Day 341 - Tuesday 4th April 2006

kp wasn't tired at bedtime last night, so I gave her the emergency button (which I usually do when I leave her on her own), so that if she fell, she could push it and the warden would come to her rescue. There is much more chance of the warden coming than me waking from a deep sleep.

Of course, when I leave her on her own, I have a restless night sleep and keep waking up all the time. So, last night, I woke up every couple of hours and could hear the tv on, so I knew she was ok.

So, something funny happened this morning. I was VERY aware that kp had come to bed VERY late (about 6am) and had been up and down to the commode from 6am until 7.30am (when I got up). She was not aware that I knew of her bad night's sleep.

At 7.30am kp was snoring like a TROOPER, the loudest snores I have heard in a while. I got up as quietly as I could, but I still woke her. I knew she would tell me about her bad night. It went something like this......

kp:- SNOOOOOOOORE, SNOOOOOOOOORE, SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE
dp quietly gets out of bed

kp wakes up.........

kp:- I haven't been asleep at all !

Well, I knew what she meant, but found it funny that she was snoring so loud, clearly asleep at that point, and she said she hadn't slept at all - lol !

I let her sleep on until 2pm when we had to get her up for physio

The physio consulted kp's notes and knew that this week she wanted to concentrate on trying to use a fork again (with her left hand). She only uses a fork in her right hand at the moment (and I cut up her food).

The physio went to get some adapted forks which basically have big grips, which are more easy for kp to hold.

kp was given some tips to hold the fork correctly.....


She then tried it herself. It took her a while to get the fork in the right position with her left finger on the top to give added pressure.


After a bit of practice, she picked up the knife to try the whole thing.


Once she had practiced holding "things" with a fork so she could cut them with a knife, it was then to try using the fork to get food to her mouth. This didn't go as well. She found it hard to bend the fork in such a way as it would hold food. Once she got it right, she would then try and leave the imaginary food to her mouth, and then it would go all to pot.

At one point, she moved the fork to her mouth and at the same time, moved her mouth down to the fork and nearly took her eye out. Both the physio and I shrieked at the same time which was funny. At the moment, she doesn't have the control or dexterity in her fingers to pull this off.



With this in mind, the physio decided to try and concentrate on building up kp's hand/wrist/fingers dexterity. The physio suggested it would be a good idea to try moving coins around her left hand to improve on her finger/wrist/hand movement. I got some coins out of my pocket (only 1p's and 2p's, as I could see that some of them may go the distance). kp has to look at her hand to know there is a coin in her hand, so you can imagine how difficult it is for her to move them around her hand. Well, I must have given her 8p in 2p's and 1p's, I'd be surprised if I got 3p back. People will be finding copper coins all around the physio room for weeks to come.

The problem was kp's left hand can't make a cup shape to hold coins. Actually, it does do the cup shape but it is at such an angle, the coins just fall out, so the physio started working on trying to get kp's hand more cupped and flat (not tilted).





We didn't crack it today, but with a bit of homework, we should loosen her arm/wrist/hand up a bit.

With physio over, we went to Sainsbury's shopping. Here's kp heading to the till with an extra purchase of dishcloths.



As soon as she got home, she went to bed.

I'm off to prepare tea. Hot chicken from Sainsburys, carrots, cabbage and new potatoes.

Yum Yum !