Group hug needed

[Liberty Belle]

52. Updates on Mom

Some good news: She was able to walk 10 steps today with a walker and a lot of coaxing. So she may be able to get strong enough to not be bedridden. That's after days of refusing to try and take a step. She is due to get her second COVID shot today, too.

The 24/7 caregiver sitter aka "spy" we hired has been worth the money though we can't afford it much longer. She can translate when we talk to Mom through the window, and alerted us to a possible bowel obstruction that's causing Mom pain every time she has to go, which apparently is about every 15 minutes during the daytime; enemas and laxatives haven't helped so the doctor finally ordered a scan.

Mom is relatively lucid though with zero short term memory.

They moved her to a room in front of the nursing station, with a pad by the bed to lessen the chance of injury if she tries to get up on her own.

I am hoping if she can start walking and get the bowel pain solved, which is the reason she keeps trying to get up and go to the bathroom, maybe she can sleep through the night and we can scale back the number of hours the sitter has to be there, until we can come up with a better long term scenario.

She is in quarantine for another 9 days; after that she can go into the main rehab facility where there's equipment like stationary bikes to help her get stronger. Right now she can only have physical therapy in the room, which is limited.

She is still eating very little, and would probably eat nothing if not for the sitter. I think even if Mom is doing better on other things I would still hire her 5 hours a day (the minimum) for a little longer to help coax her to eat and drink, and translate for our daily visits (ie talk loudly into Mom's ear so she knows what we say to her)

The money is still an an enormous concern. Maybe I should go buy a lottery ticket; there seems to be no other way to afford the care she really needs.

Damn to hell the bastard Republicans who have blocked universal healthcare for all, which is what we sorely need.