M's coming home! After two sweet home visits, on two successive Sundays, he'll sleep in his own bed this Friday. It's a sign of his improvement that I am eager to have him home and feel I am better able to care for him - after all, it will be a ratio of one to one - than the nursing staff at TIRR.
Having M at home presents its own set of challenges. I'll be getting seven ready for the day (four humans and three animals) and out of the house by 7:15 in the morning. For one week, the last week of school, I'll drop the children off, then take M to TIRR. I've hired a caregiver to attend M in the mornings at TIRR, so I'll meet her then zip off to my work at GHASP for the morning. I'll relieve her at lunch and stay with M until the end of his work day, generally 4:30. I'll gather my chicks and we'll have dinner together, lovingly prepared by friends, for the first time in over three months.
I don't know how well M sleeps through the night. Though I spent the night with him for the first three weeks he was at TIRR, that's been long ago. We used to get up early in the morning to exercise- he would run and I would walk with friends - from 5 to 6 a.m. Who knows how it will be now. And so the day starts again.
Today I was told that M will be served through the TIRR day program (with his same therapists, in the same facility as now) through June 15th. We've been so worried that his insurance had low limits on outpatient therapy (20 visits or less), but apparently Aetna has an internal directive extending care beyond regular policy limits in cases such as M's. According to the case manager at TIRR, his therapy is unlimited and must only have a certification of medical necessity at the 5 week mark.
Please pray for strength, protection, and good humor for me. This comes from the person who fell trying to walk and talk at the same time getting the kids off to school this week. And who spent a half hour trying to persuade M with logic that he was not injured a year and three months ago, that he really hasn't loaded up the wheelchair in the car to drive around the hospital, which really is a school.
Please pray for the signals to get through better and better on Ms left side, that he understands his predicament just enough to be safe and reasonable, but not enough to be overwhelmed with depression, and that his memory be reliable. Please pray that our children grow through this experience and grow more loving and kind not judgmental or avoiding or dramatic (a tall order for intense preteens).
I am so thankful for our little, manageable, wheelchair-friendly house. I thank God for friends and neighbors who have rallied round, with prayers and meals and errands and yardwork and money and more. Bless you all.
