Grandma update 6

Sunday afternoon, June 8, 2008.
Today was a red-letter day for Marie in several respects. I don’t have a personal Journal (that’s one of my many short-comings!), but if I HAD one, I would write in today’s entry that “today was the day that Marie turned the corner.” Her attitude is brighter and more cheerful and conversational and “perky” than it has been ever since all of this began.
Everything seemed to fall into place today. The food at Rex is really excellent, but sometimes we take her something special. So, for Marie’s lunch today, Karen brought her a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken (original recipe!), plus a “crunchy Taco Supreme” to choose from. She ate (with obvious enjoyment) all of the taco, complete with tomatoes, lettuce, hamburger meat, and sour cream!) That was the first real sign of actual hunger that I have noticed for nearly 3 weeks since this all started.
They have now removed all of Marie’s abdominal drains (tubes, coming from the surgery, that were put in to help drain fluids). She has all of the tubes sticking in her blood-supply removed, except for one in the back of the hand. Her catheter has been removed, and, um, er, how shall I say this? Natural excretion of liquids has occurred today – multiple times!
Tomorrow (Monday), she will probably sign out of the hospital and sign into the Rex Rehab Services, which is on the Rex Hospital property, but is separately administered, I understand. She will live there for an indeterminate amount of time (most likely a minimum of 1 week, maximum of 2 weeks, but everything is “depending”.) They will help her get some strength back, and teach her how to get out of bed and return to bed without assistance, and so on. (I’ll be around to help her do these things, obviously – it’s just that one aim of the Rehab program is to help the patient to become as self-sufficient as possible, as quickly as possible.) They’ll also see that she moves around a lot more than at the hospital, and do various exercises with her that will help her regain her strength, and prepare to return home.
Our children, who gathered when Marie’s problems began, have mostly returned home. As I write this Sunday afternoon, only Karen and Linda remain here, the others having returned to their respective families. Karen will fly home to Dallas tomorrow (Monday). I’m not sure when Linda will go home, but they have seen me over the crisis, and when Marie has left the hospital and entered Rehab, Marie won’t need the family hovering and watching over her every night (thank you so much, Steve, Mike, Glen, Linda, Kathy and Karen!) So I imagine Linda will return home in the next 2 or 3 days. Rex Hospital put a cot in Marie’s various rooms in that hospital, and one of our girls has spent the entire night each night with Marie to help ensure that she had family care and help if she needed it.
A number of you have inquired when Marie will be able to receive visitors. I assume this will happen while she is at Rehab, but I have not received any specific information about that yet. In the hospital, we felt she needed to rest more than she needed to talk with visitors. In Rehab, things will probably be a lot different. We will let y’all know.
This will probably be my penultimate (love that word! As you know, it means “next-to-last”) report on Marie’s condition. The final report, if all goes well, will be when I report to you that Marie has returned home from Rehab, whenever that happens!
Thanks to all of you whose love and service and prayers have been so wonderful to us during this most difficult time. We are so grateful to you for your phone-calls, your emails, your caring, for your many offers to help. Thank you, thank you!