Chapter 362 - Between the Moon and West Beer City
Her fellow inmates at Wild Dog respite disappoint her. They participate in playing Bingo and similar games in anticipation of winning small prizes of lollies or chips. Some will play scrabble with her, well sort of, because they depend on her help to make words larger than two letters. She continues with some sewing tasks for their stall, yet is disappointed that her fellows won't participate much in hand craft tasks.
Almost daily she uses her new Surface Pro 3 for emails; yet stumbles off into other applications, unable to tap her way back. Yesterday she found some "free" embroidery designs, requiring my assistance to download them. Unfortunately, I am becoming more irritable when trying to explain how to carry out such mind numbing tasks, and a touch screen does not help, even though she has a keyboard, touch pad and/or a mouse. Both the input devices and the functions of the windows, overlaid 4 or 5 deep in a muddle on the screen are more than she can cope with; I bought several tutorial books plus DVD to help her, but such are chores to her, and tend to emphasise social media and sharing photos. And as I said, I become irritable very easily.
To Hot Air City on Thursday to buy a more comfortable wheel chair for her. Her walker which doubles as a small wheel chair is not ideal now that she walks much less, really not at all. The new wheel chair is comfortable, arm rests can be raised, hand brakes for the "driver", padded seating, the front wheels do not bump her feet and is surprisingly easy to push. On the way home we tried out the new wheel chair in Big W where she tried on heaps of shoes but none were soft enough for her feet.
Then on Friday to the club at Highlands Town to meet the Ugly Sisters for lunch, partly for birthdays. She remained in the new wheel chair the whole time, so she seems pleased with it.
She has been wearing another type of midnight bloomers yet even so, there have been some "accidents". One night she got out of bed to use the commode. Yesterday I repositioned her bed and last night left the rails down on one side so that she can readily use the commode; twice, and this morning the bloomers were dry. However, I think her sleep was disturbed because she feared rolling out of bed. The place where we bought the wheel chair may be able to supply a spring loaded/latched small bed rail to suit her bed, although the manufacturer's catalogue does not list one.
A few days ago her left big toe was painful/burning/tingling/whatever and while I rubbed some pain relief gel on it she told me she was unable to feel my fingers rubbing the toe, although the pain continued. This morning whenever she hung her legs over the side of her bed they shook uncontrollably and the sensations from her feet caused her to cry; on bringing her feet back into bed the shaking ceased and some of the pain.
We have heard nothing from West Beer City since our visit to Dr F on Thursday previous. Tomorrow I must make some phone calls to find out about the proposed referral to a spine specialist and the proposed sales pitch about Duodopa. No directions from the experts encourage her feelings of being a lost cause.
Almost daily she uses her new Surface Pro 3 for emails; yet stumbles off into other applications, unable to tap her way back. Yesterday she found some "free" embroidery designs, requiring my assistance to download them. Unfortunately, I am becoming more irritable when trying to explain how to carry out such mind numbing tasks, and a touch screen does not help, even though she has a keyboard, touch pad and/or a mouse. Both the input devices and the functions of the windows, overlaid 4 or 5 deep in a muddle on the screen are more than she can cope with; I bought several tutorial books plus DVD to help her, but such are chores to her, and tend to emphasise social media and sharing photos. And as I said, I become irritable very easily.
To Hot Air City on Thursday to buy a more comfortable wheel chair for her. Her walker which doubles as a small wheel chair is not ideal now that she walks much less, really not at all. The new wheel chair is comfortable, arm rests can be raised, hand brakes for the "driver", padded seating, the front wheels do not bump her feet and is surprisingly easy to push. On the way home we tried out the new wheel chair in Big W where she tried on heaps of shoes but none were soft enough for her feet.
Then on Friday to the club at Highlands Town to meet the Ugly Sisters for lunch, partly for birthdays. She remained in the new wheel chair the whole time, so she seems pleased with it.
She has been wearing another type of midnight bloomers yet even so, there have been some "accidents". One night she got out of bed to use the commode. Yesterday I repositioned her bed and last night left the rails down on one side so that she can readily use the commode; twice, and this morning the bloomers were dry. However, I think her sleep was disturbed because she feared rolling out of bed. The place where we bought the wheel chair may be able to supply a spring loaded/latched small bed rail to suit her bed, although the manufacturer's catalogue does not list one.
A few days ago her left big toe was painful/burning/tingling/whatever and while I rubbed some pain relief gel on it she told me she was unable to feel my fingers rubbing the toe, although the pain continued. This morning whenever she hung her legs over the side of her bed they shook uncontrollably and the sensations from her feet caused her to cry; on bringing her feet back into bed the shaking ceased and some of the pain.
We have heard nothing from West Beer City since our visit to Dr F on Thursday previous. Tomorrow I must make some phone calls to find out about the proposed referral to a spine specialist and the proposed sales pitch about Duodopa. No directions from the experts encourage her feelings of being a lost cause.
posted by Kilpike | 10:40 am
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