom made a joke about staying at Presbyterian homes long enough to learn how to fly which was really the perfect storm...Mom couldn't possibly have a sense of humor due to the stroke and Dr. Castle DOESN'T have a sense of humor (unless, like my dad has suggested, he too is a stoke victim), so chances are there's "dementia" written in red on her chart now. By the way, she was laughing as we were recounting the story.
Now, on to Christmas. Dad and I went over in the morning with coffee, baked goods and one gift for her to open. We also brought jingle bells, which as some of you may have seen were used during our caroling in the hallways of Presbyterian Homes. I believe we were singing Jingle Bells the first time we caroled through a family having Christmas dinner and I believe we were singing the Twelve Days of Christmas the second time we caroled through the same family's dinner. They didn't seem too bothered by it - in fact they seemed fairly resilient to crazy - but it's not as though they thanked us or joined in. She came home at 1:30 and stayed the whole day. It was fantastic. Even when she decided to lay down, we all just pulled up chairs in the bedroom and I sat beside her while we continued to laugh (take that Dr. Castle) and babble like only our family can.
I wouldn't say she was "pumped" to go back to Presbyterian and she's definitely not all that thrilled whenever we leave her there. It's impossible to not feel like shit when she says "ok, bye" because we all know it's not OK. She doesn't want to be alone and frankly, I don't want her to be alone. I know, I know, I've heard "you have to take care of yourself" or "your mom wants you to live your life," but trust me, those things feel less than true when leaving her. It's a band-aid rip every day - it hurts every time and you never get used to it. Right now I'm sitting in her house, in her kitchen, surrounded by her things thinking about the fact that she's probably in bed staring at the same terrible painting on the wall and giving pep-talks to her left hand trying to encourage it to move. But in less than 14 hours or so I get to go back and reapply the band-aid.
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