My mom is home

My mom came home on Saturday the 11^th as we had planned. Everything went pretty smoothly at checkout. I helped her pack and get her signed out, got her meds, etc. What amazed me was the WE wheeled her out. Hell, we could have just grabbed the chair and left with it! Usually hospitals have a staff member wheel the person out, even if they can run a marathon! I'm so glad she's out of there…ugh that place. And her former roommate called a few days later saying that a stomach virus had broken out. We got her out of there just in time!!!

We put her walker in the car and decided she would walk up to the front door. With a catch. We decided to surprise my dad…he had no idea she was coming home (this was her idea). He'd asked me on Friday if we could go see her on Saturday and I said yes. So there she was! He couldn't get over it! What I couldn't get over was how well she walked with the walker! She even made it up the step that goes to our door step (it's not REALLY high but it's considerable) with BOTH feet (remember one of her legs is still not very strong). She was able to maneuver the walker though smaller places, get up from the bed to the walker and sit back down again, get to the couch and back again with the walker, and go to the bathroom by herself. I am so proud of her!!! I guess I was just not having enough faith in her physical readiness and abilities and my mental readiness physical readiness to have her home and take care of her.

We went into my old bedroom and started unpacking. We decided that it was easier if she slept in there because there was more room for the walker. It was so weird; it still didn't feel like she was home. And there was a lot more to do than I had imagined. Jeff and I went over there about a week before and cleaned up in the room a lot. But when my mom came home, we had a lot more to clean out of there to make more room for her, there was a lot of unnecessary clutter, etc. It got much messier before it got clean again. So that took most of the afternoon, including a 2-hour movie and lunch break.

We were there for most of the day and it felt like it! Lots of work! I fell asleep during the movie. I was just so tired and overwhelmed. I was glad she was home, but I was more glad that she was home for HERSELF than for me. She was now back where she belonged. But when we left, I was hesitant to leave her behind. At the hospital she had all these people taking care of her, and now it would just be my absent-minded, depressed, senile, self-absorbed dad. But I just have to trust, like I did before, that everything will be okay.

So we're all done with that hospital stuff and all the trips back and forth. Yay. Uh-huh. It's great isn't it? Or so I thought. No, the REAL work has just begun…