Thursday, July 2

Day 15 - Well it's been two weeks now since she had her stroke.

I was eating lunch with my kids and got a phone call from my sister-in-law Barb saying someone wanted to talk to me. My mom got on the phone and I could actually understand most of what she was saying. She was sitting in a chair and was wondering when I was coming up with the kids and she looked forward to seeing us. WOW!!!

I got up to the hospital around 1:45pm and she was back in bed. She was wide awake though and was excited to see us. She was laying watching TV. We propped her head up a little bit more so she could see the kids better and she just talked our ears off.

We did try and get her to take a nap, so we went for a walk. I think she only slept for about 30 minutes though.

When she woke up a therapist came in to check her throat to see if she could swallow at all. The therapist gave her a little bit of water on a spoon and she seem to be able to swallow that OK, so out came the applesauce. Mom was able to feed herself and the therapist checked to see if she was swallowing that OK. Some swallows were very strong and some were not. She got to eat about a 1/4 cup of that. She said that tasted very good!

The therapist plans on being back at least 1 more time this weekend to try again and then they are going to do more on Monday.

She knew my brother Randy would be coming up to see her, so she wanted to get in her chair to surprise him and boy was he surprised. She actually took some steps to the chair herself with lots of help. Big improvement from last week.

Updated at 8:34pm:
Got a call from my brother Randy and they are moving her out of ICU up a floor to the intermediate floor, so that is a great big step forward. Of course she thinks she is going home, she even wanted to call everyone to tell them that they didn't have to go to the hospital anymore to see her.

She is still confused about a lot of stuff, but that may get better over time.