9/19 Real Food

He called me at 7am and said Im up.  You're up?  Yes, Im up in my chair...bye.  and hung up.  o.O

okay?

40 minutes later he calls me again.  Buck is sitting in the sun and wont come to me.  WHAT?  Richard you are having a hallucination, where are you.  Have you eaten this morning?  No.  Im in my chair.  Richard you just took your ropinerole you need to get some food in your stomach do you have food to eat?  Yes.  I'll go eat.  You think Im having a hallucination?  Yes you are, Buck is here with me.  Interesting, he says. Later when Im talking to him about this he says that his CNA comes in and he tells his CNA, you know I'm having a hallucination so you are not really here...to which his CNA replies...oh really?  hehe.  We laughed about that for a while.  Here's the thing.  This hallucination had ME standing at the end of his bed...but he called me.  And also him saying buck is sitting in the sun...I showed him that picture of buck in the sun at Alamo Square yesterday.  Its almost as if his memory is cross wiring.  We discussed this.  He said that visually everything is completely real and there.  These seems less than before, but he was also doing this prior to the stroke and I have no barometer there.  This will be discussed at the VA neurology appointment.

My glasses were finally ready today.  This place is in the financial district, and in my mind I have no idea where that is in the city in comparison to Where Richard is, but after fumbling my way with the bus from there to him I think its East. 

I walked by a nice looking lunch spot called Urban something on the way that had those yummy Vietnamese sandwiches, so when i was done I doubled back there and grabbed a couple then headed to him.  Stopped at the corner Jeruselum store to find a drink and got a couple bottles of that fermented tea stuff that all the rage - Kombucha. One was a green power pack of vitamins probiotics and vitamins the other was a guava something.  I tasted both before I shared and the green one tasted like a cat turd so I gave him the guava.


When I got there the speech therapist was working with him.  They had a small glass of water and he was practicing taking sips, swallowing properly (chin tucked) checking his voice for rattle, clearing his throat, swallowing again...  Raise you hand if you remember the annoying rattle grandpa always had in his voice.   Richard is not allowed to have that although he does often.  He has to continually clear his throat.  I swear I read somewhere this was not the appropriate action with Parkinson's.  They are worried that will go down the wrong way...how that would happen I still have not figured out.  But the good news is that after that whole thing today she says they are going to move him to a regular diet tomorrow.  So I promised no outside food to give him a chance to try to survive on it.  Lets be honest...hes pretty much been on a normal diet since I got here much to their grumblings about it.

So I say to him...do you remember grandpa used to always have that...he said yeah...I though it was a Sicilian thing you inherited at a certain age....  HAHA!

He did all of his therapies today.  Physical they worked on strength.  He did arm bar , and a rubber band stretch exercise.  Speech was swallowing and throat clearing, and occupational I'm not sure, but his left is definitely getting better.  Less tremors, still difficulty steadying perfectly but it is not as bad as it was.  His targeting with it is improved as well.

In the middle of our sandwich he got up to use the restroom and walked there on his own, but was not completely steady on his feet.  He also walked himself back to the bed and did not flop, but rather sat down proper.

He had a full day today, but I gave him the Arlene is coming back in a week speech and told him he better work extra hard this week if he wants to break out of there ;)