NOT a good day

When I got to Good Shepherd this morning Andie was already in Speech therapy so I just sat in the back of the room and watched quietly while they were doing their thing. When they finished andie was weeping and just distraught - I thought over the lack of ability to communicate in speech. We moved on to Recreational Therapy and when we got going there on a SLOW game of Uno and then Connect Four, just kind of goofing around with the checkers. Once we got back to her room I found out about the cause of her misery. Her catheter was removed yesterday and the night did not go well lastnight - they monitor the status of her bladder and since the doctor didn't see what she wanted to last night she told Andie that the catheter would have to be put back in for two weeks.

Well, apparently that statement was what got her so upset but I'm not sure which part - that the tube was going back in or that she realized that she's going to be there for at least two more weeks. Actually we've been told it'll be more like 3 or 4 weeks. I was going by a she didn't ask - I didn't tell policy but today she also sat in on the meeting we had with the social worker and heard the truth and she's got to have a pretty good comprehension of what's going on since she got teary when that was mentioned. The wonderful social worker who's been the intermediary between Good Shepherd doctors / therapists and us has been great. When we were going to meet to discuss Andie's future treatment she invited Andie into the room and pointed out to her again and again that she is so much improved over last week that she's now able to be there for this kind of meeting. That was lost on Andie because she was so wrapped up in not being able to leave the place soon.

Conversation with her is still all over the place - starting a sentence and ending with another thought. Hard to explain but once you listen and watch her you can sometimes get the idea of what she's trying to say even though most of the time it's like listening to some new language.
She is her old expressive self most times and the therapists seem to really get a kick out of her and out of our interactions when Andie just kind of grins at me or when she's bopping her head around in her own conversation makeing all sorts of faces and talking with a gossipy tone.

She had several visitors today and I think it was a good thing so she didn't have to sit around dwelling on the negative things. At the end of the day she was tired and by 5:30 she was ready to get some sleep. I'm not sure how that bodes for rest overnight but hopefully she'll get decent rest so she'll continue to do well in her therapies. I remind her again and again that she needs to save her energy for the times she needs it in therapy, play their games and that's her ticket out of there she has been more attentive and not fighting going into the therapy "gym" like she was doing.

She was teary again as we got ready to leave and it's hard to leave her like that but still things are worlds apart from what they were two weeks ago when she was still at LVHC and just lying there. It's so much harder on her since she's now aware of what the realities of the present and her potential future are.