The Blog of mamapolo

I just arrived home from the rehab hospital after my 12-hour shift. Good news - my friend's daughter and some others are going to help me out, at least over their semester break from nursing school for just a little over half of what I'm paying the professional sitters. That will help - and I will be able to feel like I can schedule a few hours here or there for some me time - for personal, girly, frilly things like paying bills and sleeping and brushing the dogs. I am so high maintenance!

The professional sitters are a surprise to me. They are predictably for the most part older women trying to eke out a supplement to retirement income, but they are also (unpredictably, to me) gentle and seemingly truly caring. They leave notes for me on the legal pad I have on the table in the room, and they spend a few minutes with me before I stagger out the door, encouraging me and enthusing about Tim's improvement in the week he's been at the rehab.

A beloved friend from work appeared unannounced at Tim's room door this afternoon, with her pretty quiet 12-year-old daughter in tow. She brought me a book on caregiving and Tim a piece of homemade cherry pie.

After dinner, which Tim ate most of after I nagged him mercilessly, we watched TV for a while (The Simpsons, God help me, but after all, HE'S the one the hospital bed, so I bowed to his warped taste.)

About 8 pm, he said, "Y'know, that cherry pie would taste good with ice cream." One of many which-is-most-important decisions to be made every day - he's diabetic - are the sugars more dangerous than the fact that he weighs 107? I decided no, they weren't. There's always insulin.

I elicited a promise that he would stay put while I went in search of ice cream, which was provided by a nurse I asked. When I got back to the room, Tim was standing beside his bed, tugging at the blankets.

Shocked, I hurried to his side and put my arm around him before I hollered (softly, it's a hospital), "What are you DOING?"

He looked up, startled. "I'm straightening the blankets," he said reasonably.

"You KNOW you're not supposed to get out of bed by yourself," I scolded him.

He fixed me with cool eyes and said, in the tones of a high-falutin' English butler, "I did not realize that straightening the covers was such a grievous infraction of the rules."

I got him back into bed and then read him the riot act. "Are you aware," I said, "that your refusal to request help like a rational human being when you want to get out of bed is costing you $15.00 an hour?"

He blinked. "No, I wasn't."

"Well, it is. And if you keep up this nonsense for a month, it's going to cost you $5400, give or take. And that's only because I'm sitting with you half the day and only paying for half. Is standing up by yourself THAT much fun?"

"No."

I went over the business of the call button, again. To my amazement, he accepted the shellacking meekly - Tim does not take well to being chided.

Then he ate the few bites of cherry pie with vanilla ice cream he was allotted (I finished the rest - it was excellent, Janet) and caught my hand as I took the bowl from him.

"Still love me?"

I sighed. "Yes. If I didn't, I'd let you run around until you banged out the rest of your brains."

I spent the rest of the evening while he slept trying to decide if my reaction when I saw him standing beside the bed was more horror because he stood up by himself, or more jubilation because he CAN stand up by himself.

Jubilation, I think, but I won't tell him that for a very long time.