More progress

I returned yesterday morning from spending three full days with Mom. I got her moved from the hospital to a rehab center, aka a "skilled nursing facility" or "SNiF," a name which I personally think should be abandoned, as it's only one letter away from Snuf.

The nursing home is good, though, and the staff for the most part very good. In particular, the physical therapists are excellent. Within two days, mom went from being completely unable to assist us in transferring her from a wheelchair to the passenger seat of my rental car, to being able to walk about twenty feet with a walker - from her room to the dining room where I'd been waiting while she had her PT. After two weeks of inactivity, and weeks before that of declining health and lousy nutrition (she says only jello and orange slices tasted good), she is getting her strength back. The staff seems to know just how to encourage her to work, and just when to back off, when to allow for her weakness or the wound pain.

Much more significantly, she says she actually can imagine getting well now. To me, this is the most optimistic sign. She admitted that even when we'd visited her in February, she hadn't cared about anything. And while in the hospital, she'd felt so bad (and foggy from the drugs), that she had no real will to pull through.

We had some really good talks and lots of laughs while I was there, and Mom emphatically labeled it "such a nice visit."

There's still no saying how well things will continue to go, and I think everyone is "guardedly optimistic." She will always have congestive heart failure (35% functionality, the chart said), and fairly advanced kidney disease (IV), and right now, her wound is deep enough that it's like an anatomy lesson in itself (a whole chunk of muscle is just plain gone, and let me tell you, tendons are really white). But her spirits are so improved, and the time we've spent together was so good (for her, too - not just for me), that I feel like every day she's still around is a bright gift, instead of a roller coaster ride in the dark.