Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 30, 2006 (9:36pm)

I read some old emails to Gary today. He commented that he was touched at how many nice emails, cards, and letters he’d received from so many people since the accident.

My older sister called while he was trying to get down lunch (he’s been feeling nauseous today, and that chicken and rice just didn’t agree with him). I passed the phone to Gary, and he thanked her for finding out all the information on Shepherd she had. He said he really liked the people here, that they all seemed knowledgeable, and that the place was definitely more organized in terms of aftercare and starting him on rehab (oops, I automatically wrote “research” there!). While they were talking, the flap doc, wearing a bright blue bold-printed shirt and giving his usual hearty greeting, came in to check Gary’s surgical wound. We like this guy, him and his showboat streak. We liked him even better when he told Gary his wound was looking good.

Today they took off Gary’s pressure hose (not sure what their technical name is – maybe those are the ted hose) – the ones that wrap around his legs from ankle to mid-thigh and are plugged in to inflate and deflate, the aim being to prevent blood clots. Instead he goes back to getting shots of blood thinner in his belly.

Supporting his point about the rehab program here, after lunch the tech and OT came in to put him through his paces – arm and back exercises using dumbbells. We asked what his program should be – I knew from my weight training days that for strength one would do low reps and high weight, with at least a day’s rest between sessions, but for endurance one would use high reps and low weight, possibly more frequently. They want him to develop both, so want him to work out every day with three sets of each exercise using low reps (8) and high weight, meaning the last couple reps of the last set should definitely be an effort. (If he isn’t recovered by the next day, he can take that day off.) I left him to his workout and went back to the apartment to blend him another requested mango smoothie to make up for his not eating his lunch entree. When I got back he was on his stomach sweating out the last of his exercises. After the tech left I asked if they’d given him more exercises to do than the ones he’d been doing since his flap surgery. “No, they didn’t,” he replied. Then why was he sweating? I asked. He hadn’t been when he’d been doing the exercises over the weekend. “Because I didn’t realize that even on my side I can do all the exercises they’d given me before.” So it’s great that they came to his bedside and showed him how to adapt his exercises to his new state. At least I think it’s great – I’m not sure he does. (Just kidding – he again told them when they came in he wants to get as strong as possible.)

Since he was still on his stomach, I wasn’t sure how to get the smoothie into him. The stuff seemed to thick for a straw. I was going to find some juice and thin it, but he said to try a spoon on it. That actually worked quite well. Though he found it tiring to have to lift his head up for each bite, he said eating that way was actually easier than when I spooned the stuff into him while he’s lying on his side (particularly since the head of his bed is not allowed to be raised very much). He was no doubt thinking of lunch time when the peas kept ending up on the towel I’d put around his neck instead of in his mouth as the airplane entered the hanger from the side so that the peas wouldn’t go straight down his throat and choke him (my little friend from France might need the airplane reference explained). (I did learn it made a big difference if I put on the spoon only a few peas at a time.)

After that, I set up a tape of “Bob and Ray” and left one of “The Shadow” in Gary’s reaching distance while I went off to the chiropractor. I had been prepared not to like the chiropractor because neither massage therapist gave him a resounding recommendation. He did some testing no other chiropractor had done, but it seemed reasonable – range of motion, etc – and the adjustments were smooth, IMO, and I left with a good feeling toward him. I am going to see him again before making a final decision, but I feel I may stick with him.

Back in Gary’s room I discovered a ton of mail had finally caught up with us! Thanks to Norman and Margaret Groteluschen; Brad Bailey, who sent a bar of chocolate and offered to help Gary make some room in his office so a wheelchair can get in there (and if you’ve ever seen the stacks of papers all around Gary’s office you will know why a reorganization is necessary); J.P. and Pam Holmes, who sent a three-set DVD collection of mystery stories (that’s great – we love to watch mysteries); Ferenc Fodor, who scrounged Hungary for Sudoku books, couldn’t find any, so made a trip to Italy to get some (okay, he didn’t really make the trip just for that, but he did find three Sudoku books there for Gary); Mom Gruenhage, who sent along three more pics of Gary, all of these with Bob (I liked best the one with four-year-old Gary on the trike, three-year-old Bob next to him); Donne Leigh, who sent another DVD; Jerry and Theresa Vaughan, who sent more tapes (Jack Benny, Car Talk) – and the Car Talk tapes they first sent to Birmingham finally arrived as well!; a postcard from some of the attendents at the 2006 ASL Summer meeting (I’d list your names, but there are two I can’t make out and I forgot to ask Gary if he could); Marilyn and Steve Foreman; Lois Stavig.

Also arrived was email thru Shepherd’s setup from Dave Gauld, and two from Dimitrina Stavrova.

