Tuesday Night in the Institution

A few measurable points of progress today. My coumadin (anti-blood clot) was reduced from 3.5 mg to 3.0 mg. The nurse was beaming as if I'd won lottery. I checked on the internet and the typical dose is 2 mg to 10 mg.

Had a real workout in PT. They removed the foot rests from my wheelchair -- I think they are unassembling it piece by piece. I have to give it up on Monday. That's a condition of release, that I not use a wheelchair. I did the steps in a right left right left instead of one tread at a time and the steps even looked smaller to me. Joyce, my PT woman, does have me practicing on a 10" wooden box for that first killer step of my apartment. I also walked to my room and back with the rolling walker without resting. Did the arm bicycle -- you pedal with your arms, did various things with this heavy yellow ball the size of a volley ball, and then various things with this iron bar.

One of the other therapists had his person using the iron bar which is about 2 feet long like a paddle as if her were paddling a canoe. I told him to close his eyes and pretend he's in the Adirondacks.

Breakfast was the same, except it was the bad bread. I am thinking that Wednesday is bagel day -- I've had their bagels twice on Wednesday for breakfast so maybe I'll be lucky and get one tomorrow. If it's not the rare bagel or the rare muffin, it's always this bad bread three meals a day. I don't even eat it any more. I used to taste it and try to anylyze why it's so terrible -- it's dry and stale.

It comes in white and whole wheat; each is invidually wrapped.

tbis is lunch -- Now I've forgotten what they called it. You could call it potatoes two ways -- potatoes in the horrible beef stew and then mashed potatoes too. Remember: this is not servied hot. I ate the mashed and the green beans.

 

 

And the above is dinner -- this was called chicken marsala but it's more like chicken stew -- with rice and the horrible farty broccoli. I ate the rice with some of the sauce. Again, imagine this cold.

These flowers came from my broker today -- really beautiful with white roses, dahlias? and some purple flower on a stem that smell great.

close up of the flowers

This is the view from my bed... from left to right are the now dead flowers from Tom and Michelle which I keep and water because they don't look entirely dead... followed by photos of my nieces and nephew; followed by a plant from Karen McC., I like to sleep with the curtains open just to get some sunlight.