Day 74 - A Load of Hot Air

We managed to get a day today when we didn't have to go out anywhere. James was unavailable for physio and Ann Lewis from the Stroke association came to visit this morning.

At 1.30 the OT technician arrived to fit the second bannister, which was duly completed in under an hour. We also had a call from social services saying they had a hydraulic bath seat for us as recommended by Doug (remember him) from the care team. Seems the whole thing went through pretty quickly, and they are coming to install next wednesday.

So, for the first time in a while cleo managed to get a couple of hours sleep this afternoon, continental style. After her siesta, she was refreshed, and we had pizza for tea with the girls.

By 7.30 cleo was still wide awake, and hadn't hit "the wall", which was good. As the dreaded weekend looms with me having to work, cleo wanted a shower and so we decided to do that this evening. Now our bathroom is at the back of the house, and can best be described as "in the garden". I guess that when the house was built that bathroom was not there, and was added at a much later date. It's effectively an extension that is simply a brick box, with little or no insulation. Consequently when the weather is cold, so is the bathroom. there is a radiatoir there from the central heating but it still doesn't get very warm in the bathroom.

Between the door from the kitchen and the bathroom there is a small utility type area, and our washing machine and tumble dryer are located there. The tumble dryer creates huge amounts of heat while drying clothes that seems wasted. There is a sort of venting system that had never been fitted to the dryer to carry that warm air away. This is simply a fascia and tube that attaches to the front of the dryer. I decided to fit the pipe tonight, and ran it through to the bathroom door where, once the tumble dryer was on produced volumes of warm air into the bathroom. In about 10 minutes the bathroom was noticeably warmer than before.

On getting into and out of the shower cleo was far more comfortable than previously, as its now far less cold in the bathroom. This should also help when she is in the bath too.

Once showered she was tired, and so at about 9.30 she went to bed, but that was a far better time than the 7.30 of recent days. We definitely need to look at this sleep in the afternoon idea.

Having done some of the exercises suggested by the speech therapist cleo found her face lesss numb this afternoon, which is a good sign; if a day's exercises can do that, a few weeks worth should have her mouth and cheek back to normal.

Having slept after the bannister was fitted we then tried the descent of the stairs, and clkeo got down them for the first time without coming down on her backside as she has since she came home. Another milestone, even though she is still too nervous to attempt this onher own without someone there, but again, it's another major achievement, and one that we can work on for the future.