BM Half Stat Day:

Blood Glucose:     Time:  0616     Reading:  126

Blood Pressure:     Time:  0650     BP:  143/68     Pulse:  55

    Breakfast: Normal.
    Lunch: Sandwiches on french bread with hard salami, pepperoni, jalapeno Dofino cheese and stone ground mustard w/horseradish; also, 11.5 oz V-8 juice; she surprised me by eating one such sandwich then requesting a second, which I made for her. She ate the whole thing.
    Dinner at Black Angus: She had the "Summer Grill", which included a 7 oz portion of Prime Rib which she didn't eat; grilled corn on the cob, 1/3 of which she ate; 1/3 slab of Teriyaki baby back ribs, all of which she ate; two skewers of grilled shrimp w/pineapple, 1/3 of which she ate; rice pilaf, 1/4 of which she ate; she also ate about a quarter of her dinner salad with ranch dressing and well more than half of the small round of brown bread brought to the table as diners are seated.
    Needless to say, I did not take the "instruments of torture", so I didn't take stats in the evening. We ate dinner at about 1600, long before typical; so long before typical, in fact, that I wasn't very hungry. Although I ordered a rib eye, I ate only about a quarter of it; the skin off the baked potato and my "grilled vegetable medley". No bread. I was mostly thirsty and drank 2.5 bottles of sparkling water.
    Both at lunch and dinner she announced that she was "starved", which is why we had dinner early. We were planning on heading back to the hotel from visiting Ulta so I could pick up some of my "special" shampoo, so she could nap for a few hours before dinner. She noticed the Black Angus restaurant, though, across the parking lot and announced, "I'm starved! I want meat!" I actually tried to dissuade her, since I wasn't very hungry, then realized, it had been a good 8 hours since breakfast, she'd done so much vigorous walkering up to that point, at her insistence, that she had probably walkered off lunch and more, and, you know, if I didn't want a whole dinner, I didn't have to order one. For my mother, restaurant experiences are not about the food so much as the ambience. Surely, I could share this with her, regardless of my hunger quotient. In fact, it was a pleasure to be there with her, gossip about the other diners, and, once I registered the smell of grilling meat (I'm a carnivore, through and through), knowing that this would be the last meal of the day, I was sure I could manage to eat a little of a rib eye.
    Some of the stats taken at the doctor's office:

Weight:     Time:  1400     Reading:  147

Blood Pressure:     Time:  1410     BP:  134/80     Pulse:  N/A

Blood Oxygen:     Time:  1430     BP:  96

    I mentioned, idly, actually, because my mother is always interested in this, that she'd gained 3 pounds since our last visit in April. The nurse, assumed, I guess, that I might be mentioning this as an incentive for my mother to lose weight, an assumption that isn't true. She exclaimed that Mom's weight gain is "a good thing" and went on to give me an unnecessary but informative lecture on how "wasting" in the elderly is a common problem that often sets off a number of deleterious health conditions, including malnutrition, loss of vitality, worsening of chronic conditions, etc. I assured the nurse that I was well aware of this and had no intention of putting my mother on a diet.
    Her Blood Oxygen Level was while she was on 2/lpm continuous oxygen. Although I usually take her off oxygen when she's at the doctor, just to see what her BOx is in the Valley without it, I'd forgotten to do this and, anyway, she'd been walkering so much even previous to the appointment that she'd been mouth breathing, a lot, whether or not she needed to, so keeping her on it was probably a good idea.
    I expressed some concern about her diastolic, since it's often somewhere between 55 and 75. The nurse, who'd glanced at her blood pressure history and noted that she "runs awfully low on the diastolic, doesn't she," quickly disavowed me of my concern. "She's flushed," she said. "She been really active today, hasn't she. This would be normal for her." I wanted to kiss the ground upon which that nurse walks.
    Blood was drawn for the following tests:

• Iron levels;
• CBC
• Cholesterol Panel
• Complete Metabolic Panel, including liver enzymes and an HA1c

    We should be getting those results, called to us, sometime in the middle of next week, and sent to us immediately after the call.
    As you can imagine, she had, at her insistence, an extraordinarily active day, flourished through it, napped for about 15 minutes immediately after lunch (she is a master at quick cat naps), again, hard, including snoring, for about an hour immediately after dinner.
    We managed to get in all her meds, in an unorderly but appropriate-to-the-day fashion, except for one dose of Aloe Vera gel. In anticipation of an active day, I substituted an adult buffered aspirin for her usual morning 81 mg dose. I offered her another after lunch, which she accepted. this seemed to take care of any extraordinary-movement" complaints. I offered her a third before she retired but she refused it. "I'm fine," she said, "I can't imagine that I need it!" Okay, Mom.
    Her fluid intake was appropriate and adequate throughout the day.
    Her Bowel Movement occurred at 1100 straight up: Volume was excellent; consistency was slightly smeary; easy elimination; slightly challenging clean-up.
    She retired at 2330, after a long and well enjoyed leg rubdown. Her light, much to my surprise, didn't go out until 0015, 9/13/06. Just before she retired she said, "Let me sleep in tomorrow." That's what I'm doing.