Progress, Progress, Progress

We soldier on. Richard has had his heavy metal off for eight days now, and has been to physical therapy three times. We do physical therapy every day, several times a day. We should do it more...it's a long and involved process which involves him moving his hand and wrist until there is incredible pain for him, and either Billy (the PT guy he sees) or me manipulating his body to achieve said pain. I'm not a trained therapist, but between watching the expert and watching Richard's face, I'm starting to get the hang of it. I just move his fingers, or his hand several different ways until I see him grimace. Honestly, that's how I know how far to go. It sucks, but it's necessary.

Honestly, the lack of movement in his hand and wrist scared me at first. After the first week, I've seen an improvement of almost an inch in bending his fingers down. As for pushing his hand backwards against his wrist, it's only about a half-inch. But anything is good; this has been such a long haul for him. We've both now been on each side of the fence in terms of patient and caregiver, and appreciate how hard it is for each other. As a caregiver, I am much more cranky though. And, as a patient, I'm am much more cranky also. Richard is Richard, and as usual, is almost never cranky. But he does take many more naps than I ever did.

Life is slowly getting back to normal; I went to puppy and big puppy class in Georgetown this week. Debbie is getting more and more pregnant, and I was supposed to help teach baby-puppy class before this all happened...but I went and little baby Kristoff was there without his raiser (she's due to have a baby any minute now). So I took the class with Mr. Kristoff, and I'm in love with him. Even his sharp needle teeth. The raisers are doing a wonderful job with him, and he's sharp as a tack. I've tried to snag babysitting duties when she does have the baby, but I think that everybody wants to sit for Kristoff! I have Miss Ink coming this friday and she'll be with us until Monday, and then at the end of March Jewel will be staying with us for about a week. I'm keeping my hand in...going to the conference with Barbara and Debbie in May...and probably coming home with a new puppy from there. We'll be ready by then, all healed and hearty and ready to go.

It's now 1:16 a.m. Time to try and get some sleep. More closet cleaning, and Freecycling tomorrow.

Nurse Rached signing out.