August 25 - 29

Day 193 - 197
I've got the time to post this morning, so I thought I'd get a few ideas on the blog. I've done a pile of laundry, and I'm waiting for it to dry, ( ha, ha, Glenn just loves that excuse for doing nothing!) so I sat down, checked email, and remembered to check the blog too. The kids are busy getting back to school, and I am content to watch the farmers combining, and don't miss the stress of that too much, right now anyway.
We went into the conference on Tuesday, and are now looking at the end of next week for a release date. That is so exciting now, to think that we can be at home, and just run in a couple of times a week for therapy, instead of being apart all the time. At first the terror of having Glenn out, and me taking care of him overwhelmed me, but I have since got a bit of help, or rather a lot of help lined up and a plan B in case of illness or storms or what ever. You should see Glenn, he just about glows when we talk about getting out of the hospital. My helper is a family friend who has helped take care of special needs kids for years, so she came to physio last week, and watched the routine, and is familiar with a lot of the stretches, so she is well able to do work at home with Glenn. There is a program through the health district which will pay her a wage, so we have applied for it, and although the funds are exhausted for the year, the social worker said that we had to apply and see what would happen, perhaps new funds are available. I have also been coached in the stretches, and have a list of them to follow, so we will do our best to keep Glenn from tightening up between sessions. It will be a lot of work, but each week Glenn is stronger and easier to move around, so I expect that he will be on his feet in a couple of months, and so a lot of issues will resolve themselves.
We expressed our concern about swallowing and eating, but the speech path said she would have to be really comfortable with the results of a swallowing assessment before she would start any food by mouth. That means we have to buy the canned supplement for a while, but it works out to be about $6.00 a day, so that isn't very expensive. I'm getting a list of supplies, and where to purchase them from, and the doctor has written prescriptions to help off set costs, so we are getting organized. We are doing a bit of a "dry run" this weekend, in that Glenn will be home for 4 days, one of them a Tuesday, so we are trying to get everything in place to see if it is going to work out, and what problems might come up that we can address before he is actually released. Oh boy, I try not to worry too much, but there are a lot of things to think about here, and I know we'll overlook something. Glenn's safety is the point, so we have to always watch out for that.
Well, that's about it for now. The combines will be rolling this weekend, so take your time and be safe out there. Things can happen so quickly, just be careful.
'Til next time,
Louise