Chapter 572 - Despairing

 Just a quick note; I've attempted, several times thought about writing here this morning but to recount the last couple of weeks will depress me. Not that life and times have been much worse recently, just that I must clear myself of the need to write here.

I went to sleep perhaps at 1900 last night, waking at 0100 this morning to find her reading, badly dyskinetic. I had not reduced her daytime flow rate from 6.5 to 3.5 for overnight. Shit! Also, at about 2230 she had given herself a bolus rather than wake me. Damn! So from 0100 to 0300 I rolled her from left to right side several times and back a gain, rubbed her legs, attempted to cool her, endure the wall fan blowing on this very cold night, before she eventually dozed off. When I woke at 0610 this morning she was already awake!

I had found she has a more peaceful night when the overnight flow rate is 3.5; well, I assume so because I may only be woken once, rather than several times, by the noise of her dyskinetic feet moving her bedclothes or rattling the rails on the sides of her bed.

Yesterday I discovered that once her daytime dyskinesia begins, usually accompanied by leg stiffness, that 20 minutes on the pedal machine under power, calms her and seems to banish the dyskinesia. At about 1000 this morning her legs became dyskinetic so I enticed her back onto the powered pedals, (seated on her wheelchair of course). She became drowsy. When I took her off the pedals some 15 minutes later the dyskinesia had stopped and has not recommenced yet an hour later.

I sent an email to the clinic nurse at West Beer on Thursday night to query whether hospital observation may be in order, as several up there have contemplated in the past year.

Now to attempt a fish and chip lunch down by the river. A sunny day has to be good for something.

Chapter 571 - Another Time Stamp

 So I've entered another decade. What does that mean to me? Very little, other than I probably won't mark another. A few pleasant phone calls, some nice cards, one with a reminder that a distant rellie on her side will mark the same event next week which motivated me to buy an appropriate card this morning. But first I needed to find a stamp and that resulted in upheaval of drawers and cupboards until I gave up to go to a newsagent's, buy a card and hope that stamps may be available as well, today being Sunday. A suitable card was available for $7.95 and a stamp was $1.10, although I bought a few spares, which all up was worth the price of a couple of coffees I suppose. On the way home I dropped the partly used Duodopa cassettes of the last 6 weeks into the Community Health sharps bin. I had left her searching through the drawers of the cupboard beneath the TV looking for stamps and by the time I returned 45 minutes later she was still at it although I suspect her original motivation had been forgotten. She has since moved to another cupboard and when asked what she was doing replied "Packing things away." although stuff still remains on the floor from the first cupboard. I responded with "But you're pulling things out just to pack them away again." At least the activity entertains her. Yesterday was spent attempting to make a pillow out of an empty pillow case, zippered on one side, and the pillow case and filling remain across the sewing room floor this morning. I think the pillow construction began the night before when she asked to remain up when the Wild Dog Carer came to change her into night attire for bed at 1830. She remained in her wheel chair in the sewing room until about 2200; I was asleep. However, last night she was in bed and dozing by 1830.

She is reading a lot these days, mainly Mills and Boon novels read repeatedly over the years and many probable came from her grandmother. Recently, a carer from Wild Dog loaned her a 400 page romance novel that was read within two weeks. My offer to buy her paper backs by the same author was rejected with the comment she was happy with the Mills and Boon novels as she was unable to remember the stories anyway, so each appears new. I must confess I have difficulty remembering the characters, plots and  titles of books I have recently (as in weeks and months) read as ebooks. She has no desire to return to ebooks. She is able to hold a paperback, turn its pages and dog ear page corners as book marks without difficulty, all of which puzzles me after providing her with ereaders mounted on flexible arms; I can only assume that her eyes are much better since the cataract and glaucoma procedures.

Anyway, to celebrate the dawn of my new decade on Friday I went to the local drive through cafe for 3 servings of fish and chips plus yummy cheese cakes which we enjoyed with our single guest out on our rear patio on a delightfully balmy spring day. And a little merlot of course. Hours later on the far side of the globe many others remembered the day without any thought about me.

Chapter 570 - Ask Not For Whom the Bell Tolls

 In my last post I forgot to mention that on Friday 28th August she suffered what in hindsight I conclude was a food allergy. We have eaten many servings of Bird's Eye "Steam Fresh" frozen fish meals together with full or half servings of Bird's Eye frozen vegetables of various types. We both find such meals flavoursome and easy to eat, especially on her part. On the night in question we both had parsley and citrus sauce frozen fish cutlets and also frozen fried rice, both of which we had enjoyed at other times. On this occasion though, at 1730, after a couple of hiccups her mouth produced a lot of thick saliva, was unable to breathe deeply and became distressed. She ate no more of the meal. She was only able to raise 1 ball on her 3 ball "breathing machine" as we call it. At 1745 I gave her some icecream, thinking this may lessen the thick gooey strands of saliva, but it did not, maybe worsened the saliva. She mentioned that her head was tingling. So at 1750 I gave her some sips of warm water which seemed to help. At 1800 she was able to raise 2 balls in the breathing machine and then she ate the small portion of ice cream. At that point the evening Carer arrived to help put her to bed. We inspected the Bird's Eye packages for mention of MSG which years ago was suspected of upsetting her conventional PD meds (at that time); there were no words or numbers suggestive of MSG on either the fish or the fried rice packages. Since then she has eaten a differently flavoured but similar frozen fish but not the fried rice. I have another of the same flavour of fish to give her as a test but hesitate to do so. I will avoid buying the fried rice again.

The week has been quiet. To satisfy her need to scratch at surfaces I found a short metal peg with which she is able to scrape the sand and moss between the pavers in our rear patio. She has shredded some wool again and has tried to knit a couple of rows. Then she came upon some patchworked squares based on the "flying geese" design (I think that's the name given to the V shaped design) which must have been the last serious attempt she made in such work. On finding a square where her stitching had missed the edge of a segment she began to pull the whole square apart in order to reassemble it. Seemingly errors were found in other squares so these were pulled apart as well; some scissor snipping and some simply tugging with fingers. I was saddened seeing her do it. Then while trying to hang up some clothes (I do the small items leaving her to place her blouses and slacks on hangers) she found that the elastic strap had become partially detached from the stretchy fabric of a sort of "under blouse" thingy she proceeded to just cut the strap away even though I attempted to explain what needed to be done in way of repair. I would have had difficulty with the repair and the original thread was elastic as well. Now on a beautiful Sunday morning she is hanging her clothes again, although she tends to be distracted into sorting and re-positioning what is already hanging, ignoring that to be hanged laying in the clothes basket.

An unexpected phone call yesterday from a nephew of the woman who had done our fortnightly house cleaning for probably the last 12 years. He said she had died, possibly last Tuesday some hours after she was at our place. She had told me due to a heart condition she had to give up work but was prepared to continue at our place until we found someone new; I said that wasn't necessary and that she needn't continue on Tuesday but she wanted to.

If she is inclined, we may go out to enjoy some take-away in the sun shine; she may even consent to a wheel chair walk along the river path.