Australia Day
Australia Day or Invasion Day, depending on your perspective. Caitie’s birthday if you are her Auntie, and like the idea of all the fireworks to celebrate.
We went to see ‘The Revenant’ – pretty gruelling to watch, but very beautiful with some excellent music. It was poetic rather than realistic. On a warmish day it left us feeling pretty cold, especially as the air conditioning was cranked up. We were glad to get out in the fresh air.
After tea we walked to King George St, Vic Park, which gives a view to the city. Other people had thought of this as well and we joined a small, but enthusiastic crowd of people. We brought our small chairs and there were other people sitting down as well. We did indeed have quite a good view.
I took some photos of the usual poor quality that I take at fireworks.
Wednesday
Today I went up to see Mum. We went to the library to take back some books. She didn’t want to borrow any as Jamie has given her a couple of good books to read. We then went to the bakery and bought sausage rolls for lunch. I paid for my own, plus bought some apple crumble and a loaf of bread to taken home. After we ate our sausage rolls we didn’t have room for the apple crumble right away, so had it for afternoon tea.
I showed Mum some of the photos from our travel, which highlighted that I need to sort through and choose about 30 that show the highlights and not show people all the repetition. Mum said I went through them a bit quickly, but I wanted to have time to talk with Jamie afterwards.
Mel, Jax and Alyssa were visiting when I arrived. We sat outside and talked for awhile. I said that I had tried Mum out on having an ACAT assessment, but she feels she copes physically quite well. This still appears to be true in that she is groomed, etc. and the house does not seem that untidy. However, Tracy had done the cleaning on Tuesday.
Mum did not remember that they had both come to the house yesterday, although she said that she thought that Tracy had done the cleaning. Jamie said that he calls in most days for a little while and tells her what day it is. Mum said that Jamie does her bins.
Jamie said that he and Tracy have talked about having Mum to live in the Granny flat when she can no longer cope on her own. Of course, we all feel that she is already at that stage, but do not want to worry her. I told them about our idea of staying there in our caravan, so at least there was someone there. If she comes to live with Jamie and Tracy I said that Stephen and I could be the back up team to cover when they want to go away.
Jamie said that he is pushing for Mum to have a panic button and we agreed that I will set this up. Mum does appear to be receptive to this, depending on when you ask her. She often mentions wanting to see Robyne, though worried about her ‘cold’ and Robyne catching it. However, we can’t see that Mum has a cold now.
Robyne has suggested we try to get an ACROD sticker for the car when we take her out and about as she has difficulty with walking. When we went to the bakery she did not get out of the car, after having had to walk a bit of a distance to the library from the car.
Thus, we have all had a discussion about Mum’s situation and put in our ideas. We are hoping that she doesn’t drive the car, but have not gone as far as taking away her keys.
Stephen’s Health
Yesterday Stephen and I were talking about his situation and he said that he has been feeling a lot better in the chest for about the last week and a half. This corresponds with coming home here to live. It could be that the effects of compression when he was having the seizure have finally healed. Or, it could be that being on the new medication for his heart has reduced the symptoms of angina – if that was the problem.
Our rejoicing was shortlived as today he was bending down to get dishes out of the dishwasher when he hurt himself. He said the pain is similar to the previous pain. It hurts whne he moves around. He was saying he wanted to see a doctor, but I suggested that he should take some panadol to see if it helps. He took one dose with dinner and will take another before going to bed.
I decided to read the report from the MRI again. I had the impression that Stephen had had a small bleed, a mini stroke. But the report raised another possibility of a small growth in the brain, and said of the two possibilities, this was the more likely. When I read up on it (the language was medical and I had to look it up), it said that often the first symptom is when people start to have seizures. We must leave it up to the neurologist to make a diagnosis and another MRI has been recommended as it will apparently indicate if there was a stroke.
