Directly on the tv via the Manhattan decoder, she wouldn’t hear it from these weedy speakers on the laptop. Just got her out of bed and settled in the bathroom, she seems to appreciate the musical background. We’ll see how it goes. 
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I am really enjoying Classic FM in the background myself now, and surprised that I recognise much of the music to the extent that I find myself whistling along with it. 
Last night Fran once again refused to shift from her dinner chair, arms firmly clamped to prevent me lifting her, but I did manage to talk her round this time. I always turn the tv to radio at that point and then mute it, perhaps a better idea might be to switch it to Classic FM and leave it running. 
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I love classic FM and it’s the first music the breeder of my pupster plays to her litters as their little ears first open up so my pup (and my oldies too) find it calming…(compared to my sometimes impromptu dancing around my kitchen to ub40 or Bob Marley which results in them jumping up and wanting to “dance” with me 
)
I find it very difficult to concentrate with the “chatter” of radio stations and much prefer background noise of either birdsong or classical music…or just silence…
This has some good reviews too so may be worth a listen 
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Classic FM is great, as background, and I often use it now for myself, not just Fran, though I do get a little impatient with some of interruptions by presenters and do perceive a rather ‘pop’ view of the classics which are thus repeated very often.
But the good news today is as I have just reported in the good news thread:
Yesterday I received a phone call on my mobile from a French woman who spoke very rapidly and I gently pointed out that, as I was a little bit deaf, could she please send me an sms instead.
She did very graciously and I soon learned that the visit from the APA for Fran’s evaluation of need in the home was prevued for the 7th of December. At last.
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Mixed fortunes over the past week. Although Fran cannot be persuaded to leave her bed before midday normally, at least that usually is possible although always accompanied by loud protestations and the need of total assistance with her shuffling gait, but yesterday she refused point blank to get up at all. The 2nd time that has happened I think. So when I did manage to get her up at midday today it was a total of 36 hours without food or drink and or access to the toilet. Even then, apart from 2 digestive biscuits and lemonade for lunch, and saying she was hungry, she ate no more and this evening 2 small florets of steamed cauliflower and a small pastry with her Fortimel energy cream. I offered her much more, ham or chicken but she declined.
Another strange thing, she asked me for a cigarette, and couldn’t understand when I said she stopped smoking early in September, then started giggling and calling me daddy, daddy. She wasn’t joking.
Better news, I got through to the surgery again first thing this morning to be told that there was a 1 month ordonnance for a wheelchair. I asked for it to be emailed to me and it arrived within minutes. Printed off, I arranged with the pharmacie for it to be available for collection on Saturday, in readiness for use for her hospital visit at Perigueux next Monday and, her next appearance with me for our jabs the week after. My first thought was to take it back after each visit, but on being told that there was nothing to pay at all it seemed more sensible to keep it for the whole month, enabling other short outings perhaps. So we won’t have to take it back till January and, if her condition with the effectively paralysed left arm and hand hasn’t improved, perhaps a renewal. That arm and hand is giving me real cause for worry, being as it is the result of the fall she had way back in October. I strongly suspect some sort of nerve damage, though they didn’t seem to bothered when I rang up to cancel the first follow up visit explaining that she couldn’t come because of the arm and hand damage in conjunction with the inability to walk unaided.
A good sign or not, I don’t know, but I had to break off from writing this because she asked me urgently to go to the toilet (although she thought it was in my bedroom 
and when told otherwise said don’t get up just show me where it is 
). Normally she resists all efforts to go there insisting that she doesn’t need it and wants to go straight to bed. fortunately, once I have her on her feet there is little she can do to resist me physically.
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I think it may be the 3rd isn’t it?
Good news on the wheelchair!
Is it? Oh my goodness, may be time to get someone to look after me then. 
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! Indeed. You’re doing great. Keep swimming. My big sis completed her 500m in 8 degrees temperature challenge. Now waiting for the further cooling for the 6 degree challenge.
Wow, chapeau to her, 500 metres, my dips are colder than that at the moment but I am out and getting dry after 14 metres.
