The walker is in use

Friday afternoon Ed's walker was delivered, and he immediately began walking around the house much better--much steadier on his feet and with less worry about the sore hip possibly causing a fall. Today (Monday), the home care therapist came and checked the height of it (I did fine with that) and moved the wheels that are on the front legs so that they are inside the legs instead of outside. As a result, Ed can get into our powder room just off the family room using the walker now that it's not quite as wide. It was clearing the doorways of the bathroom and bedroom but he couldn't maneuver inside the bathroom with it before. Amazing what an extra inch or so can do.

I think I'm detecting a pattern with the new patch for pain. We change the patch every 72 hours, putting a new one on at 9 p.m. Ever since he started on the patch, he has been scratching pretty much everywhere on his body. This itchiness is a known side effect. What I'm noticing is that the next day after a new patch he is either extremely sleepy and/or dazed and in a fog. He can't even answer simple questions though he ponders each one until he finally gives up on answering (or I give up waiting for an answer). Then on day 2 he is alert, talkative, eating better--in fact on Saturday he even asked for a milkshake in the afternoon, something he hasn't wanted (or anything else cold, for that matter) in quite a few days. Then on day 3 he is awake but has no energy. If I can confirm this pattern over the remaining 2 days of the current patch, you can bet I'll be on the doctor's case about whether this patch is too powerful for right now. It was prescribed so that Ed wouldn't have to swallow any more pills than necessary; however, it doesn't seem to take care of the hip soreness any better than Tylenol did, I think. What I haven't figured out yet is whether we are seeing some cognitive impairment again from the brain lesions or if it's from the pain patch. Ed notices it, too. He is struggling to come up with certain words again. He is having difficulty writing down his blood pressure readings with the date expressed correctly. He has tried to talk about various grandkids and great-grands with visitors but gets them mixed up; for instance, he reversed the ages and accomplishments of Grayton and Sadie and he referred to Lilly as Millie.

Ed's mouth has healed. I don't see any sores inside anymore. However, he is still having difficulty swallowing, and as I said above, he does not want cold things to swallow. I take this difficulty swallowing as confirmation that the lesion in the throat is the cause of this problem. The Magic Mouthwash hardly helps with that at all, so we'll have to find out what else we can do. Meanwhile, he still has no appetite nor taste buds and pretty much only eats a little pudding, jello, mashed potatoes, Ensure, and the occasional bowl of Cheerios.

This coming Saturday we will be having everybody over for supper--hopefully the rain won't ruin a cookout. Grandson Jeremy gets in Thursday from St Louis, Melissa and Mark will arrive Friday from Iowa, Sherry flies in Saturday morning early from St. Louis; everybody else lives around here. Nothing like adding to the traffic of Memorial Day weekend.

Guess I got a little long-winded with this posting. To all who have asked, I'm hanging in there, so far handling everything so long as I can have a good cry in private once a day.
Joni