Also finally arriving from Birmingham were cards from Mom G, Mr. and Mrs. Muñoz, Dave Johnson. Sorry, little Laura – yours hasn’t arrived yet.

And today (Weds.) we got 18 long-stem roses from Judy Roitman and Steve Lombardo! (Gary and I are going to split them between “his” place and “mine.”)

Whew!

To finish up what should have been Tuesday’s entry:

To the person who looked at my ’79 picture and said I looked like a hippie wannabe . . . Hippie wannabe? Okay, there are certain aspects of me that could be used to support your contention (um, er, om, what could I mean?), but I was much too straight to seriously aspire to hippiedom. (Gary told me soon after we were together that I was the straightest person he knew). . . . I told Gary what you said, telling him I couldn’t see what about the picture might make you say that, and he said he could see how you might get that impression, what with the long hair and the wire rims. I pointed to myself, currently sporting long hair and wire rims. “You’re still a hippie wannabe,” he said.

Groovy.

(And by the way – your little printer mishap you blamed on me because you were discombobulated by seeing that picture has nothing to do with me. It was your own karma.)

Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 29, 2006 (10:23am)

Janet Rogers read my account of getting together with Gary, and told me she had a photo of the two of us from May ’79. Since I started at Auburn in Fall ’78 and didn’t start doing things socially with Gary until after spring break ’79, this was at the start of our life’s journey together. I have uploaded that photo to the blog, at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/ . If you are currently reading the blog, scroll down.

Pretty cute, huh? ;-)

(Gary thought so. I didn’t tell him about the picture beforehand. I downloaded it to his laptop and then held his laptop above his head so he could see it. “Oh, wow,” he said. “Who would have thunk it? That’s a cute picture.” He looked at it a long time. I later asked him what he’d meant by the “Who would have thunk it?” That we’d ended up getting married? That the Rogers had the picture? “That everything that’s happened in the twenty-five years since has happened,” he replied.)

The other morning, when I hadn’t arrived yet, the OT came in and hinted that Gary was indeed going to need to hire someone to come in to help him at least in the morning. We started wondering where we would find such a person. Shepherd has a “bridging program” that is supposed to aid in easing a patient back into life and home and work, but when I looked through the binder they had given Gary, tho it covered various useful topics, they only had general suggestions for where to find such people – hospitals (nurses), rehab programs. A lot of the suggestions for where to look I doubt we’d consider – high schools, frats, sororities – as we’d want someone with experience at this kind of thing and medical knowledge. So if some Auburn-Opelikian reading this knows of such services in our area . . . We’re not sure yet exactly what we’d need the person for.

Coincidentally I got an email today (Monday) from a Canadian friend who does this sort of thing; up there they call such a person a “Personal Service Worker.” My sister-in-law Dolores had suggested we look into “Independent Living Centers” for resource information, so I looked on the web to see if there was one near Auburn and if it would have such a program. The only such center in Alabama I could find was in Birmingham, tho Montgomery seems to have some related offices that might prove useful.

This reminds me, I forgot to mention, when Alice Stephens, Bob Stephenson’s sister, came, she showed us pictures of Canine Assistance dogs interacting with their new masters at a training camp. (She works with the program.) It is really amazing what the dogs can do, and I’m sure they’re also a great emotional comfort to their owners. I wonder if Tigger and Blackjack could learn how to do what these dogs do. . . . Nah, they’re too old to be learning new tricks. The only tricks they’ve mastered in fourteen years is to come out to their cat bowls when food is being put into them and to jump onto the table and stare down at Gary’s plate at dinnertime.

No, that’s not fair. They’ve learned to obey one command. Sort of. When they were kittens they got fat, so I devised an exercise program for them: they had to walk around the outside of the house with me before they got to eat. Over the years, Tigger’s walk has devolved into a rather random one, though Blackjack is desperate enough to pretty well keep on track – he is a bottomless pit when it comes to food. Fortunately neither of them has been fat in a very long time, but I kept up the practice just because. Somehow I doubt that Sylvia is walking them, so trying to get them in the habit again when I return will probably be like pulling cat’s teeth.

Today seemed rather a quiet day – a lot of the staff had Memorial Day off, Gary’s roommates are mobile and seemed to be spending the day elsewhere. There was a picnic lunch out in the garden, which of course Gary couldn’t go to. I brought him a plate containing a hamburger on a bun, baked beans, potato salad, a slice of watermelon, and in addition brought him a bowl of vanilla ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate sauce, a chocolate chip cookie, and a Sprite (not that he was able to scarf this all down – I warned him at the start that my eyes were probably bigger than his stomach). He said the food was far better than the hospital fare he’d been eating. I reminded him I’d make/bring him anything he wanted, but other than that kabob he had awhile back and a mango shake yesterday, he hasn’t taken me up on the offer. (BTW, Sasha and Lauren, Gary said the mango was great!). The rest of the afternoon he read from the book “Incompleteness,” a biography of Gödel (fortunately it was a paperback, since he discovered that while lying on his side as he is he can’t hold a hardback), while I did a search for hotel possibilities in the area (I found about five – I’ll have to take a day soon and go around to them to check them out) and also finally got around to answering a few ancient emails. Then we watched more of Dylan. I am liking the DVD more – they’ve finally gotten to the point where I’m familiar with the songs (Blowing in the Wind, for example).

