a little bit of action today

My brother finally saw a doctor today.  My brother took some blood tests and the doctor ordered a chest xray.  When I was on the phone with the nurse trying to find out what happened, I found out that the doctor order weekly weighings.  This b others me, I am pretty sure he ordered daily weigh-ins earlier in my brother's stay, I am pretty sure they have been very haphazard in weighing him.  I also asked the nurse to make sure that they shaved him.  She started asking, what, were they supposed to shave off his moustache.  I told her that his previous CNA had been pretty good about keeping him relatively well shaved and since she was assigned to do something else, the only time he got a shave was when I came to visit and requested it.  She told me she would write into his orders for a daily shave.  I will believe it when I see it.

 I went out tonight to visit my brother.  He was pretty chipper.  He was sitting at a table eating dinner with his girlfriend, who was more alert than usual.  They were pretty cute, they looked quite comfortable with each other.  I talked her with her a bit for the first time.  She didn't know I was my brother's sister.  She told me she had just come back from the hospital because her legs hurt.  After discussing this with my brother later, it wasn't clear to me when she had gone to the hospital, whether this was an old memory or not.  When I got there my brother immediately wanted to get up from the dinner table and go to one of the sitting rooms and he didn't want Veronica, his girlfriend, to join us.

Later, I asked him why.  He said it was because "she is here all day, I am here all day, I don't get to have quality time with you, it's precious to me."  Sometimes, he sounds just like a regular person and I treasure those moments.

He sounded pretty good.  But later in our visit he started a really nasty cough.  When I got home, I had a message from the doctor on my answering machine from the morning, suggesting that I call him.  Since he hasn't done that in the past, I am a little worried.