No swimming or dog walking today. We were both up at 7.30 to go to Perigueux with the dogs in the back seat and the newly rented wheelchair folded at the back.
Apart from confusing the instruction at Admission '‘go down next to the lift on the left’ with ‘take the lift on the left’ and trolling round 2 surprisingly empty floors we found our destination on time. Firstly Fran had another X-ray, which revealed that she has got a dislocated shoulder, and thought to be so for quite some time. The doctor confused himself and seemed to be blaming us for not going straight to Urgence after the 2nd fall, thinking we had been there after the first. You may remember there was no 2nd fall, just Marie-Paule’s final throw of the dice in desperation to get us an ambulance to take her. So the X-ray on the 20th of October was after the damage had been done and yet, it shows no dislocation. Now the dislocation is plain to see.
So how has this come about? The only thing we can think of is that it is down to me, or rather, down to the revised method of lifting her after the twisting motion of one arm to one arm that caused me a doctor visit and a week’s medication. That is, lifting her square on with both my arms under her armpits. But how else are we to do it? By me locking both my arms in a bear hug round her waist we suppose, stand by for broken ribs then. 
Anyway she is booked in for Wednesday afternoon at 4pm and an operation under anaesthetic to open the shoulder up and see what can be done. He says he will first try to manipulate it but does not think it will work. If not it might need bone grafts and plastic strapping. In getting her agreement to operate, he did say that there was some risk. attached due to her very poor health, age and thin build. He is rather a gloomy bugger and I get the distinct feeling that he thinks we are to blame for the further damage. Anyway, to make sure her heart can stand it she was then whisked at high speed (I could barely keep up) to have a heart scan.
I have had my workout for the day too, walking up all those steps from the very bottom car park, not so the dogs who nevertheless behaved impeccably throughout.
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I used a electric riser chair and a wheeled patient turner to move my wife who was parylised from two strokes, either a short distance or into a wheelchair for longer distances.
They made life a lot easier, that and a shower slider chair.
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First one looks like a metal detector.
it was invaluable for doing transfers and moving short distances like wheelchair to toilet, they allowed me to get Janis out of hospital and look after for a year and a half at home before she died.
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I had a few years of similar with my late missus though she was quite mobile except for the last couple of weeks.
She wanted to stay at home until it was to much for me and the local hospital offered to install all the equipment, bed etc at our house to make life easier. We survived ok but the offer was a really a nice gesture.
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I had the opposite I’m afraid, she got stuck in the hospital system for two years during which time they dropped her fracturing her skull which led to her loosing her sight, then she was assaulted by a nurse which caused another stroke.
The OT’s were worse than useless and we ended up signing her out of hospital so I could look after her at home and give her a good and proper quality of life until she finally passed away.
I bought the equipment myself, put in a stairlift and a wet room because the OT and social worker said she did not need to go upstairs in the house and could use the small downstairs bathroom and convert the small TV room as a bedroom, they quickly got told to 
off and not to let the door hit their backsides on the way out the door 
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Have you heard ‘The Caithness Self Lift Chair’ by Richard Stilgoe?
It’s one of his best.
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I have the A Quiet Night Out album by Stilgo & Skellern 
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Sounds a nightmare G36, my experiences of French hospitals over the past 30 plus years have been all positive.
So have mine Glasgow and Edinburgh health boards were and are fantastic, Forth Valley were dire, with infighting between departments, lack of communication and just shear bloody incompetence.
So glad we are across here now.
Sorry for the diversion and rant 
Lifting someone who is not capable of helping you is very difficult. I’ve been through this last week with my mother, who is in a nursing home in the UK. The nurses there make it look simple, but it is nothing of the sort. You need some expert advice on how to lift and maneuver someone so you can do it properly. I learnt a lot last week from the nursing staff, and from my sister who was my mothers primary carer. Please get all the help you can in this respect because it will help not just Fran, but you as well.
Edit: Just to say that helping a loved one in whatever way you can may be very difficult, but is very rewarding not just personally but also for the loved one. Keep going.
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