June 14 - “Way to go, Southpaw”

Well, I guess I can expand my repertoire of possible job prospects for if I ever get tired of being retired. What’s that, you may ask? Why, home health care specialist and hair stylist extraordinaire. 

Yep. This guy helped Chris with her very first post-op and post ER visit. Even washed her hair. She was, in her words, “full of hospital funk.” OK. OK. She did aide the aide considerably with her one good hand. But I gave it my best shot. 

Then I found her hairbrush (Hmm. There’s a song in there somewhere. “Where is my hairbrush …”). In fact she has two of those things. One is just for when she breaks out the hair dryer. Kinda round. The other one looks like a human being hairbrush. Only used after the round one or if the hair has not been washed. Phew! So many rules. She taught me how to work both of them, though. Now I’m a pro, and she feels … well … clean. 

Oh, and I failed to mention … we took off her big shoulder-pad looking bandage. Now she just has four taped X’s and the magic marker arrow indicating which was the right/correct shoulder surgery site. 

Janell came over for a while so I could have an outing. And how dare I leave my patient? Where could I possibly be going that would warrant such a breach of protocol? Well, Walmart, of course. We were out of bananas. We also needed some chocolate milk. Key items, you know. As a plus, I was able to sneak in some people watching. Gotta feed that habit … so, thanks, Janell. 

That bath really rejuvenated Chris. She read through all the surgeon’s notes from the operation (on MyChart). Even copied them for easier future reference. 

She moved around a lot more, squeezing her stress/ therapy ball and taking laps around the house. She did have to crash every so often to take her meds and ice the arm, though. It was kind of fun to watch her try to do more and more by herself ..  left-handed. Way to go, Southpaw. 

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭43‬:‭2‬ says, I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you.

Father, thanks for Chris’ efforts to return to self-sustainability. Amen.