Tonight I am having a massage with a different person (it’ll be odd having it at eight at night, but that was the only opening until next Friday). Tomorrow afternoon I am trying the local chiropractor. On June 13th I have an appointment with an orthopedic doctor – who is connected with Shepherd. Shepherd has outpatient rehab, so it’s conceivable I’ll being doing some rehab program here as well.

So, I am hoping one of these avenues will lead to improvement in the state of my back. :-)

All for now.

Janet Rogers read my account of getting together with Gary, and told me she had a photo of the two of us from May ’79. Since I started at Auburn in Fall ’78 and didn’t start doing things socially with Gary until after spring break ’79, this was at the start of our life’s journey together.

May 27, 2006 (9:48pm)

I want to thank Jo Heath for coming to my aid with the house survey. I faxed her the form, and she went to our house and took all the asked-for measurements and pictures (she took about forty of those!). I am so grateful for her generous offer to do this. I really, really didn’t want to make a trip to Auburn and back to do it myself.

I had to laugh at one of the pictures she took. Amazingly, Blackjack was in the photo. Poor kitty. Normally the sight of any human other than Gary or me would send him under the bed or out the cat door, so he must be craving attention if he braved being seen by an unknown person. Sylvia, our neighbor who is feeding the cats, says they’ve both become quite friendly to her. I hope they remember us when we come home. (About a year after we got them, Gary went off on sabbatical for a quarter. For about a week afer he came back, the cats hid behind the couch every time they saw him.) I showed Gary Jo’s picture of Blackjack, and he got a wistful look on his face, saying that he really missed “the boys” and was really looking forward to going home and petting them. He wondered if they’d be afraid of the wheelchair. I said they might be at the beginning but I was sure they’d quickly get used to it, and that they’d probably like his readily available lap. He said probably so, and we both simultaneously realized he’d have to put a pad on his lap to protect him from getting scratched when they “make biscuits,” as he won’t be able to feel that any more.

Gary was snoring away when I came in this (Saturday) morning, but he soon woke up. He said he’d only managed two hours of proning last night. He also said the doc who’d done his flap came in to look at it and said it looked excellent. Keep your fingers crossed that it continues to do so.

I got a look at it myself a bit later, and I couldn’t help thinking that the area in question reminded me of those old horror movies where the Frankenstein is held together by big zippers. I told Gary he had a huge (on later reflection, I shouldn’t have used the word “huge”) triangle of staples on his behind, and at the apex of the bottom left angle another short line of staples extended. I also told him he had three slim tubes coming out of the small of his back, leading to small attached bags that collect the drainage from the wound. I told him, combined with his finger, he was looking more and more Borg-like. He joked that they had grafted tails onto him (meaning the “drains”).

Though he was still a little worn out from the surgery, he had already done some weights. He also told me he’d been able to eat all his breakfast again. I said I’d noticed his appetite had improved this past week and he was eating much more than before. He said his primary doctor (Lin) told him that as long as he wasn’t nauseous (which had happened one time a few days after he got here) he should pack it in; as a result his increased eating isn’t completely a matter of appetite but of determination. It also helps that his jaw muscles are getting used to eating again; I guess after a month of not being used, they atrophy too – he said they definitely tired out when he first started eating again.

He asked for the copy of one of his papers that he’d had me print out so he could make final corrections for publication, and while he did that and snoozed some more, I looked over yesterday’s blog entry and then uploaded it, put it on the website, and mailed it out to people – we got internet connection in his room a few days ago, though Gary still isn’t up to doing anything on it. He did want to know the URL of the blog, but I wouldn’t tell him. I’m afraid that when he looks at the blog he’s going to be embarrassed by what I’ve written and then I’ll either have to stop writing it or I’ll have to start censoring myself about what gets written (of course, maybe neither of those outcomes would be a bad thing ;-)), or another possibility is it might cause him to censor what he says to me because he’ll be acutely aware that it could show up on the blog.

