Well, this has been an eventful day, beginning at 4:00 AM. Papa decided that he would make the great escape from his bed (now bear in mind, he is unable to stand or walk.) I had checked on him three times between midnight and 3:00 AM. He was carrying on his "stream of conciousness" conversation (s) while he was sleeping. At 4:00 I noticed the decibels had risen somewhat and I walked through the door to find him at the foot of the bed, with his legs hanging off of the bed in the space between the bedrails and the foot piece. He had thrown all the covers on the floor as well as his gown. He wanted out of the d***bed. I finally convinced him that he could not walk therefore he could not get off the bed. Then he announced that he was cold and that I should give him some decent covers. He finally went to sleep at 5:00 AM, as I got up.
Today the Hospice nurses aide came over and bathed him and we changed his sheets and he had a nice clean body and a nice clean bed. It had to feel really good to him. The Hospice nurse comes twice a week, at least, to check on him and us and to answer any concerns we may have. What a blessing that is for us.
This afternoon, he decided that he really wanted to try to get in the wheelchair and go to the Carolina room to sit in his recliner, read the paper and watch TV. Whoa, Larry managed to get him off the bed and into the wheelchair and then into his recliner. This is a real milestone for all of us. We are so pleased that we were able to accomplish this. He needs to be able to stay awake more during the day so that he (and I) can sleep at night. Please pray that we will be able to do this each day for at least an hour or so.
Each day we are blessed with Kenny's presence in our lives. His grandchildren and great- grandchildren are thrilled to have him home so that they can visit whenever they want. It got so wild in his cottage this afternoon that the dogs had to be banished to the yard for the rest of the day. Poor babies.
Our greatest concerns for Kenny at the present time center on his congestive heart failure which is rearing its ugly head again and this hallucinating which, instead of getting better, is getting worse. The doctor, as of today, doubled his Lasix, hoping to ease the fluid retention and perhaps ease his croupy cough. Since Kenny is on very few opiates for pain, the thinking is that the hallucination is not due to drugs but rather something else. While it is amusing to find out that today we are aboard a rented Cabin Cruiser, it actually is worrisome. We have found that we have little option but to go along with him since there is no convincing him otherwise. I wonder what our adventure will be tomorrow....
Stay tuned.
I did not know. He was online a few weeks ago sending goofy jokes but there have been times he doesn't feel up to 'computering' so I wasn't really allerted when he hadn't been on lately. I'm not surprised at the dreams. He is always the most incredible story teller and in his sleep would, of course, not be any different. God bless you all for taking such marvelous care of him. He will be in our prayers as you all will be. I remember him telling me the last time we were together he was not afraid to go because he missed his sweet lady so. My heart will break when that happens but he will be content. We love him.
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