Today, the physical therapist came by to assess my dad and see the areas that he needs to work on and strengthen, so next week he will come a couple of times to start the actual program.

Dad is still lost as to why he is not going home, and I don’t want to say, “we’re trying to get you strong enough to go home,” because I don’t know that he will be able to. The physical therapist, Zach, said he is not bad, we need to work on balance and strength, but it will take about 6 sessions to tell if it is possible for rehabilitation or if his disease progression will continue and make him unable to live alone.

I told him there are more issues than the physical ones, he witnessed the communication issue and showed me an app that translates your speech into large text. That’s cool for us, but dad can’t talk, so it doesn’t help him much. Zach suggested a speech therapist come evaluate him and see if she has any suggestions, and I also found something on line used for deaf and mute kids-a flip chart with pictures showing words and pictures that I think might be helpful…if he will use it.

See, part of the problem is that he is in denial that anything is wrong. The other thing is he gets so frustrated because he knows what he wants to say, but the part of the brain that helps translate that to paper (or a white board) is dead. I was up til 11:30 with him last night, past tired and frustrated, because I could not figure out what he was trying to say. Dave had worked late and we woke him up, dad yelling and me crying. It was awful. I’ve got to figure out something that works before I go mad.

My brother is coming today to help with a shower, Dave had to go back to work an hour after he got home last night, so Dad never got a shower.

He is so bored here, he just goes to sleep until it’s time to eat again, and I hate that too. I’m almost to the point of letting him go home since the home health can go there to help, but then I’m back to going over there all the time because they don’t come every day, and I’ll worry about him 24/7 just like before. It’s an impossible situation. Should we just ask him how he feels about going into an assisted living facility? That is the question. 🤷‍♀️