Adventures!

There have been several adventures lately.  I'll start with Tuesday morning.  Mark and I had gone to bed early (like 8:00 early).  We might have stayed up for a little bit and watched something or talked, but we were basically asleep around 9 either way.  Mark had gotten up at about 3:00 or so to use the restroom.  Previously I had been paying attention when he left to do that - just to make sure he was ok and hadn't fallen - things like that.  I gave up trying to follow him the first night.  He has been pretty steady on his feet through the house, so it was more to make sure nothing went wrong - or that I was aware if something had gone wrong.  But I had even begun to give up that much.  Mark has successfully managed to get himself around, to and from the bathroom, make himself some basic food, stuff like that.  So this night, I just went back to sleep and didn't think much of it.  I was pretty much back to that fast asleep state when I got woken up by some loud beeping.  In my mostly asleep state, all I thought was 'that microwave is making a loud noise, that's weird.'  And then came the wonderful sound of this totally unfamiliar alarm yelling 'fire! fire!'  That got me up and running!  Pretty sure I had an awesome response time.  I ran into the kitchen yelling to (not at) Mark 'what happened?'  He looked so concerned and so confused at the same time - poor guy!

It turns out he had woken up hungry and wanted to get some food.  It occurred to him that if he was hungry, I probably was too and since he had done such a good job of making me breakfast the day before (the french toast - with cumin) he wanted to surprise me with breakfast again!  He had remembered how I had liked the egg sandwich on a croisant at the hospital, and he decided to make one for me.  The only problem was that this time something went terribly wrong - besides the fact that it was 3:30 in the morning, and I was fast asleep...  He claims that he just overcooked the eggs and it made enough smoke to set off the smoke alarm, but I saw those eggs.  They had a few darker spots on them, but they were not burnt enough to create smoke, let alone set off an alarm.  When I got to the stove, the pan was still on the stove and the stove was still turned on.  Mark claims he turned it off, but I'm pretty sure that if he did, he missed the off and left it on high.  Either that, or he used a pan way to big for his needs, sprayed the whole thing and the unused part is what smoked up the house.  Both are equally possible, since I found him using the biggest pan we have and it was left on high when I came in.  So, I can't be sure which it actually was.  I'm just glad it was only a bit of smoke and not the 'fire! fire!' the alarm claimed it was (especially after our actual kitchen fire scare a year or two ago).

Mark and I had a talk.  I made sure to thank him for making me food, and for remembering what kind of food I might like, and being willing to bring it to me as a surprise in bed, but then we discussed how it might be a good idea to wait to make me breakfast until it was closer to 7, or maybe it would even be good to ask me if I was hungry first.  Either one would be good.  He took it super well.  He has had an amazing attitude through this whole thing!

Once we (I - he knew it needed to stop, but drew a complete blank as to how to get it to do that) got the alarm to stop beeping/yelling at us, got the house aired out a bit and we had both calmed down and were back in bed, his first response was 'I guess today's blog post about breakfast is going to be more exciting than yesterday's.'  And he was laughing!  Can I tell you how much I love that guy!  He created chaos at some obscene hour of the morning, almost gave me a heart attack, and should have woken up the whole house (thankfully no one else heard the alarm - although it occurs to me that in an actual emergency, that would be a bad thing) and his only response is one of happiness.  He was so proud of himself for remembering what I liked, for thinking of me when he was hungry, for putting my 'needs' before his (he was the hungry one, remember?  he made me food before he got himself anything - even though I was fast asleep), and for being able to cook again!  It was pretty awesome.  His cute grin during this phase of recovery is a memory I will treasure forever!  I hope he never looses it, but I can't imagine it will stay either.  That grin is one of pure innocence.  There is no guile or embarrassment or self consciousness or any of that stuff that we grow into through life.  It's just a grin of happiness.  Pure, unadulterated pleasure at what he has accomplished.

