Update on Helen.

I visited Helen today (Monday) in hospital. I was finally free of germs (well, I'd stopped coughing!), and decided to go in the middle of the day instead of later. Less traffic to deal with, and less likelihood of heaps of visitors. I was in luck - I was her first visitor for the day, and her face lit up when she saw me walk into the ward. She is in a ward with three men, poor thing. They've all had strokes of varying degrees, so they are not lively company for Helen, who is normally a very sociable person.

She was out of her bed and sitting in some kind of big wheelchair in her nightie, with a blanket over her lap. She'd been trying to eat her lunch, but wasn't too enthusiastic about it. Her left arm and leg are totally lifeless, but she's been told that with long term physiotherapy she should get some movement back. Her speech isn't too bad, in that I had no trouble understanding her, but it is an effort for her to talk. She was eager to hear my tale of woe about the work situation, and smiled when I said "Once you're back home, I'll have plenty of time to be your secretary and type your blog posts up!" I'd done a printout of all the messages on this blog from her blog friends, and she was so touched that so many people were thinking of her, especially as she has not been blogging for very long. She instructed me to say hello to you all, and said she has lots of great photos from the first ten days of their W.A. trip to post on her blog as soon as she is able to!

I was shocked to learn that Helen's mother died back here in Victoria the day after Helen had the stroke. (She was very old, and in a nursing home). As Helen told me, tears came to her eyes, and when I looked for a box of tissues, she smiled and said "I went through so many boxes of Kleenex when I first arrived, I think they're run out of stock!" I combed her hair before I left, as I've found with some of my home care clients that this is very soothing, and Helen agreed that it felt lovely.

Another visitor arrived about half an hour after I got there, so I stayed for a few minutes, then left them to chat. I promised Helen I'd make some bibs for her, as she said the hospital don't provide anything except paper napkins, and most of the stroke sufferers end up with half their food down their front. When I got home, I hunted up some damask napkins that I had in my collection, shaped a neckline and added a piece of ribbon to go around her neck. Voila! I rung her to ask how many she wanted and she said I should go into business for the whole stroke ward!