Around noontime they turned him to his other side, and he decided to do a bit more of the weights, since being on his side means it really isn’t convenient/possible in the same session to do all the exercises with both arms. He said the OT had come in earlier and told him she expected him to look like Arnold Schwarzenneger by the time these five weeks of healing from the surgery were up. I joked that that was better than Pee Wee Herman (hey, I can be cruel). He laughed, then said he had noticed his laugh was different and said he had been told that nerves for laughing were below the T4 level . I said I hadn’t noticed and to laugh again so I could see. He looked nonplused, then started laughing at my request that he laugh. Then I saw what he meant – his laugh seemed like it was from the throat up. “No belly laughs,” he put it. “But I still find things funny,” he assured me in complete seriousness, which sent us in to more peals of laughter (we’re easily amused) at the thought that I might have worried it was otherwise – I mean, I have enough evidence to the contrary. He sobered and said it would be terrible not to find things funny anymore.

But we had plenty of opportunity to see that his funny bone hadn’t been broken, since as he did his weights we went into Schwarzenneger routines. “I’ll be back,” “You’ll no longer be a girly-man,” etc. I wish I could remember those skits from old Saturday Night Lives where they parodied musclemen.

As he worked out, I told him again that I was very lucky with my apartment, that I thought I might have gotten the best location in terms of noise. In the apartment building across the parking lot, I notice the people on the upper floor like to sit on their terraces, which face the parking lot, and socialize. Their voices carry, but as I’m tucked into the back side of the other building, I can’t hear them unless I go outside. Also in the apartment kitty-corner to me, I always hear some little kid crying when I pass by, so I am glad I don’t have the apartment next to them. This started Gary laughing again. He told me that the previous night after I’d gone, his roommate’s speaker phone had gone off, and he’d recalled how I’d said if I were him I’d have to kill the guy. He said he’d flashed on the image of the people from CSI confronting me with incontrovertible evidence of how I’d been the one to commit the murder, and how I’d then laughed and said with a maniacal gleam in my eye, “Yes, I killed him, and I’m glad.” Maybe no one else has noticed this, but it seems to us the CSI’s seem to have gone down in quality from how they first were, with the perpetrators seemingly always completely unrepentant about killing someone, indeed feeling the act was justified for some trivial reason.

I could empathize with them if the reason was because they found their victims too noisy ;-).

Norma called me about that time, and when I asked if she wanted to talk to Gary, she seemed astonished that it was now possible to do so. They happily chatted away. She and the rest of Gary’s siblings, as well as one of his nephews, will be visiting us mid-June. (Hmm, I just realized they’ll be coming the day before I’m getting kicked out of my apartment; I may recruit some moving help ;-) Gary’s cousin Helen has offered me the use of her condo for a few days at that time (!), and perhaps longer depending on when the remodeller needs to work on it.)

My little sister then called, and she wanted to know the URL of the blog. Unthinkingly, I gave it to her. After we hung up, Gary pointed out he too now knew the URL. Damn. I’ll just have to keep his computer out of reach. Or get one of those parenting programs that disallows children from accessing certain websites.

Non sequitur. When I walk down the hall from the elevator to Gary’s room, I often see one or more of the patients just sitting in wheelchairs close to the nurses’ station; I often see one young man in particular. It occurred to me that he and these others might be people who don’t have anyone here with them and so they are sat close to the nurses’ station (I’m not sure these patients can move their own chairs) so that they can be around others and the bustle of activity and not always stuck in their rooms on their own. I told my theory to Gary, and he thought it likely, saying it would be very hard to go through this on one’s own. He’s said that several times, and he pointed out that he can never say that without choking up, that he so appreciates me being here with him through this. I remember how hard it was for me that fall a year after I got CFS. I felt so sick most of the time, and Gary was off on sabbatical. I didn’t feel it fair to ask him to come home, but I felt very alone (my fault, since I didn’t reach out to anyone). Anyway, when this happened to him, I knew I didn’t want him to feel alone the way I had.

Sasha and Lauren Shibakov came to visit us in the evening. They brought Gary six bars of dark chocolate (the kind he likes), two of them organic, so they’re healthy ;-). Combined with the four bars I had bought him, I think he’s set for a while. (But he does have room for the French chocolates, Laura ;-).) They also brought me some organic zukes :-). I had emailed them and asked that if they went by an Indian store (they were going to the DeKalb Farmers Market and I knew there were such stores close by) could they pick me up some Indian Basmati rice (American basmati is different, actually being a hybrid of American and Indian rices). I was going to be out of basmati as of Sunday (today), and strangely that seems to be the only kind of rice I tolerate on a regular basis (more strangely, in the past I discovered that the brand makes a difference, so always get one particular brand to be safe). They agreed to do this, but I had forgotten to tell them where they could get it, and a later email didn’t make it to them on time. So when they were here, after already having done their shopping, they still offered to take me to the store to get some. Then they said I didn’t need to come along, that I could stay with Gary. I felt funny about sending them off on some trip just for my rice, especially if I wasn’t going to accompany them, but they said it was fine; besides, Sasha pointed out, based on my blog it wasn’t like I was going to be useful as a navigator.

