8 May 2016. - Mother's day

   I have such a wonderful husband, without whom I would not be a mother. He is the joy of my heart, the light of my path and the motivation for all things good. I  can't imagine life without him. I have a beautiful new pair of gold hoop earrings thanks to him and a beautiful daughter in the jewelry business and another daughter who drove the 1st here. Thanks to all of them!

Seeing Francene at breakfast on Saturday.

   The news. I taught Seminary three days during the week so that I could leave for St. George on Friday after Seminary. Since Sr. LeDosquet likes the book of Daniel so much I left those lessons for her and I jumped to Haggai, Joel and Amos, three of my favorite prophets. Stephen took me to the airport on Friday morning and I flew to SLC and had a 2 1/2 hour layover before flying to St. George. I was picked up by Mindy Langford, Jay Langford's wife, and their kids and taken to Francene's place where I got ahold of her old Nissan Sentra that was pretty much falling apart but still worked. I then followed Mindy back to the Rehab center where Francene was to be brought back from the ER. We waited there for a little while and guess who shows up but Jessica and Sarah. Their good husbands let them come to support me and their aunt Francene. It was so wonderful to see them and I was very grateful for their presence.

   I figured it would take a long time to wait for a discharge from the hospital and transportation (knowing ER behavior), so I went with my daughters to the ER. We found Francene alone in a dark room and when Jessica spoke to her from her left side she did not recognize her but when I spoke to her on her right side and got her attention she recognized me and Sarah. She has minimal recognition and use of her left and has "left-sided neglect" due to the trauma in the R frontal portion of her brain. The ER doctor came in and spoke with us. He said that there was no further evidence of another stroke and that the major area on the R side of the brain was "evolving". I had not heard that term so I asked for clarification. He said that since the damage to the brain causes cells to die that continues to affect the cells around the dying cells and they swell. He showed us the current CAT scan and pointed to the area on the L side of the brain that was the original infarction about 0.25 cm in size which affected her right side with weakness and numbness.    
   Then he pointed out the R side of the brain which area was about 3 cm in size in the frontal area. This affects her left side with almost complete paralysis to the extremities and some facial involvement. It also affects areas of communication, emotion, attention and some cognition. Her tests for blood and urine indicated a possible UTI so she is being treated with Keflex antibiotics (unfortunately that gives her major diarrhea and the staff is concerned with C diff). She was transported back to the rehab center via ambulance and we watched as they assisted her to bed. She seemed confused and scared but continued to recognize everyone that was in the room. She did not verbalize much at all and when she did it was a whisper. 

Saturday morning with me and Francene.

   Saturday, we came to the center and entered from the East door as we were earlier than the time they open the west doors close to her room. We passed by the eating area and I glanced over to make sure Francene was not there and I spotted her dress and hair. She was face down on her plate of food. She had been seated up to high in the chair and does not have the core strength to hold herself upright. With the help of my daughters we sat her up and helped her eat her breakfast. The aide that was assisting the patients was by himself and there were too many "clients" to take care of their needs. I did not fault him as I was unsure who put her in that position. Also he had another client that appeared to have a seizure and slip out of the chair. Sarah and I went to help lift him back up and the aide was relieved. I felt sorry for him but also concerned for Francene. I watched very carefully to see if this was going to be typical of the treatment she would receive. They told me that she had already had PT and there is no other therapy during the weekend so I waited until Monday to assess the therapy care. For the remainder of the day Francene spoke little and would sometimes appear to "space out". She will shake her head "yes" or "no" but then say the opposite of what her head movement indicated. Sarah did a little test on her by writing several letter "B"s on a blank white sheet of paper and then she asked Francene to circle all the B's. There were about 12 on the paper and she circled 3 of them all on the right side of the page. She did not see or recognize the left side but when told to circle all the B's she would recircle the ones she had done before. This was indicative of the Left-sided neglect that she is experiencing. Also during a conversation she told my daughters to "Be loyal to the Royal" in you and started to cry, which shows some labile tendency in her emotions but mainly she was appropriate. 

Checking out Francene's storage room. It took us a long time to
find this one in the first place as Francene gave us the wrong
number....

Sunday was church starting at 9:30. She was again to high in her chair and she stayed slumped over during most of the meeting. It was RS followed by Sacrament meeting so it was a long time for her to be seating and she slept through much of the service. They did give her the sacrament which she managed alright. Her ability to feed herself was very limited. She could almost get the fork or spoon, that had food put on it, up to her mouth. She was able to drink well from a straw and could drink from a cup if it was held up to her lips. Many times during the day she just fell asleep or would stop responding to any questions if she was tired. She would start to look "vacant" and then close her eyes.