Visiting

We just came back from visiting my mother at the rehab center. The news there is generally good.

Her speech is generally understandable now -- fuzzy enough to notice, but not bad. She can eat if the food is thick, and she's learned a couple of tricks to make choking less likely. The bad news is that the right side of her jaw is still on the weak side, so she can't easily handle food there. They're working on that.

Physically, she's obviously getting stronger. In some ways -- getting into and out of a low bed -- she can do it by herself. She needs a walker to move around, and our sense is that she'll probably need one for a while. She's got one that she received when she came home from heart bypass surgery, but we might get an upgraded one for her that's got larger wheels and incorporates a seat (not a wheelchair, but it could be used as one) because she tends to get out of breath. The buzzword for that sort of device appears to be 'rollator', and its a bit of a challenge to find a web site for them which doesn't look as if it were hacked together by two guys running an enterprise of dubious legality. But we'll look....

The expectation is that she'll come home on Saturday. I'm a little apprehensive about that, but not as much as I have been. Seeing her move helps. And she'll continue outpatient therapy after she comes home, which is also good. She's not real big on doing those exercises by herself.

I did notice that as I was walking around the physical therapy room, I tended to hide the slight limp that I've still got from the hip surgery.