So they got my rice and did some shopping of their own at Patel Brothers. They picked up some wonderful mangoes for themselves and Gary – I brought one back to the hospital this morning cuz it looks and smells ready for eating. Ripe mangoes give off such a wonderful perfume. I am an expert at cutting them so that they open up into a diamond pattern, having picked up this technique from some gourmet cooking show I watched long ago.

Sasha and Lauren said they thought of transferring my rice and the mangoes to my car, which they had parked right next to, solving the problem of my car being locked by Lauren using a rock. You may remember this was the same solution she put forth the last time they visited when they found me next to my car with my keys locked inside (is this the type of thing they taught you in engineering school, Lauren?). They stayed awhile longer, and then we said our goodbyes, and shortly after I said goodnight to Gary.

Now it is Sunday morning, and so far it is pretty much a repeat of yesterday. He says he always feels off in the mornings, maybe cuz his sleep isn’t deep and uninterrupted for eight hours here. He generally feels better by noontime though. I found him doing his weights, and now he is snoring away again.

A short time later, the nurse came in to turn Gary to his other side. I asked her some questions about Gary’s position, because he seemed too far over on his back. He had slipped over some, and she showed me how to reposition him. But she also told me that I was being too much of perfectionist about the positioning, and to relax and take a deep breath. Of course, being told to calm down just makes me mad ;-). Anyway, now I know how to reposition him. But I do understand it is a compromise between the ideal position and his comfort – he isn’t comfortable being over on his side as much as the ideal would be, and since he’s the one who has to put up with it for the next five weeks, I can’t very well fuss about it to the extent I would like to.

But I reserve the right to fuss a little. ;-)

We called his mom in the early afternoon and got the news that she will be making the trip to come visit him when the rest of her children do. Gary was thrilled that she would be able to make the trip too.

Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 25, 2006 (9:18pm)

Oops, how embarrassing. I caught another blooper. I should have written “Jesse wasn’t fazed at all,” not “Jesse wasn’t phased at all.” He may have undergone a phase shift, I don’t know. ;-)

Mail on Thursday afternoon – thanks to Ruby Juracek, Roland and Joyce Groteluschen, Norma, Donne, and, of course ;-), Gary’s mom. Someone in Gary’s family is going to have to explain the spelling of Gary’s mom’s maiden name, as Gary isn’t sure. I notice Roland spelled it as above, but some other relative spelled it “Grotelueschen.” I had been spelling it “Groteleuschen,” because Gary had told me it meant “great people.” From high school German I thought I remembered “people” being “leute,” so I got it in my head that to spell the last part of Gary’s mom’s maiden name with an l-e-u. But now I’m betting, given the above two spellings by family members, that there was originally supposed to be an umlaut in the name, “lüschen.” I don’t have my German dictionary, and can’t get on the ’net right now to check if “lüschen” is indeed a German word.

Oh, a shipment of four DVDs from Donne just arrived (Friday)!

And later on Friday, the hospital delivered an email from the Vaughans. More Car Talks are coming! Yea!

Thursday afternoon Gary came wheeling back from his male sexuality class with a big grin on his face. “Good news,” he proclaimed. “We can still have kids.” Funny guy. I never wanted them before, and I don’t want them now (which, of course, he knows). I asked him if he’d learned anything new. (I think we both basically knew the score well before this – not having movement or sensation below nipple level, having signals from the brain not make it through that T4 level as they did before, puts the kibosh on certain abilities, but kissing and cuddling can continue unabated and be as enjoyable as ever.) He said he’d learned there were drugs that had a certain noticeable side effect that would last 32 hours, and there was some kind of pump that could be used with shorter term benefits. I told him he’d have to time that drug very carefully, in terms of teaching classes . . . . Actually I was kidding about taking the drug at all – in general, I’m not a fan of taking drugs, and I wouldn’t want him to take them for this; he said that’s what he suspected I’d say.

We might have to look into that pump, tho . . . And there are other electrical devices . . . ;-)

He said he felt sorry for the young guys – a couple of the men in his class were in their twenties, another guy maybe about forty. “Sorrier for them than for you?” I asked. “Been there, done that,” he joshed; but he was serious that he thought it much worse for them. It didn’t seem to me that this was a significant blow to him – one more thing to accept as fact and make the best of.

In the afternoon he had another OT session – two hours worth, the first hour with a “tech assistant,” the second with an occupational therapist. First he did stretching of the legs. Then came practice at rolling. For some reason he wasn’t as successful at that as before. The tech said it might be because he was tired out, but I thought she didn’t have him positioned right and tried to hint how to change that. The tech he has isn’t, IMHO, as skilled as the therapists, but as she didn’t take my hints I didn’t feel I could very well be more forceful in my opinion as to how to try it differently.

