Saturday, December 23rd

Yesterday was a busy, busy day for both of us… Kerrie spent a lot of her day in Therapy and we had some good news! She was able to stand, using the PT equipment, for a full five minutes and when the Doctor asked her to shrug her shoulders she shrugged BOTH of them.  She has shown little/no mobility in the right shoulder, so this was a pretty big step. Mom said it was the best Christmas present she could have asked for and it’s all she needs ( I guess that means I can take her gifts back to the store 🙂 )

Speech Therapy did another swallow study with her and they feel she is not swallowing properly.. more or less just letting the stuff slide down and we need to work with her to make sure she is actually swallowing. That’s what I have been saying, all along, so it’s nice to hear someone agree with me for once!

I spent my day driving around and trying to finish the Christmas shopping. Went to Henry Ford, to say goodbye to the staff and give them a Christmas present from Kerrie and I and then hit the malls. Several of them..of course, I needed particular things  and none of the malls had all the stores I needed ( Each mall had one of the stores I needed).. so I had to go to three different ones. Not my most favorite thing to do, but it was worth it.  All except for the fact that it really upset my sister.

I had left her room at 10:00am, and told her I would be gone around 5 – 6 hours. I didn’t get back until 9:00pm. When I walked in the room, she heard the door open ( She can’t see it from her bed) and I heard her say “Jenny?”. When I said yes, she said “Oh Thank God!”  She was so upset she was crying and when I told her I had to go back down to my car to get another bag of stuff she started crying more.. I felt so bad, and offered to wait to get it until morning, but she just kept saying, “Go get your stuff.. go get your stuff and get back here.”

Once I got everything into the room I let her “shop” for what she wanted to give people.. whatever she didn’t pick would be my gifts to them. Then we started planning how to wrap everything. When she asked what she was getting me for Christmas I told her she was giving me the only thing I wanted and the best gift in the world.. to spend Christmas with my sister. She looked at me and said, “Well, that didn’t sound very sincere!”

WHAT????? Little B@#$%  :)   Here I am pouring my heart out to her and she says I don’t sound sincere ?  I assured her I was sincere and when I again said I had the best gift, because I could spend Christmas with my sister, she said “I got the same gift.” 

Not much sleep, again, last night… She’s exhausted, but doesn’t sleep. I finally forced her to turn off her TV at 3:00am and that she was under orders to sleep. Once the TV went off she was out, like a light, and slept for almost 3 hours.

She seemed very confused this morning,and was having a hard time remembering what things were called, but I am hoping this is just because of the exhaustion. Mom noticed this last night and she is meeting with one of the Doctors at 1:00pm today. I’m trying not to worry about it, but you know me.. I worry if she coughs.

Physical Therapy came in at 8:30am, so I took the opportunity to come home to Mom’s and get cleaned up. On my way back to the hospital now.. Dad and Joyce are coming in today and Ron will be there too…

Hope Kerrie gets plenty of rest before we all get there :)  but if she doesn’t, maybe she’ll sleep tonight… and maybe I’ll sleep too!

 Jenn