Saturday was a routine day, for a weekend. There was some good food, some not so good food, and several visitors. Nancy stayed in bed resting from her workout on Friday but she did – she claims – do some in-bed exercises. I made her promise to get the Sunday morning staff to get her out of bed.
Sunday AM, and she did get moving this morning. She was assisted into the bathroom (there is no bath there! Do I call it a throne room? [See below.] ), then into a wheelchair, and now she is having breakfast. She was talking with me when they brought her tray.
On Saturday, with help, I located that aisle and shelf in our friendly grocery store whereon they stash the nutritional drinks often marketed to diabetics. There are several brand names but I wanted chocolate with high protein and as EBRG is a relatively small town I had a choice of one. The package contains 6 – 8 oz. plastic mugs ($1.62 each) of a brown liquid composed of water, sugar, and about 74 other things listed in print too small to read by those of us that remember Bill Mazeroski’s series winning home run in game 7 of the 1960 World Series of Baseball (Pirates over Yankees). Half of the selection was ‘high calcium’ and half was ‘high protein’. Nancy is improving daily but frequently is disdainful of that part of her meals meant to supply protein. The supplement I bought contains 12 grams of protein (about 24%) of the suggested part of a standard 2,000 calorie per day diet.
Having related the above I will say that as she has begun to move about more it appears to me that she is also eating more and otherwise improving. Thus, I was very happy to hear this morning that she had used the bathroom and was in the wheelchair by breakfast time.
[About that term bathroom: What she actually was in need of was a flush toilet. Have you ever called the place a flush toilet room? Me neither. Other names used include: can, commode, crapper, pot, potty, stool, throne, and my favorite ‘the john’
There is an interesting history regarding this device. Read about it here:
http://swopnet.com/geo_mileshome/Thomas_Crapper.html
Seattle was originally built on low ground and initially installed flush toilets would do a reverse flush when the high tide came in. First they posted tide tables beside the potty in the throne room. Later the device was put on an elevated platform. The problem disappeared as the space around the buildings was filled in and street level was raised one floor along with the entrances, store windows, and the small out-of-the-way rooms containing the john. You can find things to read on Seattle’s early history and their reverse flushing commodes or take a tour while visiting. Search on ‘underground Seattle’.]