October 3rd Hot Chocolate for Breakfast

Editor's note:  Dad's lone hearing aid finally crapped out.  That thing took a beating between the two different hospitals, home and Rosewood.  I was amazed at the abuse that thing withstood.  The folks at House Hearing Center took excellent care of us, but even they finally said it was hopeless.  We had bought him a little transitor radio sized amplifier from Radio Shack a few months back so he could go to the Community Concerts.  It had a lone, cheap little ear plug.  Somehow, someone found some Noise-Cancelling Bose Headphones and hooked it up to this little device.  The results for Dad were amazing and contributed to the quality of the last month of his life.

Today was quite an improvement over yesterday and I would attribute it to two things.  First, we didn't even try to eat anything.  We had a little orange juice and, at Chuck's suggestion, a cup of hot chocolate.  Second, we put the hearing aid in the left ear and used the headphones and his hearing was markedly improved.

This morning I was running early arriving at 7am.  To my surprise, as I was signing in, the aide informed me Dad was up and in the dining room.  I joined him there.  The conversation was not very lively as, at this time, he was wearing his hearing aid in his right ear and there wasn't much he could hear.  Over the course of the next 40 minutes he sipped on oj and when I told him Chuck was having hot chocolate, he said, "They have hot chocolate?"  "Yep, you want some?"  "Not right now this orange juice is barely staying down".  Not sixty seconds later he leans over and says, "Why don't you see if you can get me some hot chocolate?" 

Dad then needed the bathroom and afterwards, I cleaned his hearing aid with alcohol, and we put it in the left ear and hooked up the headphones.  He was hearing much better and we headed out for some sunshine.  Once there I asked if he wanted to go for a stroll and he said, "It's up to you.  You're the one who will have to do the pushing."  We did a a big loop back to New Stine stopping in front of one of the exercise stations with a bench because I thought it was in the sun.  He told me to "go stand over there and say something"  as he tested his hearing the strength and quality of his headphones.  He moved me around to three or four places so he could test it, like a kid testing a walkie-talkie.  He could hear me speak normally outside from 10 feet a way.  Not bad.

We headed back to the patio and sat for a few moments when he said he wanted to go sit on his patio.  The room was being cleaned, but we made our way through.  He got a little teary.  I don't think it was so much about his general situation as the the specific situation of not being able to swallow anything.  He told me it felt like there was something in there that wouldn't come up and wouldn't go down.  He said it "was like a gas gauge going up and down".  He complained his stomach was tight and had me feel it.  Then he felt mine and I smiled as he commented that my stomach was "a little tight, too".  "Probably just gas", I told him.

Out of the blue he asked about the dental hygenist and I told him if he still wanted her to come I would try and arrange for her to be here Friday.  He said that would be good.  The clock was a bit past nine and I told him I had to leave.  He said, "Take me inside and point me towards the bathroom."  I kissed him good-bye and headed for the store.

Oh, and Wi-fi users you might know this already, but I discovered a couple of days ago my iPad would keep switching to a "Handheld" network and that was very slow.  When I told it to forget that network it worked much more reliably.