Day 88 - Moving On

Physio today with james was spent working on extending cleo's wrist and elbow, to stretch the muscles and to create some more flexibility. James is pleased that the arm has not tightened up too much these last couple of days, and will continue to work on it in the future. I just know that he is going to eventually get a response from cleo's arm or hand.

We also spoke with James about goal setting with the home care team, and it is important that we agree those goals and targets rather than simply accept what they decide is best for us. I have this idea that we ought to call a "meet the team" meeting at home for all the members of the care team so we can all decide whats best. I do not want them making choices on our behalf without us involved.

cleo and I also talked about progress, and how she feels sometimes that she isn't making much right now, but I pointed out that compared to say, 4 weeks ago, she has made huge progress. Daily the improvement may not be noticeable, but if you measure the things she can do now, compared to a few weeks ago, her rehabilitation is moving at a good pace. While she still gets very tired, and while she is still frustrated by her inability to do things, we are learning to overcome that through new techniques.

Sometimes she forgets what she cannot do: tonight for example, she was picking something up from the floor in the kitchen, and fell over. Nothing bad, just a fall onto the carpet, but I see two things in that: a reminder to her to be careful, but also the fact that she will do these things, which in my view is good. If she were not prepared to take those "risks" then she would never improve anyway.

Our planning has turned to the handfasting, and we are already looking at some new ideas since the wedding. More of that later.

We need to keep moving cleos rehab on, and that can only happen if we work at it, and if we push those who are there to help as well, which i am quite happy to do. We know that iof you push hard enough you generally get what you need, which we know from when cleo was in the hospital, and i will continue to do that as long as it takes.