Chapter 293 - A Remake or Two

For a day or two she has been wanting to make bread, so she is in the kitchen at the moment, bread maker pulled from the cupboard, needed some help to retrieve two ice cream containers full of spices from our hall pantry. She says she has enough ingredients for both a savoury and a sweet loaf. I asked her to let me know as soon as the savoury one is available for me to pile large quantities of margarine onto a slice or two. Part of her motivation is the lack of commercial bread in the freezer, although the bother of making home made is not worth the short time it lasts.

She has laboured for several weeks making a quilt for the recently arrived daughter of her niece. Initially there was some panic that the object needed to be completed prior to arrival so I assisted by stitching embroidered butterflies onto panels, although urgency was not so important once the baby arrived. The panels were laid on our lounge room floor for at least a week while design decisions were made as assembly took place. Then our kitchen table was not large enough to spread the partially completed quilt while the backing was added. So I retrieved a sheet of chip board from beneath the mattress of her bed (ages ago two layers of chipboard had been fitted between mattress and base to minimise "hollows" in the bed") and placed that over the table. Then problems arose as she stretched the fabric to keep it flat and in position with bull dog clips. She discovered that some of the triangular cut pieces warped (cut on the cross) causing her to compensate until the whole became very warped, out of square in some places and not others. Until she gave up, a quilt not worth showing or giving to anyone. Another deadline is approaching; next Wednesday when we meet with the Ugly Sisters at the club up the four lane in the high lands. She was intending to start anew until I influenced her to spend a lot of time undoing all the stitching to retrieve the embroidered squares. The job seemed about as complex as putting the quilt together in the first place and took her  about two days, including evenings, excluding her OFF periods. A few of the embroidered squares were damaged in the process and had to be trimmed down in size so the new, now completed, quilt is smaller in overall size and the design is simpler.

The above is a complicated way of leading up to observations we both made. After a morning's work hand and machine stitching she would find mistakes when she resumed in the afternoon. She commented that at times she found difficulty making decisions and I think she may have at times continued making errors while attempting to correct them. Often she would call for help because she was unable to rise from a kitchen chair and move away from the quilt on the table, invariably such assistance was needed within a half hour before meds times, 2pm in particular, since she usually does not begin sewing until after 10am. She commented that even when making fancy coat hangers she had difficulty making decisions, she worked very slowly, unless she was fully ON.

Three days after her next scheduled meds change I time trialled her pushing her trolley from the rear to the front and return.

		Hourly Time Trials
		Back door to front door return
6 May 13	09:10	26.38
	09:45	n/a	needed help dressing
	10:10	49.93
	11:15	29.69
	12:00	29.28
	13:00	31.63	“I'm slowing up”
	13:55	40.06
	15:15	32.19
	16:00	28.3
	17:00	37.56
	18:00	0	not confident to push trolley
	00:00	29.34
	20:10	27.28
	21:15	28.91
	22:00	37.77	tightening up, legs tingling badly

Last Monday her physio session was cancelled at the hospital. On Tuesday she had her respite day at her "sheltered workshop". There was a morning meeting where the "clients" were asked to comment  on the staff and facilities. She made several contributions to the discussion, in particular the difficulty experienced entering and exiting the disabled (I know that is not PC) toilets while pushing a walker because of the force required to overcome automatic door closers.

On Thursday we attended our local PD Group meeting held at our local club. After we both praised the PD nurse, the neurologist and his registrar at the hospital in Hot Air City we were asked for contact details. In a selfish way, I hope they do not become swamped with referrals from our town! She was agreeable to staying for lunch at the club, enjoying her favourite dish of baked vegetables and gravy, followed by cheese cake. We were joined by a couple we know, maybe 10 years older, she with PD, stooped, shuffles, nods off, not much tremor, slight poker machine addiction, whispers. She told my PWP that "he" doesn't understand while he and I were speaking of other matters. We left there to visit her favourite junk rag shop, she needed a new wheel cutter, but we left the club too late, about 1320, so by the time we walked the block she was on the verge of needing to use her walker as a wheel chair. Fortunately there was a bench seat on the foot path outside so I went in to buy two cutters. Then on the return to the vehicle in the club car park she had to sit on her walker outside the office supplies shop where I had to buy inks for both our printers.



Friday evening at 1730 was one of the times she was unable to rise from the kitchen table without assistance after sewing and she shuffled very slowly pushing her trolley to her TV chair. Same thing happened just now at 1330 Sunday.

She continues to be found in strange positions, propped up with pillows, sometimes reading a pulpy novel, in her bed. She recently asked to have some lights on a pole positioned in the far corner of the bedroom, between her bed and the wall so that she can read more easily in the dead of night. Occasionally I wake to hear her talking, sometimes legibly, sometimes yelling, sometimes laughing. Several times she woke me to help her onto the commode, positioned by the side of her bed.Yesterday I woke to find her sitting on the side of the bed, complaining about back ache. I suspect she has become used to the tingles inside her legs, because she only sometimes mentions them.

Some weeks ago when the OT visited to discuss the needs for the commode, she made comment that the heavy padded chair (we got it for free after someone "left" our village "permanently") was not level. The OT counted the locking holes in the legs, saying the chair seemed level. So while sitting on the side of the bed Saturday morning, she again declared the chair not level. Perhaps this is an optical illusion due to the rear legs of the chair being ever so slightly angled. To settle the matter, I got my large aluminium builder's level and placed it across the arms of the chair. The bubble of the level was within the two lines, although touching one line, so it could be said that the chair was not level, but I doubt anyone could detect the slight amount just by eye.

Recently she was unable to stand from a sitting position on her bed without her feet slipping on the carpet as she went to sit on the commode. This problem seems to be resolved by fitting a small soft piled carpet square where she stands beside the bed.

Off to eat some warm home made bread.