Wow, I cannot believe it's been 2 months since our last update.  

Life has been busy and full.  It took all of us mobile bodies to clean out our childhood home of 45 years to get it ready to sell.  Let me just say, holy cow--s**t builds up!!!!  That process was very long and exhausting--but we got it done, hauled the junk away, sold some items and got everything moved to the new house that we were keeping.  The home went on the market and the very first day, the very first person who looked at it, put in a full price offer to purchase it and close in a month.  We feel very blessed that this happened so quickly and that they didn't have to cover two mortgages for more than a month--what a gift!!  It was certainly hard to say goodbye to the only family home we had known but when life changes, you meet the moment and pivot.  It was getting to be time anyway for my parents to move into a single-level home, so here we are!  Once we had everything moved, Janelle and I whisked my mom away for a Florida getaway for a few days--we figured she could use a little reprieve before the heavy caretaking begins.

The past few months dad has made a lot of progress at Courage Kenny.  The most progress has actually been made in the past 3-4 weeks.  CK extended his original discharge date of March 13 by two weeks to March 29, since they saw an uptick in gains and wanted to keep pushing.  Dad has gained a lot of upper body strength and can now use a slide board to transfer himself onto the bed from the wheelchair and vice versa.  He can also use a sit to stand device for transfers which is awesome, as it cuts down on the need for use of a Hoyer lift.  He's gained a bit more movement in his legs, but there's still not much strength/response there.  He's able to help assist to turn himself over in bed, but needs the help of two people to move up in the bed.  He's still dependent on caregivers 24 hours a day, so this realization has been heavy.

We have found a caregiver that will come to the house 4 mornings a week and 4 evenings a week to help with the morning and evening routines.  This won't be enough help so we will be assessing our needs better once he gets home.  He will have home PT/OT/health aides/nursing for the first 4-8 weeks during transition, then he will go to these as an outpatient.  So there will be a lot of action happening at the Tholen household during the upcoming weeks.  Having dad come home has been a difficult decision--the burden it will place on mom will be immense and we aren't entirely sure if she will be able to handle it, but we felt we needed to at least give it a try as we know how much he wants to be home.  Weighing the needs of everyone involved is no easy process!

Their existing van is being converted into a wheelchair accessible van, a ramp is being installed in their garage and a special room has been set up where dad will call his "bedroom", that will also allow for easy movement of lifts, and allow more space for caregivers to help.  We are getting the hospital bed ordered, all the hygiene paraphernalia, the transfer boards, shower transfer chair and commode etc etc.  There's SO much!!

We will update you again once dad comes home, thanks for all your well wishes and visits, we all appreciate it so much!

Stacy