Day 13: Standing tall

For the first time since entering hospital, dad managed to fill in a menu card for himself. His choices usually run to sandwiches (dry, tired things) to beef stew. Yoghurt is a big hit. If there's not much choice due to an overabundance of pork, he'll choose 'halal' instead - usually a nice curry set meal.

Dad complained about his constant bad nights' sleep. Firstly, there's the bowels problem which can make him head off to the loo 3 or 4 times a night. Hopefully, senna will solve that. Then Patient Q has the most enormous yawns (something that my dad has since also taken up). And, grumbled my dad, patient A talks in his sleep! My dad's pretty deaf, so it's a wonder he hears him!

It looks like my dad has regained his appetite as well. He hoovered up his meal which is a welcome change from us urging spoonfuls of food towards his mouth like he's a petulant baby.

In his physio session he managed to get up off the seat by himself and stand unaided for five seconds. That was fantastic. A good day of progress.

Later, a 'liaison' nurse came to chat with my mum. Actually, she was a normal nurse but with some duties of reading out a leaflet to us about how to avoid another stroke. The basic conclusion was 'eat less salt'.