The second hour the therapist took over. She started out by showing us how the portable hoyer works – this is the type of thing we may have to get for home for use during Gary’s continued recovery from the flap surgery, which can take up to a year (or longer, or significantly shorter, like three weeks – it just depends on how he heals). I really don’t know if this is something I’m going to be able to physically handle, as it needs to be pushed with him in it for a short distance – I tried it, and it didn’t seem too bad, but by evening my back felt worse. We may have to look into putting a track in the ceiling and/or hiring someone for at least the beginning and the end of the day until his flap heals – someone who could help get him ready in the morning for school or whatever, and help get him to bed at night. I need to see if there is someone here at the hospital who can help me find some help with my own back problems, see if there is anything more I can be doing so I can be in as good a shape as I can be to deal with this. I did mention to Gary that I could just keep him in the trunk of the car until he was healed from the flap surgery, but he seemed reluctant about that.

We keep learning of more restrictions this flap surgery can result in :-( . I or someone else may have to be quite involved in some of the other personal care issues that Gary will eventually be able to take care of on his own. When the doctor who is performing the surgery came to talk to Gary in the afternoon (Thurs), Gary asked if the doctor wanted to check the sore, that maybe it had improved (he said hopefully) and he wouldn’t need the surgery. The doctor told him there was no reprieve (and then joked how he, me, and the nurse were going to go out partying until the early hours of the morning but that we’d be back in time for Gary’s 7:30 am operation; I don’t think Gary was in the mood to appreciate the doctor’s jocularity). Later in the afternoon Gary again brought up with me the topic of restrictions. He detailed more things I might have to do for him, and I joked that he was testing the limits of my love. He said “I’m afraid so.” I lightly told him not to worry, the limits of my love were beyond these new tasks. He choked up. I hadn’t realized until he choked up that he been seriously concerned about how all this information about the restrictions due to the surgery was affecting me. Hugs were in order.

It is now 9:30 am of Friday. The doc came shortly after nine to tell me the surgery went well and that the sore had been much deeper than it had looked so we’d (the all-inclusive “we”) made the right choice in having the surgery. Gary should be back from it in about a half hour.

This coming Weds some medical people will come to take casts of Gary’s lower legs and feet. He will wear the casts for a day, then they will be cut off, the cuts made down the sides, to make “molds.” At night, he will have to wear these molds in order to keep his ankles from dropping. (Lie down in your bed or whatever, relax, and check your feet. They are probably pointing fairly upward. Gary’s are pointing significantly downward, which evidently is a common side effect of spinal cord injury. Since this would make it difficult to sit in a wheelchair if they become fixed in that position, the molds are to train his feet not to drop.) At Birmingham he had special boots to wear for this purpose, but they can causing skin breakdown because they are not specially tailored to him as the casts will be.

Gary returned from the surgery. He’s doing fine, but is sleepy from the anesthesia. I read E.H.’s email to him for its entertainment value. It is an understatement to say it certainly did keep us entertained, detailing the events of her date (she will probably never write or speak to me again once she sees this has made it to the blog). By the way, E.H., after hearing your adventure, Gary asked me if I would have thought it strange if he had wanted to take me to a cemetery after “the first thing we ever did together socially” (I write it that way since I don’t think we ever had an official “date.”) Seeing that that first thing was to see the movie “Friday the 13th” (I hadn’t admitted to him that I didn’t like scary movies) I would have thought it more than strange. And I wouldn’t have gone.

And tell your mother, E.H., that there are other females who never did anything approaching going out with anyone until they were twenty-four (in fact, they never had any intention of getting married at all). And they have been happily married for nearly twenty-five years. So she doesn’t need to push you ;-)

Bob and Rosina Stephenson and Bob’s sister Alice Stevens came for a short visit in the afternoon, but that was pretty much all the activity Gary could handle today. He seemed sleepy for most of the day. At night, we watched a little more Dylan, and then the nurse came to put him on his stomach to try the proning (he did it for about two and a half hours the previous, Thursday, night). Since he was face down, I read another chapter of Jimmy Carter to him, and then we called it a night.

I couldn’t help thinking when Gary’s night nurse, a huge woman, flipped Gary over onto his stomach, that he looked like this limp rag doll laying there on its tummy on the bed. I feel so sorry for him seeing him lie there. And this seems almost like starting over again, like time is dragging its feet. . . .

