The week just gone Helen and I have been on our own again in Darwin (apart from Jed and the chickens and Helen's lovely friends). Louis has gone off to the GARMA Festival on the Gove Peninsula at Yirrkala to be a volunteer - a great opportunity by all accounts. David has headed back to Melbourne (complete with camel steaks wrapped up in his clothes as a souvenir) and Doug is back in Natimuk working all over Victoria for the DPI.
Earlier in the week Mum's friend Diane brought over Moussaka for dinner with us and we had quite a celebratory meal finishing with orange and almond cake. Kaye has visited Helen's house twice and Shirley once and today Helen and I are having a beautiful tropical lunch at Kayes' house with Barramundi caught by her neighbour and papaya grown by her daughter-in-law. This afternoon we plan to play scrabble.
Physically Helen is doing very well - she's eating and enjoying food and has come back up to 48.5kg. She can stand up from a chair on her own again and is using the walker more and the wheelchair less. Mentally she's pretty good although still variable. Slow to process at times and occasionally suffers from the strong deja vu phenomenon I've described before. Other times very with it.
Sometimes she has a little cough and seems breathless - still no pain at all thank goodness.
The not so good news is that yesterday I took her for an eye assessment as she is still having problems with depth perception, sometimes feels her glasses don't work and yesterday morning said everything seemed dark and that she couldn't see my face properly. The assessment revealed she is basically blind in her R eye and some what diminished in the periphery of her L. Although having said that the vision in the left is normal for reading with glasses and for distance without it.
This is a new development but has probably been happening gradually over time. Makes me sad but Helen is amazingly accepting.
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I often think of you and am happy to hear Helen is doing 'well'. I hope her eyesight remains enough for reading and seeing your lovely face.
ReplyDeleteDouglas looks just the same in this picture (I think he wore almost the same shirt when he was here a year(s?) ago.
We [kids and I] are almost off for a trip to South Africa. We will be gone a month. I shall keep an eye on you and Doug and of course Helen. Love to all.