Mom's progress

Yesterday was exhausting, but great! In the afternoon, I took Mom to a doctor at the Regina Rehab Clinic. The clinic is a calm place, with light jazz playing in the background.

The doctor is in his late 30s (?) and has a very diverse background which includes psychiatry and family practice, including an interest in ADD -- all combined with a holistic healing approach. The one thing that was amazing is that this doctor spent two hours with Mom, and did not treat her like one whose concerns should not be heard -- which often happens to seniors rushed through busy clinics. He conducted many tests, input lots of data into his computer, and asked for a copy of the files from Mom's family doctor, and suggested that Mom have an MRI. As well, he seemed pleased that Mom was taking Boost twice a day as a nutritional supplement, along with flaxseed on her cereal at breakfast.

This morning, the psychiatrist -- Mom saw him in Feb 2007, further to her Dec 2006 fall -- faxed the CTscan to the doctor we saw yesterday. This will help him decide whether the MRI is needed.

When the appt finished at 5:15 pm yesterday, we called on Lil Mack to see if she wanted to join us at Arby's for supper. Mom again did not feel hungry, but again ate heartily! ;-) Mom definitely sees mealtime as a social event, rather than something to be done alone.

On the road to wellness

Today is Sunday; I have now been in Regina for four days. Since arriving, I have been running errands for Mom and working on my plan to have her gain some strength. Mom is very weak from weeks (months?) of not eating enough. She weighs just a bit over 100 lbs. Mom has simply been forgetting to eat. It has taken her a while to believe it, but Mom finally realizes that her memory is failing her. It is a Catch-22 situation: starving one's body of nutrients also starves the mind and dulls the memory. So far, we have added:

1) Boost (with added calories) twice a day (Strawberry or vanilla)
2) A breakfast that includes protein. Mom likes cereal and a banana for breakfast, so I am hoping to convince her to perk it up by adding an egg, a sardine or something similar.
3) Flaxseed (2 tbsp) on the morning cereal (rich in Omega 3)

What is good is that Mom is receptive to my help. I hope this new eating regime does help! I am also going to look into having Meals on Wheels deliver one meal a day and eventually increase the deliveries to daily.

Mom is buying Chad a blender. We got a nice small sturdy one at Superstore. It is for his housewarming present.

. . . more education!

All day today, I was on a course (downtown on Cooper St.), entitled 'Work/Life Balance'. I took the course because I know I tend to spend too much time working. The timing of this course was a bit strange, as I have not been at work since mid-May. I did realize, however, that being a student also presents its own 'balance' challenges. It turned out to be a wonderful day, where I learned lots of great strategies. And, surprisingly, very few of the participants were really super-stressed. One person commented on that, and another suggested that those who are really stressed would not take time for a course like this!

Julie is coming on Saturday and we are going to have a marathon girls' weekend. It actually will not be the whole weekend, as Julie has comittments at home in Montreal on Sunday. Our plan is to see the Sex and the City movie, and then dissect it over Cosmopolitans. For those unfamiliar with it, SATC was a long-running television series about four friends in New York City. Sex and the City is the name of the lead character's newspaper column.