Well to finish up, reading about E.H.’s date made me think of my beginning time with Gary. So if you are only interested in reading about updates of Gary, exit this entry now ;-)

This is how we met. I went to an appointment with Ben Fitzpatrick, the head of the math department at the time, to go over what classes I should take. I was interested in topology, having had a couple of Moore/Texas style courses in it as an undergrad. Dr. Fitzpatrick didn’t know how much I had had would overlap with what Dr. Gruenhage would be teaching, so he suggested I take my notebooks full of my coursework up to Dr. Gruenhage’s office to show him so that he could decide if it was appropriate to be in his course. I kept wanting to give Dr. Gruenhage’s name the German pronunciation, so asked Dr. Fitzpatrick for the correct pronunciation. I then proceeded up the steps to Gary's office, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, Grune, Hague, Grune, Hague. Had to be some sixty year old with white hair and a goatee. Left, right, Grune, Hague.

I got to Gary’s door, knocked, went in. He turned from where he was seated at his desk.

Those eyes. That smile. Wow. I’d never believed in love at first sight, but . . . But surely this was some graduate student in the professor’s chair? But would a graduate student be so bold as to do that? “Are you Doctor . . .” I’d lost the correct way to say it. “Grünhage?” I asked, giving the name the German pronunciation.

It turned out that though there was overlap between what I had done in my coursework and what Gary would cover, there was enough new stuff that he thought it would be fine for me to take the course. Lucky me. I confess, I had the occasional lapse of concentration in class when my attention would wander to how good he looked in his jeans, especially this one pair he used to wear that were on the tight side . . . . But of course such lapses were rare.

In those beginning days, I couldn’t believe he was as nice as he seemed.

As time went on I realized he was as nice as he seemed.

(He still is.)

Somehow (surveillance work probably; I don’t remember) I discovered he ate lunch at the War Eagle Cafeteria.So I ate at the War Eagle Cafeteria. Yuk. But a person’s got to do what a person’s got to do. I saw him eating with Jo. It hadn’t occurred to me he might be married. But how could he not have already been snapped up? I had to investigate this. I somehow managed to work his marital status into a casual conversation with Margie Fitzpatrick (I was staying at the Fitzpatricks after having fled the abode of the toga-party-loving roommates my dad had somehow managed to fix me up with; however, the cows mooing at 4 am and trains going by through the night on the tracks near where the Fitzpatricks lived on Gold Hill weren’t an improvement on that, so I looked to find another place). I found out Gary was single. Somehow I determined Jo was married. Good deal.

Gary played racquetball. I took up the sport. Not that I would ever be in his league to play him, but at least I had a quasi-legitimate reason for seeing him at the courts. A friend visited me over Christmas vacation and we devised a plan. We managed to time it so we came off the courts the same time Gary and his partner, Butch, did. We talked. Just as I opened my mouth to suggest we all go somewhere to eat, Butch invited Gary – and just Gary – out for pizza. :-( .

By spring break it was clear that Gary was still oblivious to all my machinations, and I couldn’t bring myself to being more direct (what if I was rejected?). So I recruited my parents. They came for the break and invited Peg’s professor out to eat so they could meet him. (I was there too, of course.) Gary told me later that at this affair it was the first time he finally got the inkling that I was interested in him other than mathematically. (Much later I worked up the nerve to ask him what he’d thought of me up to that point. He said the only thoughts he’d had about me were that he really wanted me to go into topology so he could direct me through a masters and Ph.D. (And for those of you who don’t know me very well, for instance, Gary’s current students, he wanted me to be his student for *mathematical* reasons. Jack Brown (my other graduate course professor at the time), you’ll back me up on this, right?))

I think that when someone who doesn’t know me very well reads here about how Gary and I got together, they must get the completely wrong impression of me (I sound like some stereotypical schemer). This kind of behavior was so out of character for me. Up to this point I hadn’t been interested in more than friendship relations with males because even if I could find one who was interested in me (there hadn’t exactly been a plethora of such), 1) he couldn’t possibly meet my standards, and 2) even if he did, such as Gary seemed to, he wouldn’t be able to put up with my idiosyncracies (I still haven’t figured out how Gary has managed to do so; the mysteries of love
;-)).

Anyhoo, sometime soon after that we went to that movie – neither of us remember how that happened, but it wasn’t a formal asking – it never was. I remember someone from the math dept showed up in the ticket line soon after we did and started talking to Gary. Gary moved about five feet away from me. I remember thinking there might be a problem with this student and teacher thing. (As Gary said when I tried to prod his memory about this today (not that he knows I’m writing this), “It shouldn’t have happened. Those things tend not to work out and then it’s a big mess. But after twenty-five years of marriage, I’m comfortable with the decision.”) I remember that over that weekend long ago I thought about the kosherness of the relationship, and knew I really didn’t want to wait until after I had a Ph.D to pursue a relationship with him. But it would have to be his move – I’d practically had to hit him over the head to get him to notice me, but now he knew.

And obviously he must have decided it was okay with him. (When I asked him some time later, he said he too had spent the weekend thinking about pursuing a relationship with me and decided he wanted to continue seeing me.)

