Corn Flakes

The body and brain and are mysteries. I feel like a detective, trying to assess Meagan's physical and mental condition and adjust each day to suit her capacities and inclinations. Yesterday (Wednesday the 27th) was a pretty good day for her. By the end of the day I thought the right balance had been struck between rest, rehab, and relationships. She was able to get some stimulation and work parts of her body and yet also enjoy some times with family and friends. And funny enough, her body continues to crave and demand certain things as it attempts to resume control over her sodium levels. So Ritz crackers remain high on the list - munching quite happily 3-5 with each "feeding" as I term it of her pills.


Shortly after awaking from one nap after a therapy session she announced, "corn flakes, I want corn flakes for dinner". With all due respect to the wonderful faeries who are supporting us with food during this sojourn so I can concentrate on her recovery, what the queen wants, the queen gets. Trish was coming by for a quick visit after work and texted me to tell me she was on her way and did I need anything. I don't think she expected the answer, "corn flakes", but she was game and picked some up. Sure enough when it came time for dinner, Meagan downed a large bowl of corn flakes. There was some residual milk in her bowl and she wanted more. She got up and went to the cereal cupboard to get more and found a small box of Special K I had purchased at the hospital and brought home. She decided this would make a nice dessert, and polished that off as well. And was very content. Now Meagan has never had a large bowl of cereal in her life (although we have been known to have cereal for dinner on occasion during the child rearing years); they were always modest in size, let alone seconds. Reading the nutrition labels in advance though offered the explanation - a 1/2 cup serving of Corn Flakes has 200mg of sodium. So with milk all told I bet she consumed 1,000 milligrams of sodium for dinner.  Her body was clearly talking to her.

She had two rehab sessions yesterday. The first was with the speech therapist who I had not met before, who seemed very nice, a woman who lives nearby. I introduced them and left them alone in facing chairs by our gas fireplace. I went in our living room to work, and heard them talking for the next hour like old friends, just chattering away. As the therapist left, she said, "your wife is just wonderful". I have no idea what kind of "therapy" occurred, but if talking away for an hour is therapy then I know Meagan liked it. But it was tiring and she had a good nap before having lunch and the arrival of the next one, a physical therapist. She got Meagan out for a 15 minute walk around the neighborhood - a first! After she left, Meagan took another nap, before moving onto the relationship side of things starting with a visit from her mom.

I believe I have the schedule down for her. Never start anything before 10:00a.m. - she needs the time to sleep in and have a slow ramp to getting fed and dressed. Space the therapists out with nap time in-between. Schedule fun visits with friends in the late afternoon. She was happy with how the day went. She also continued to make progress on small tasks, life feeding the dogs. She does lose track of time during the day, and told me that today she intends to start wearing her watch again. All signs of progress.

Today we go see Dr. Kaplan and even though we have to get out the door a bit before 10:00a.m. she is ok with it because she likes him so much. And she has two therapy sessions later in the day.

I grateful for Bobbie's support with managing the Faerie network - I think scheduling Meagan's visits next week will work out well; she is anxious to see people. But it's a little too much for me to continue to be social secretary and manage the other aspects of her life. She remains positive and upbeat, anxiety free and still thinks her hospital stay was a good experience. She continues to say, "life is good".