356

I haven't been around too much for Rob's suppertime. Joel and I did stay at Gaylord pretty late this evening, though. After supper was a real treat! :S
There was no keeping Rob contained whatsoever. He figured out how to get himself out of the bed restraint and insisted that he was going to get up. He was saying stuff about something having a 300-lb break test, gasoline being poured all over his motorcycle, something needed a 356, and I needed to check the calendar to get some kind of information about something. The nurses were becoming afraid that I was in danger of getting hurt because Rob could not be controlled. Not that he was enraged, he just insisted on walking around and was saying all kinds of things that didn't make any sense.
At one point, the nurse asked Rob what he needed. He pointed to me and said, "I need to assist her." The nurse told him, "No. She's here to assist you." I felt bad because I knew he wasn't off the wall on that comment.
Rob kept repeating "356." I have no clue what that's about. He even said it to Joel.
Another time, he told me he was going to the livingroom and when I said there was no livingroom there, giving him the option to either sit on the bench, the lounge chair, his wheelchair, or the bed, he angrily questioned, "Oh yeah?!?" :S
The nurses were trying to get me to get him into his wheelchair and take him for a walk in hopes of calming him down a bit. Every time he got into his wheelchair, though, he got right back out of it. I felt horrible, but I said that I wasn't comfortable being responsible for him if I took him out of his room by myself. :( I'm not afraid of him or anything like that. I just don't want him to overpower me and end up hurting himself.
Rob is just so extremely confused. The doctor's diagnosis of "severe cognitive impairment" is an understatement. It is so true that physically, Rob's doing well. He's getting around better, although he's still quite unsteady and needs to continue to improve his balance. He feeds himself, but needs to have someone to sort-of oversee things. I let him do what he wants with his food - like pour soup all over his entree or mix pudding into his mashed potatoes - because I figure it's all going to the same place and as long as he's eating, he's fine. I have to help him when he begins to push everything off the edge of the plate or tries to use a fork to drink his juice. There are just so many concepts he's not getting right now. He still can not answer what month it is, how old he is (he was 16 today and we've been married 26 years), where he is, why he's hospitalized, etc. His therapists are really trying to get him to look to his Memory Book for the answers to these questions, but he doesn't even understand that he needs to do that. It is so, so hard to see him like this. :(
For the most part, you can have a conversation with him. It may end up going astray, like going on a tangent about 356, but you can usually bring him back and continue talking about something. I guess the only way to know that there's something "wrong" is to spend the time with him during his therapies and be with him the way I am throughout the day. At the end of the day when I head home, I'm exhausted mentally. I can leave now. What's it going to be like when he's home? Not that I don't want him to be home! I absolutely want him to be home. I can't wait! I'm just a nervous wreck about it. Sort of like bringing home your first baby. It's fantastic...but WHAT DO I DO NOW? :P