Had dinner with Mom yesterday at the Coventry. She has a nice little table of people that she eats with and they all like her and think she's great.

She wheeled herself all the way to the dining room and all the way back, though it did take some encouraging. I instructed the caregivers to NOT wheel her, that she was perfectly capable of wheeling herself.

The in-house physical therapist is going to return from vacation on Tuesday so we'll get him connected with mom and get some straight answers about progress and planning moving forward.

Happy Belated Easter everyone.

The family got together over at the Coventry for Easter Brunch with mom and a good time was had by all.

Food was really pretty darn good, with Eggs Benedict or Cornish Game hen as well as more traditional ham with asparagus and mashers.

Mom wheeled herself most of the way to the dining room and only tired the last 50 feet or so.

She also had visitors, Baseer and Mariah, her tailors from her old job at Saks. A nice surprise!

Okay, I'm going to explain some things that may have been perplexing for some of you all out there.

We finally got the stars together and got a fair number of the family together at the Coventry for a talk with mom. The cousins and I were there for a care conference with the head of nursing regarding moms "assistance fees" evaluation (usually done 30 days after entering the facility)

The assistance fees are the "over and above" fees beyond room and board that can come periously close to equaling the rent.  The more assistance the resident needs the higher the charge. (think thousands, not hundreds of dollars.

We had a productive meeting and managed to lower the fees with more adjustments to be made in the near term. We also went over and got an understanding that the staff at the Coventry will coordinate with the PT as to the one way to help mom with transfers instead of different interpretations depending on caregiver/CNA. The last thing someone needs is two people doing it one way and then others contradicting leading to confusion with mom stuck in the middle.

After the meeting we met Aunt M and Uncle H up in moms room and sat down for a fmily discussion.With that much familial support around for her (and all of us) I was finally able to tell her what has been going on with me medically that has kept me away from the place so much over the past month.

Since diagnosis in late December I have been battling cancer. Basically defined as Head and Neck HPV type 16 .

Oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma with known human papillomavirus status

I wanted to be sure that mom had her feet solidly on the ground in the new environment before dropping that bombshell. Up until now only a small group of family have known that I was dealing with this. 

So we had a good talk and I was able to explain that I had finished all of my radiation and chemotherapy treatments and was in the phase after which can be as bad or worse for a few weeks before getting better.

The good news is that the type of cancer I HAD is highly treatable with very high success rate (above 90%)! The bad news is that it's one of the top three in most painful treatments. (I say AMEN to that)

So for the past nearly two months I have been having daily radiation treatments and weekly chemotherapy treatments with a host of side effects (basically all bad) 

The good news is that we caught it early and it had not spread, was only in one lymph node near the base of my tongue. 

I'll likely create another blog to deal with the specifics so as to not clutter this one up. This one is about mom.

With all of the family support she handled the news pretty well. 

Everyone was there to say, he's going to be fine, it's been a rough patch but he's coming out the other side and going to be good as new in a couple few months.

I'm gong in two to three times a week for IV fluids and have lost 45 pounds as of yesterday ! (not a diet plan I recommend at all. 

I can say though, if you're going to go through a treatment like this, by all mean start out as a fat ass! My "reserves" have kept me out of the hospital with a feeding tube! 

I'll let folks know when I get another blog on this up. Fatigue has limited how much I can do on a daily basis and yesterday was a long day.

 

Yes it has been this long! I've been pretty sick with complications from a throat infection and have been working with a team of doctors to get a handle on it. A couple bad reactions to antibiotics, and then steroid treatment have been kicking my butt every day for 3 plus weeks. Doctors say I'm at the point where I may start to turn the corner in the next few days to a week. (I wanted it in writing!.)

Was advised by the docs to stay away from possibile infection sites like the Coventry until we knew that I was stable and not at risk.

Have had the worst sore throat ever so talking has been especially painful. (I hear some say, shut up Glen? Good idea!) Alexa and the Quinnster come first to mind though can't confirm. Just suspicious.

Wanna know anything about cough drops? Ask me! Tied for first, Ricola and Burt's Bees Honey!

Have talked to mom a couple times and one or the other of the family calls her every day tolet her know I'm thinking about her just too hoarse to talk. (I can text them and they can relay)

Word from visitors and staff at Coventry is that she is in good spirits and making progress. I did arrange for the on staff physical therapist Joshua to meet with and work with mom to supplement what the insurance supplied PT/OT are doing. He met for an assessment and called and told me it went well. Like she has her own personal trainer!

I'm told she has been going to several "movie nights" there and is enjoying that a lot!!!

Here are a couple of pics my minions took of mom today.

All for now.