Thursday's Tumbles and Stumbles~ The Ongoing Saga...

The past couple weeks has been mild in comparison here at the Murphey Saga household. I kept waiting for the terrifying drop of the roller coaster that I knew was around the next bend. It didn't stop me from enjoy some semblance of normalcy by saga standards...barring my hubby dearest's bout with pneumonia and a slight return of his congestive heart failure. Yes, even these occurrences have been deemed slightly frantic after a year of dealing with with them.

Well the dip started Sunday with a choking episode on his part. It's a regular happening with me, due to my aphasia after my stroke, so it's hardly worth mentioning. That episode was followed by eight more over the rest of the day into the next. This was a sign of trouble and needed to be addressed.

Almost every meal became a quick dash of me to the assisted rescue. He has been on a finely chopped meat diet or soft diet for a several months. We have now entered the realm of semi-pureed foods. Nothing overly spicy or seasoned and ground to toddler food consistency.

Now we are not talking about a huge amounts of food in any one meal. I'm still measuring quantities in an eighth of a cup servings for him. Try as he might, he can't eat more than that at one sitting so we have gone to six meals a day trying to maintain as close to 3,000 to 6,000 calories a day. That's including chocolate. I am now making cake pops for him the other way, crumbled cake and frosting mixed together because he has to have a source of liquid to swallow it.

His weight loss has stopped for the time being. He now weighs 90 lbs. His hospice nurse and I feel that he has lost all the weight he can. Any more will be the loss of organ tissue weight. He gains and loses the same half a pound dependent of bowel movements and when the weight was taken, but his Spirit is good.

Now for me, I had a rough time in therapy this week. Ever since last week the muscles in my right (affected) arm has been on the verge of cramping. You know that feeling where you feel like if you move it, you'll get a Charlie Horse. Although when I moved it the arm never locked down into a cramp, but the feeling was there.


I knew my stretching by the therapist would either rectify the problem or cause it to totally cramp up. My next series of Botox isn't until mid March so it probably wasn't the Botox wearing off yet. Yes, it kicked back in after my kidney infection resolved.

I usually scheduled my massage therapy on one day  and my OT on the next to optimize both. As luck would have it, I broke a strap on my AFO over the weekend. My ankle was twisting inside my AFO just like it did in my old one. Monday and Tuesday, my local Hanger Clinic was closed. Wednesday I couldn't be seen until the afternoon. A pressure sore developed. ARGH! It wasn't to the point of rupture, but still very tender and swollen.

I hobbled into the office and while they were fixing my brace, the receptionist informed me that my new shoes were ready. Hot Dog! a twofer. I was beginning to feel the luck of the Irish was smiling at me. I waited to be squeezed in between other patients. The clock slowly ticked off an hour before she ushered me into an office. The shoes fit perfectly! God Bless Keith, my ortho guy. He's now retired and will be sorely missed.

I missed my massage therapy appointment, but rescheduled for after my OT session. It's kind of neat that my massage therapist and my OT talk to each other (with my permission) about my treatments. Now, keep in mind they are two separate practices. My OT will tell my massage therapist to work on certain trigger points after our session and vice versa. That's what I call, continuity in care and therapist going the extra mile for my sake.

The next day, I was really sore after two treatments in one day. In fact I was in PAIN!

While the arm moved fairly freely, the pain had me not moving it. After a shower (yes I finally got one), I looked in the mirror at my right side. I didn't really expect to see anything even though I had two bruises the size of a half dollar at my wrist. But there they were...bruises on other painful points. One about midway on my clavicle, another under my arm on the chest, and another at the cap of my shoulder. Now, I'm not sure who is to blame for this or if it's both of the therapists. I do know that it was not done intentionally, but never the less, I spent four miserable days until it eased up. It was days of reaching for my pain medicine, but deciding to grin and bear it.

So that was my week. How was yours?