{Karlton Bontrager}

I forgot in my note on Monday to mention that Karlton went until after 6pm without his sling. Although on Tuesday, he ended up putting it on before noon again, this tells me that his shoulder muscles are slowly getting stronger!

Tuesday morning was beautiful–sunny and warm. Karlton was to have an opthalmological appointment in the morning, so I showed up at ISIS to accompany him to it. Just before he was to be at the hospital, we found out that he would not be seen after all. There have been cases of antibiotic resistant Staph. aureus both in ISIS and Dunedin Public Hospital. Until Karlton’s swabs for the bug come back negative (he hasn’t yet received results), he can’t have an appointment.

Karlton informed me that he had been awakened at 5:30 in the morning when a nurse had gone in to check on him. After waking up, he called for help in rolling back over onto his side, and another nurse came in and lectured him to do it himself. I guess this left him in a bit of a grumpy mood, even though he was able to get back to sleep.

I’ve noticed that lately, Karlton has had trouble making decisions. He thus surprised me when he announced that we should go to the Otago Museum and then go out for lunch. I told him that we probably shouldn’t, as it was almost lunch time, and soon thereafter, he had physiotherapy. Despite this, before I knew what was happening, he told one of the nurses that we’d be going out, so he needed to have his lunchtime medication. I told him that we would have to wait until after physiotherapy to go out but took this as a sign that he was keen to leave the ward.

In physiotherapy, Karlton was to dribble a basketball back and forth aroung the room. He was then to do this around cones, which was a bit challenging, though he improved control with each run. Then he was timed doing this twice, with the goal of finishing faster the second time. He did this successfully, though he made it clear that it was not an easy task for him. Then, he did a little jumping on a mini trampoline, followed by balancing on each leg. He was wobbly balancing on the right leg, and he was able to only momentarily lift the right leg to stand on the left.

By the time Karlton’s physiotherapy was over, the day had turned to drizzly and cold. When I suggested going out, I was surprised to have Karlton inform me that he wanted it to be a relaxing day. I wonder if that was a result of challenging physiotherapy, or if had simply changed his mind from earlier in the day.

So we stayed in the ward for the rest of the day. Around 7:30, Karlton announced that he was tired and wanted to go to bed. It was nice for me to be able to leave the ward a bit earlier than usual and have some time to myself.