Keith at Encompass Rehab, Friday

UPDATED 9:30 PM, Friday, March 29, 2019

(missed) PM, Thursday, March 28, 2019

I had planned to write here when I got home from visiting Keith in his new-temporary home, but I was tired, and Holly was home with stories, and I forgot. Sorry.

It's a big room, people are energetic and attentive all around him, and he was going to have a shower, when I left. When I got home, he had texted that the shower went well.

Oh! I forgot to say that finally, that last day he was in the hospital (Thursday) he finally agreed to keep his phone and glasses.

8:39 AM, Friday, March 29, 2019

Another shower already! Part of the therapy is helping him regain skills and the ability to take care of himself so they can send him home.

Their target date for release is April 5, next Friday. Good, I guess, because that's the day the new mattress is arriving, in the morning.

He has three hours of therapy scheduled every day. This shower and him dressing himself is part of it, today. He said he dressed himself this morning for breakfast. I saw him stand up to transfer from a wheelchair to the shower chair, and he stood up on his own for maybe 20 seconds, holding to a door, but not a walker. They didn't send that walker with him from UNMH.

9:30 AM, Friday, March 29, 2019

Unexpected problem. Finally I was able to try to get tangles out of Keith's hair. For over two weeks, I've been carrying spray detangler and a very forgiving comb, in my backpack. So today, I tried. I couldn't get more than a few ends out of this:


After I tried with fingers for a while, and was not making it better, Keith suggested maybe giving up and cutting it. I thought about how difficult it would be for him to take care of it even if I did somehow manage to untangle it. He had another physical therapy session in less than an hour and a half. It just so happened that one of the few things Keith had asked me to bring from the house yesterday was a little pair of scissors, very sharp Fiskars, from his bathroom. He said cut it, so I started working on that. The big mass of tangle came off without even dropping hair. Then I trimmed the rest up.


The texture of what's left is really soft, and it's various colors.
The beard had been trimmed before the implant surgery on Wednesday.



"It will grow back."
Keith had a big breakfast and doesn't even want the Chobani yogurt drink I brought. He had eggs with cheese and green chile, a bit of French toast, coffee, cranberry juice, some fruit cup. The coffee gave him low blood pressure, seems, but he didn't get dizzy. All that dizziness and nausea from standing up and doing things at the hospital isn't happening here. Very cool.


9:30 PM, Friday, March 29, 2019

After Devyn's gym class, I took her to see Keith, and we met the rest of her family there (Kirby, Destiny, and the little-baby Kirby). We arrived just as they did. The purpose of the gathering was so that Keith could see this special announcement:

I had known for a whole three hours or so, myself. :-)

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Notes on the weekend, March 30 and 31