... to south GA again this week to visit the cantankerous auntie who continues to feel she is being held against her will. Not precisely 'hostage' but most certainly not of her choosing, in a place where she makes it plain she does not wish to be. We are all aware this situation is not permanent, but some of us are optimistically hoping that it is more long term than others.
'Us' who will ultimately be the Responsible Parties for her, hoping she will be there for at least four more weeks to give us time to formulate a 'plan B'. While 'the party' that is there against her will had apparently been expecting her recent sudden compliance with therapist's instructions would allow her dismissal for good behavior/time served. So she remains incarcerated, mostly due to the fact that she is not yet mobile enough to travel under her own steam.
The 'us' consists of two cousins and myself. One the cousins lives in Decatur, the other in Denver. They were both present for the Care Team evaluation/meeting on Wednesday, Sept. 21, when we assembled at the rehab. to discuss progress and plans. The man who is the physical therapist, Tony, was in attendance, present to talk about how she has improved. And readily reported that she was initially not cooperative with the therapists efforts to help her regain strength and stamina. Which has diminished considerably in the past month while she has been largely immobile and for the most part in bed.
The event that precipitated all this was a fall that occurred in her house on Aug. 28. Amazingly she was in the hospital for twelve days, before being transferred to nursing/rehab. care facility. I am still surprised that her insurance would allow her to occupy space as inpatient for that long, when you think heart surgeries pushed out the door after 23 1/2 hours. Has been at rehab. for two weeks. I'm thinking that the actual physical therapy designed help her regain ability to walk only occurs once a day for an hour at maximum.
Sadly, her almost complete loss of ability to retain information in her 'short term' memory bank is a major handicap. Very little information sticks in her brain long enough to be effective, have a lasting impact. So when that very agreeable therapy guy tells her to 'do this' five times in a row six times a day, and 'do that ' twice every hour, she cannot hold it in her head long enough to accomplish the tasks that need to be repeated to gain strength in her legs. I've asked the nursing person to have staff remind her to do these things as they see her throughout the day, and hope that might help: using someone else's brain to get it done, as hers is definitely not working properly.
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