A Weekend of Visits

Even without visits from her physio, OT, speech therapist and doctor, Mum’s weekend ended up being extremely busy. She had visits from loads of family and friends.

She was very happy to see her friends Annie and Sally first up Saturday morning as well as Dad’s brothers Steve and Russell and their wives Lyn and Nola. Around lunchtime, Ben’s ex Dan stopped by to say hi and Mum was so glad to see him again.

Visits are extremely important to help with several aspects of Mum’s therapy. They help to combat post-stroke depression of course but also help Mum to re-learn the social skills impacted by her right hemisphere stroke. Right hemisphere damage can have a serious impact on a persona’s ability to engage socially. They can begin to talk too little or too much, make inappropriate comments and be unable to pick up social cues. Not being able to see out of one eye certainly doesn’t help the latter.

After so many visitors, Mum was obviously very tired Saturday night and slept extremely well.

This morning, Mum and Dad’s wonderful neighbours, Tom and Sonia Baird, Dad’s sister Lynnie and Mum’s old friend Iris Preston and Jim Brown stopped by too. What a great (if tiring) weekend of visits.

One worrying thing today though is that Mum’s beginning to show signs of a urinary tract infection again. She’s been talking about dogs and cats on the ward and we’ve asked the nurses to test her again to see if the infection has returned. At least, if she is hallucinating, she’s hallucinating comforting things.

I’m back at work this week but will keep making updates. Thanks everyone again for all your love and support during this time,