Chapter 564 - A Pleasing Week

Each morning now I give her a Bolus dose of 2.0 around about 0715; too early around 0615 as I change the flow rate from 2.8 to 7.0 causes early alertness and a wish to get out of bed; too late around 0730 she is too unresponsive to be easily moved from bed to commode. Also I must be very careful not to wake her before 0730 so not to initiate dyskinesias. And my small phone, which sounds alarms to remind me of changes to be made, needs to be out in the kitchen ASAP to not disturb her. This morning the whole exercise worked perfectly from pump changes (Bolus at 0712) to having her use the pedals by 0750 when the Wild Dog carer arrived.

Each morning she is set up to do an archived session of Dance for PD but on Tuesday she participated in the locally Zoomed Dance 4 Wellbeing where she recognises familiar faces. One morning she became agitated that she was unable to stand behind a chair, as did participants of Dance for PD, so I placed her wheel chair in the sit-to-stand frame for some exercises, doing about 10 stands each day but did not yesterday and today because my lower back began experiencing sharp pains whenever I was slightly off vertical or stooped for something. She wanted to apply Voltaren to my back, so I let her do so and today my back is much better, although that may have something to do with my walking for an hour and a half along the new extension to the river walking path, to the far end at Riversdale on my 3 hour respite on Friday afternoon.

On Thursday she had her toenails clipped at the podiatrist. At that time her big toes were not painful even tough she frequently experiences pain seemingly in the joints of her big toes. She made a point of it to the carer this morning and lotion was rubbed into them. The blemish on the outer side of her left calf has not reduced, is perhaps a little wider today than when I took photos of it 8 days ago. I suggested that I take her to see Dr J this coming week and she readily agreed.

On the same day I sent a memory stick containing the video clips taken in the early hours one night in June demonstrating the effect of turning her in bed to stop dyskinesia, also about a week's worth of FitBit charts to her neurologist for comments. The male clinic nurse was disinterested in this material so comments may not be forthcoming. I detect non-responsiveness on their parts. Perhaps they have given up on her, maintain the status quo, the end of her journey is much closer now than its beginning.

A few days ago she began stitching together the knitted squares (I think these came from the Wild Dog group she attended a few years ago) but yesterday she began pulling the knitting undone, whether to change the size of some of them I don't know , she can't explain. This activity keeps her occupied for hours. She is at it now, has been for about an hour. Time passes; what does she think about as her fingers pick at the woolen thread?