Tuesday Update

Tuesday, August 5

 

Today Judy, Dick, and Carl continued to deal with some of the business issues with Carl’s prescriptions and preparing for the move to Timbercrest. Then we traveled to Ft. Wayne.

 

It was a fairly quiet day after a very noisy night. Storms moved through North Manchester around midnight, so the Bucher clan and Judy and Dick moved to the basement of the Bucher’s home for a while. The basement is where Carl has been sleeping, but he missed the party and didn’t even realize we had come down. But the storm passed without damage.

 

Apparently, Doreen had another bout of nausea during physical therapy in the morning, but no other problems with it during the rest of the day. Occupational therapy went very well and included an audience part of the time—the Buchers and two of their grandsons. Unfortunately, speech therapy did not go as well. After starting well with lip and vocal cord exercises, Doreen fell asleep and was not able to wake for the end of the therapy session. She had worked hard in the other sessions, so maybe it was just too much to expect another. Her eating was similar to the past several days—about 10-15 bites per meal. All of the therapists commented on improvements they had seen in the last several days, in spite of the struggles. Slow and steady progress….

 

The final plans were set for the surgery to insert a feeding tube. It will be done on Friday at 10:30 in Parkview Hospital. Doreen will be treated as an outpatient, getting the treatment and moving right back to Progressive. Hopefully, the tube will help to free her from the IV feedings, keep her blood sugar more balanced, and allow her to build more strength to complete her recovery.

 

We will now be moving into a new stage of routines and different levels of support from the family. Judy, Linda, and Karen need to get back to work and other family responsibilities. Judy will be able to be present during the surgery on Friday, but there will be days when none of the daughters will be available. We appreciate the caring from the larger community who have been visiting Doreen and supporting Carl. We hope Carl will be able to move into Timbercrest by next week, but there are still a few tasks to complete before then. We are deeply grateful to Darlene and Gordon Bucher for housing all of us during all of this time, and also for being a support system for Carl when the rest of the family is not available over the next several days.

 

Many of you have offered to transport Carl to Ft. Wayne to visit Doreen. Your generosity is welcome and humbling. We do have some requests regarding how the visiting should be handled, however. First, it is not necessary for Carl to visit every day. The visits can be emotionally exhausting, and growth and improvements are not as obvious with very frequent visits. Also, we ask that Carl not be left at the hospital alone. It would be best for those who are willing to transport him to take him for short time and remain with him during that time. It would be fine to take him along on other errands and activities during the trip. We all need to be reminded that there is another world outside of the hospital! If you are interested in helping with some of these trips, please coordinate those trips through a family member at this point. Later, we hope to have a small group of friends at Timbercrest who can serve in this role. And we sincerely hope it will not be too much longer before Doreen and Carl can be in the same location!

 

Look for the next post on Friday night after the surgery, unless something dramatic happens between then and how. Thanks for all of your continuing care and support!