Can You Hear Me Now?

The good: The staff are really nice and helpful (most of the time).

The bad: 97% of the residents in my “pod” of the unit are totally incoherant.

The good: I really like my dining companions, makes meals more enjoyable.

The bad: I really miss my kitty companions.

The good: The food, 90% of the time, is really good. We get three meals a day, yummy desserts after lunch and dinner, and evening snacks.

The bad: The food, 90% of the time, is really good. We get three meals a day, yummy desserts after lunch and dinner, and evening snacks. I will never lose weight here!

The good: I have my power chair here now and can boot around the entire building.

The bad: Everything is closed over the holidays.

Yesterday was a boring day, I told my dad to take the day off and NOT visit me or do anything related to my needs. The man needs to take breaks, but then again I don’t think he knows what to do with himself if he doesn’t have his kids to distract him from his own life. So of COURSE he called me from the store while picking up the slippers I casually mentioned I could use (since I’m always in a wheelchair and I hate wearing shoes. Which are tight, with the way my feet have puffed up). So he bought me slippers, but I would not let him drop them off to me last night!

Today the plan was to get me home for a few hours, but I got into an email conversation with Coach K. last night about my NMES/TENS machine and he said he would drop by to help me and my dad figure it out. As a body builder-type, he has one and knows where to place the electrode pads. So he brought the lattes and my dad brought the sandwiches, and we spent a couple of hours hooking me up to electrodes and watching my muscles pump and my hand jerk around. I was like a puppet and Coach K. was the puppet master. It was very cool. Later on my dad and I did my right calf. I sure hope I can use this daily!

At the moment, these are the people out in the sitting room:

1) a very old Chinese lady who doesn’t speak or understand a word of English. She is belted into her wheelchair, but always undoes it and tries to stand up. There is an alarm that goes off when she does that, so she’s always beeping.

2) an old man in one of those bed type wheelchairs who cannot communicate or move himself. Once in awhile he spasms and kicks his shoes off.

3) an old lady who lives in her own little world, babbling non stop about nothing anyone understands and yelling out her daughter’s name every other sentence.

4) another old lady who cannot communicate, so they place her in front of the TV and put the brakes on her chair.Not knowing how to undo the brakes, she somehow manages to slowly move herself back and forth, around the room a bit, with her legs. She seems so determined to go somewhere, but just can’t go far. That’s the story of everyone here, I think.

I’m not making any friends yet…