I\u2019m finally back home from our extended vacation and able to provide some updates. I was away from mom for three weeks \u2013 the longest gap since her stroke last year. Cyndie was able to come down for a few days during this time and spent so much time with her. She took mom on a couple of shopping trips and meals out. For the most part, it was a good visit. However, it wasn\u2019t all laughs and smiles.<\/p>\n
Mom has always been a very strong, independent woman. I thought that those characteristics would be beneficial in her recovery. She loved being at the gym and exercising. We all thought that because of her work ethic, she\u2019d have a good chance at recovering and could regain some of the independence she longs for. Prior to her fall this past April, she was actually progressing very well. We were all quite optimistic! However, these last few months have been extremely difficult. She has lost so much of her strength and honestly I believe her desire to continue putting in a lot of effort to get better. She just wants to wake up and \u201cbe better\u201d. Mentally she\u2019s not the same. Most of you know my mom as a giving, compassionate, caring lady. One who was kind and understanding. Someone who thought of others before herself. This is not who she is continuing to be. I understand her frustration with not being able to just get up and get on with activities of daily living. However she is in a place where people are there to help her with those activities if and when she asks for help. She just has to learn to be a little patient since caregivers are not there on a one to one ratio.<\/p>\n
Although Cyndie and I have BEGGED her to not try to get up on her own (either out of bed or even going to the bathroom), she continues to do it time and again. She has fallen at least twice that I know of since Friday. I am at my wit\u2019s end with her. When I do see her, she looks miserable and rarely says much. She says that she\u2019ll be happier when she \u201cgets better\u201d. I asked her what that means, since it\u2019s unlikely she will regain the ability to walk given how she continues to sabotage herself with continuing to try to get up without help. She said that she needs to make friends. I definitely understand that. She has made a couple of friends at the facility, but aside from a person or two from her old neighborhood everyone has all but vanished. She hasn\u2019t seen her pastor in over a year (the associate pastor who did keep in touch unfortunately left the area). The couple of friends she was closest to that she would go to cannot drive themselves so she hasn\u2019t seen them in over a year either. I\u2019m not even sure how often she speaks with them on the phone.<\/p>\n
Mom is in charge of her own happiness. We\u2019re trying to help her as best as we can but ultimately she needs to learn to be happy, hopeful, and patient. I pray that she can find the \u201cold\u201d SueB and work to create that new, happy life that I think she can still have.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m finally back home from our extended vacation and able to provide some updates. I was away from mom for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drb.kfu.temporary.site\/website_2c648198\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}