Five months in… a quick update

It’s been just over five months since Mum had her stroke and it’s been a long, frantic, uncertain and eventful time.

Coming up to six months, I’m going to try to document the gains Mum has made in that time and to continue to update the blog more frequently.

For now, Mum is the Sub-Acute Care Unit (SACU) at the Townsville Hospital (in the spacious bed 42) getting hands-on medical care and rehab. Research is emerging that stroke patients benefit from rehabilitation up to and beyond two years post-stroke so it’s fantastic Mum’s facility has recognised this.

At the recent family meeting, the staff expressed how pleased they were with Mum’s progress – especially in Speech Pathology and OT –and that they’re particularly pleased with how hard-working she is. Mum continues to be the hardest-working patient in SACU despite her ongoing neuropathic pain and recurring urinary tract infections (UTI). Unfortunately, the UTIs leave Mum confused and she had quite a bad weekend this week. They’ve changed her antibiotic now and what a change a few days makes!

Mum had fantastic speech and OT sessions today; practicing transitions in and out of Dad’s car and then onto and off the toilet. These are both BIG advances in her mobility that could see her making more extended visits outside the centre. She went home to the Moreton Ash property on Sunday but was only there ten minutes before having to come back to use the toilet. Getting onto and off a toilet with a pivot will mean she can use a disabled toilet anywhere and getting into a car means we won’t have to book disabled taxis for her travel anymore either. Mum aspires to go back to shopping again so is excited at the prospect of easy day trips.

It’s a work in progress though – getting out of the car involves her moving toward her bad side and we think she may have twisted her ankle today.

I was able to attend Mum’s physio session on Monday before I flew back to Canberra and cannot believe how much stronger she is. I’ll be doing up a post on this over the weekend but she was able to stand for several minutes and walk (aided and with assistance of course) the length of the gym. This was despite hallucinating from the UTI and experiencing some severe vertigo (cause of the latter unknown).

The Unit is also finalising Mum’s new wheelchair and that should help with her back and side pain. The specifications for that should be done this week and then it’ll just be a case of waiting for the WunderChair to show up.

Addendum: Mum’s unhappy with my “Carna Cats” joke from the previous post and wants me to change it to “Go the Mighty Maroons” because she thinks the Cats reference is too much of a family in-joke. Thought I’d share that with you all before refusing to change the post title.