Trip report from Ohio

Hey everybody, I just flew back from Ohio, and boy are my arms tired. I thought a trip report would be welcome reading. Actually, I know that you have limited interest in how my trip was, but much greater interest in how Mother is doing. She is in much better shape than I expected. (Mother, you should feel free to respond to this post and correct whatever misrepresentations I am making.) My expectations had been colored by the pace of recovery from hip replacements, and by the fact that three weeks have passed already since the operation.

Mother's mobility is moving right along. She is able to get in and out of bed by herself. Using her walker, she strolls over to the bathroom, into the kitchen, and even into the dining room. She is pretty good at getting outside to the car. The fact that the side door has a single landing step, instead of a flight of steps, makes it possible to use her walker. I have not been with her as she gets in and out of the car, but she seems to do that. On Thursday, Bob brought her up to the coffee shop around the corner from the former Wilson School. She needs some help getting in and out of her seat, but good manners already require the youngsters around her to help anyway.

As Mae West said, too much of a good thing can be wonderful, and it seems that Mother was getting lots of attention from all sorts of people. The phone is always ringing, especially around mid-day. And every day, people dropped in to say hi. The laptop computer is a great way to stay on top of news, email, and blogs (like this one). The 17" Toshiba is heavier than I expected. I don't think it has a home on the bedside cart/desk yet. Mother, you may already have done this, but if I were you, I would re-organize that cart so the laptop has a home on the top level and you get get it in and out of bed easily.

It's hard to discern any complaints coming out of Mother's mouth. I counted perhaps three. One, she gets tired if she sits too long. This makes two-hour meals a non-starter, and it's also dampened her interest in going to bible study or current events meetings for the near future. Two, she says her concentration for math puzzles is a little off. Maybe it's the drugs, maybe she was trying to avoid having a sudoku contest with me. Three, she takes pain pills from time to time, which seems like an excellent idea. It does indicate, though, that she is not pain-free yet.

When I was there I helped out in two ways -- food and cleanup. The food part was shopping and cooking. Mother likes to have her normal breakfast. A small glass of OJ when she first gets up. Then at the kitchen table, she has a full breakfast of bacon (one slice), egg (fried), toast and jam, coffee and half-and-half. This takes about 5-10 minutes for me to pull together. Lunch was soup and sandwich, perhaps with a piece of fruit. Dinner was whatever I could get away with. Editorializing for a minute, I do think it's important, Mother, for you to be getting a higher-than-average amount of fresh fruits and vegetables right now, to offset the bad effects of a temporarily sedentary lifestyle. As Michael Pollan says, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Cleanup means not just dishes, which is pretty light work, but dealing with the nighttime regime. At bedtime, I would take the commode from its hiding place in the corner of the family room and move it to the foot of the bed, along with the very nice toilet paper stand. (How do you like them dangling compound adjectives, mister?). I would also give her a clean mug with ice and water in it. In the morning, we got up around 7:00 or 7:30. I would empty the commode bucket into the toilet, the wash it out in the laundry, using bleach spray or bleach wipes. I would put the commode and toilet paper stand back in the corner and then drape them demurely with a blue sheet. This was no big deal.

The the other thing I did was to help Mother get into her leg exerciser (what is it called?). It weighs about 20 pounds, and is too heavy for Mother to swing around on her own. On the days when she doesn't go to physical therapy, she uses is for two two-hour sessions, one in the morning, and one in the late afternoon or evening.

There's plenty to do that I didn't do (thank you Dorothy). Because of my delicate sensibilities, I was spared the tasks of bathing and dressing Mother.

I have a couple of thoughts on how to do things now that the visits from the siblings are thinning out. Mother will continue to need help setting up the leg exercise device on non-PT days. She will continue to need a ride to PT on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Those tasks, though, are not difficult or delicate, and the friends and volunteers who have been coming out of the woodwork can do as much of that as we can get away with. On the cleanup front, the commode was less odious (and less odorous) than I thought it would be. Keeping it out of sight during waking hours is more of an aesthetic and psychological issue than a necessity. Dealing with it can happen well before bedtime if necessary, and, if you're game, Mother, later on in the morning if no one is around first thing.

On the food front, I think it would be a good idea to buy little cartons of OJ, so that one can be left on the night table. Similarly, the coffee machine can be programmed and set up the day before whenever someone is around. It might be worth making bacon-and-egg breakfasts in advance, and storing each day's breakfast in a Ziploc bag. This seems to argue for putting a microwave and a toaster on the kitchen table. There are bottles of water on the floor by the table already. With lunch and dinner, I think it's a good idea to have lots of leftovers in the fridge. Mother, are you already able to get things out for yourself? If not yet, it seems that you are just about at that point.

All in all, speaking as a former management consulting trainee, I would make only a few suggestions. One is to keep relying on people outside the family as much as possible to do the driving to PT and the setup of the exercise equipment. Two is two make a few modifications in the kitchen, especially to facilitate breakfast. And three is to make adjustments when possible that give Dorothy and Alison (you go, girl!) more leeway in when they come by the house.

Mother, I think it's great that you are as mobile as you already are. I know you still have a long way to go before you can move back upstairs, but you're making great strides with your short shuffling steps. It's also great that you are getting outside several times a week. You are in very good shape for someone who is older than me. Way to go.

That's the bulk of my observations and suggestions. Mother, as I said above, you should correct whatever misrepresentations I have trafficked here. And everybody else, this would be a great time to comment, ask questions, and elaborate based on your own experiences and observations.

Yea, Team McIntosh!