Saturday, 13 December 2008

Another home visit

Jo got up at 08:30 and I picked her up at 11:00 for our first overnight stay in preparation for her discharge on the 22nd of December.

Despite the inclement weather we managed the transfer in and out of the car without incident. Once at home Jo managed to find the letters to the left of the keyboard reasonably well when inputting her password on the computer and played solitaire for a couple of hours until lunch, which must be good brain therapy.

After a sumptuous lunch of various oriental delicacies she slept in her armchair. I placed her left arm on the armrest, propped up with a pillow to stop it falling off onto her lap. This proved efficacious and that position should help to support that shoulder, which is only now showing signs of dropping out of its socket, something they mentioned at Addenbrookes. The physiotherapist has ordered a support for this as, once Jo starts walking; the strain will increase until the arm regains muscle power.

I placed Jo's legs on the leather footstool, which afforded more support than the pouffe. While Jo slept I observed her drawing up her left leg at the knee several times.

When Jo woke up at 17:00 she performed one of those involuntary stretches we all do upon waking. Her left arm stretched in concert with the right, lifting it against gravity. Then, as I was helping her on to the rotunda, she pulled the left arm back with distinct force.

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Different strokes...

It has been nearly seven years since Jo suffered a "controlled" stroke whilst undergoing brain surgery to clip the blood vessel that had caused a subarachnoid haemorrhage in 2000. Sadly two successive coilings did not occlude the bleed and so Jo had a craniotomy in August 2008. During surgery the surgeon discovered the coiling had penetrated the rear of the aneurysm, occasioning emergency repair procedures. Consequentially they spent one and a half hours longer in surgery than expected, leading to the right half of Jo's brain forgetting it has to look after the left side of her world.