The Therapist's Wife in me had to make sure he was ok with the whole experience.  I asked him how he felt about everything that had happened, and his response (with the grin) was: 'I think this means I'm recovering from surgery, I just have a few things to figure out.'  Don't forget the grin!  He is so excited to be recovering, he's not even phased by the 'few things to figure out' part!  He is truly amazing!

Even if life is sometimes a bit more of an adventure than I might be ready for, I'm more grateful than I can say that I get to live this adventure with him!



The rest of the day passed with much less drama.  Mark's parents dropped of an exercise bike, borrowed from his aunt, that Mark is hoping to be able to use to help aid his recovery.  The speech therapist came by and did an assessment.  There will be homework later, but this time she just wanted to know where he was at.  And the rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully.

Today was shaping up to be fairly uneventful as well, but then morning hit...  I got to have a good chat getting some advice from my awesome Cousin!  Our chat went a bit longer than I had planned (which was super good, by the way) but it made me later than I had expected to be to go volunteer at Jason's class.  Cindy had taken the two little kids ...somewhere... and I didn't want to leave Mark alone for too long, so it was just as well I was a bit late.  They were done with centers for the year - which is what I had been helping with - so I was mostly coming because Jason might want me there, and I wasn't actually 'late' for anything.  As I walked in, the teacher and I chatted for a second and suddenly we came to realize that Jason was missing.  I had seen him walk off to school, but she hadn't seen him all day (it was 2 hours into school).  His backpack was hanging up in the classroom, so he had been there at some point, and one of the teachers/aids in the room remembered changing his Baggy Book (she had thought it was odd, since she didn't think he was there).  The teachers panicked.  They were talking about how scary it was, but my only reaction was that 'on the 'scary scale' - especially recently - this doesn't even register.'  I was soo not worried.  I'm not sure why I wasn't worried, but it really hadn't occurred to me to worry.  Jason't teacher just told me she was worried because my son was lost, and all I thought was 'I wonder where he is?  He can't have gone too far.'  Their panic had almost begun to penetrate my relative calm, when he was discovered in the bathroom in between the kindergarten rooms.  It turns out he had gone in there earlier and just never came out.  He claimed to have thrown up in one of the toilets, but then spent the next hour or more just sitting on the bathroom floor, wanting to go home.  So, instead of staying to volunteer like I had planned, I brought Jason home, got him some food, and turned on a movie for him watch while he rested on the couch.  I was glad to be able to come home so quickly.  I really hadn't liked the idea of leaving Mark alone for too long.  So, aside from some panic and a tiny bit of drama, it actually turned out well.

So far, since then, we've had the physical therapist come, Jason went to reading lessons (love his teacher!  She's awesome, and she works wonders!  She claims it's just the program, but don't believe her!), and Mark took a shower.  We found an old toilet extender that I think was left here by my grandparents that I cover with a towel (so it's not slippery-when-wet) and we use it as a shower stool for him.  Standing up in the shower with all the turning, maneuvering, and slippery-ness...  I think we both feel safer with him sitting down for showers for a while longer.  He is getting better fast, but there are some limits that just aren't worth pushing just yet.

Oh, I guess I should give a mini report on what the physical therapist said the first time he came  (on Monday - today was just working on exercises and adding a few new ones for him to do).  The therapist did a balance evaluation on Mark and he scored 44 out of 56.  That's pretty good.  The cut off between falls risks is 46, so a 44 puts mark in the moderate falls risk, but not by much.  A higher score would put him into the low falls risk.  Apparently a change of 5 is significant, so the therapist set a goal to get Mark to score a 49 on the assessment.  That would put him squarely into the low risk, and make him safer overall in getting around.  I'm a fan of Mark being safer :)

That's about it for today.  Oh, my visiting teacher called to volunteer to bring us dinner!  Awesome! Tomorrow is Jason's birthday and Grandma (Mark's mom) is bringing dinner for that.  It looks like I might be off the hook for trying to come up with dinner ideas for a few days!  I love this story!

(Cindy is willing to cook - which is amazing - I just get to give her ideas.  That's the worst part! :) )