Gurgle

I saw my brother yesterday.  I stopped by to take him out for breakfast before I left for an overnight weekend with friends of mine at Starved Rock, an Illinois State Par.  We have been doing this for more than 20 years.  We go with about 10-15 families.  This is the first year we have gone without kids and I was feeling a bit melancholy. 

Truthfully, I really didn't feel like going to see my brother.  I have a cold and my head is stuffed and I was tired, and it would have been better to sleep in, not expose my cold to him, and not go.  But I didn't want to spend my day off doing it (Monday is a holiday), and he looked so happy when I mentioned to him that I would stop off to see him before I left for the weekend, so I went.

It was one of the shorter breakfasts.  The waitress was extremely efficient, and the whole thing from door to door, took about 45 minutes.  No big deal.

My brother mentioned to me that one patient had died (he didn't seem to know him, but it was someone on his floor) and one patient had gone by ambulance to the hospital.  This was the first time he had mentioned something like that since he has been at the new nursing home. It's hard to tell how this effects him because of his autism, he is rarely going to identify any real sadness.

But it hit me kind of hard.  As I dropped him off, I felt depressed that he is stuck inside this building so much, and the except for a few excursions during the year, I am the only person (or my husband) that takes him out of the building.  That's no way to live.  And I also thought about how hard it is to entertain him because he can barely walk, his mobility is so limited, and he can't access so many buildings easily.  That's depressing.

This week I was also informed that his lungs had been checked out and they were clear.  But it is pretty obvious he has a permanent gurgle.  I think that's because his heart is too weak to clear his lungs completely.