Right Arm Progress

What am I to do with this girl? She just takes the first offer she gets...and today it was to have breakfast at 8 a.m. So when I arrived to feed her at 9 a.m. she was full and happily snoozing. The report was that she ate nearly all her breakfast, so that is very good, even though I wasn't the one on the other end of her spoon.

I held her right hand for quite a long time while she slept, but eventually she discovered I was there and perked up (naturally) :-)

Of course I was quite eager to see more of that right arm and hand movement that was so "___________" yesterday. (We still haven't gotten that big word from Dr. Heide.)

And she made sure that I was not to be disappointed on this visit.

Well, let me modify that. Because I was thinking maybe she would be ready to throw out the first pitch when the Mariners have their next home stand, I was a little disappointed. Disappointed only because she does not move that arm and hand very often.

She is obviously not in training ... yet.

There were three significant arm and hand events today:

• Once she had her arm down on a pillow and lifted her forearm and hand to about a 45-degree angle, then put it down again.
• Another time, I had lifted the forearm to a 90-degree angle and then she moved it back and forth a couple of times before letting in down. And she let it down slowly, not like a limp dishrag as before.
• The third episode was a raise of the forearm to 45 degrees, then fully spread all her fingers, then move the arm 20 degrees to the left, then let it down.

I'm not sure that any of the above were voluntary. I don't recall that she ever moved it at my coaxing. But remember, two days ago, it was virtually paralyzed. (Hmm, how long is the Mariners current road trip anyway?)

The other significant occurrence during my two-hour visit was the appearance of a hospital volunteer who was there to give her some Medicare-required documentation concerning her rights when discharged. He understood she was to be moving out of the hospital within the next day or so. Terrific news.

I have a call in to Bettie's case worker to determine what she thinks the schedule will actually be.

Around 11 a.m. the speech therapist arrived for her morning session. I bid them farewell promising to return at 5 p.m. for our standing dinner date. I don't think she will take up with someone else this time, because she repeated the words, "Five o'clock" to me about six times.

She'd better not.