Mom over the past six months...

1. Physically slowing down - She makes an effort to remain mobile, but it's becoming more difficult for her. Some of it is age, but I feel just as much of it is lifestyle choice, i.e., poor diet/exercise. I also feel that her medications may be interfering with her metabolism. Just before Mom left on vacation is when she was evaluated for physical therapy. If I remember correctly, that was left rather open-ended since she was leaving soon. I _think_ it was settled that she could continue receiving PT and Medicare would cover it. We could check on that and see if that is the case. I feel it's important, if Mom wants to do it, to encourage her to keep mobile, keep circulation as healthy as possible.

2. Mentally about the same - She is forgetful about some short-term things, but other times remembers. She depends on me a great deal to keep track of her bills and remind her to write out the checks for them. Sometimes she'll mention to me the health insurance bill came and we must pay it, but most of the time she leaves it all to me.

3. Emotionally slowly improving - She still grieves Dad and probably always will. She still talks about why he had to die even though she knows why, because she misses him so much. She sometimes weeps yet. However, in my experience with her at least, she seems to be healing a bit because despite the pain of loss, she is not quite as emotionally fragile to me as she was six months ago.