Well, time to wrap this up. Anything more I want to relate? Oh, yeah. I made a lasting impression on him the first time I went to his house. I ripped off my jeans in his front yard. Why? you ask. Overcome by lust? you speculate.

“You’re standing on a fire ant hill,” Gary said.

“Oh?” I replied, wondering why he felt the need to point out an ant hill.

I found out.

Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 24, 2006 (1:37pm)

Well, I guess they never promised speed when it came to the delivery of those electronic messages here at Shepherd. A bunch were delivered to Gary last night (Tuesday). Thanks to: Ronnie Levy, Mirko, Donne, Bill Kelly, David Fremlin, and Janet and John. We also got snail mail: a joint card evidently written during a mini-War Eagle from Janet and Jack Rogers, Jane and Jack Brown, Sam and Diane Young, Margie Fitzpatrick, Pam and J.P. Holmes, John Henrichsen (sorry if I mispelled that John – I can’t remember exactly how to spell it and I can’t read your writing ;-)), Donna Bennett, and Cathy Colquett. And of course another card from Gary’s mom :-) This time she didn’t send a picture, but I forgot to mention that Gary’s cousin brought one. It was really cute, from when Gary was about six years old, is his guess, taken on the farm Gary grew up on. Gary and Bob and their cousin John are in the foreground, Grandpa Groteleuschen and a milk pail behind them, and behind them, some cows.

More mail just came in: a card from Beth Fletcher. And a Lucky Bamboo plant from Janet and John!

Back to the medical stuff. On Monday after the conference with the doctor Gary had his first session on the mat in the gym. First came learning how to balance on his spine – remember, he no longer has abdominal muscles he can recruit for any of the things I tell you he is learning – most of us would no doubt unconsciously recruit ab and leg muscles to help, whereas for him everything below nipple level is dead weight. In balancing, head placement becomes very important. If you’re falling forward, you need to lean your head backwards, etc.

So he practiced sitting, and reaching from a seated position without falling over, and also how to go to and from a sitting position to a leaning back position (supported by a wedge).

On Tuesday he learned how to roll from lying flat on his back over to his side. Not so easy when you don’t have leg or abdominal muscles to recruit. You have to swing your arms vigorously from the side away from the direction you want to go in to the side you want to end up on, and you do that a few times to build up momentum (one, two, three!). You also have to tuck your chin to your chest and use your head to help throw your weight in the direction you want to go – this is definitely not the time to feel self-conscious about how your body is moving. I could tell by the look of intense concentration on Gary’s face that this rolling business was not an easy task. But he actually was successful at it fairly quickly – I was impressed, and Gary was quite pleased.

Next came weight shifts to the side – so I don’t have to be with him to lower the back of his wheelchair every thirty minutes for the rest of our lives ;-). In this procedure he learned how to manage the wheelchair so he can lean way off the side of it to make sure his butt lifts off the seat of the chair. This is to make sure he doesn’t develop any skin sores on his booty. He has to hold that position on each side for a minute, and must do this every thirty minutes he is sitting. There is an alternative kind of weight shift where he would use his arms (triceps) to lift himself straight up from the chair (balancing on the arm rests), but he isn’t strong enough yet to hold his body up in the air just balancing on his hands for anywhere close to a minute (can you?).

They then showed him how to stretch his legs using looped pieces of cloth. It will be important for him to maintain the flexibility in his legs for postural considerations. I asked if there was anything that could be done to maintain the muscle mass of his legs, or if they would just atrophy. Evidently if a doctor approves, Gary can be put on a bike where electrodes would go to his legs and stimulate the muscles to move so he would be “riding” the bike. They didn’t make it sound like this was standard for patients in his situation to do, so we’ll see about that later. They definitely stressed the flexibility, tho.

After this (an hour’s worth of work), the therapist asked how tired Gary was on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 meaning, he could do this all day; 10, meaning he needed a nap. Gary said “9.” Fortunately it was time to go. In fact, we had gone over the allotted time, and Gary was late for the skin wound class. We caught the tail end of it – full of gross pictures of bed sores on people. Then it was time for lunch. I think the order of events should have been changed. (I’m sure the intent of that class is to scare people with what could happen if they don’t take care of themselves, and at that they succeed eminently.)

In the afternoon on Tuesday Gary had another session of therapy. The therapist asked how he felt. Gary said he was almost recovered from the morning session. The therapist smiled mercilessly. The tasks were harder. Gary practiced going from laying on his back to the roll to the side position to sitting up. The sitting up part involves a lot of technique and strength – you have to place your elbow to the side just so, and then walk your upper body around with it until you’re kind of folded in half to the side, then push yourself to a sitting position, which again involves hand and head placement so you don’t lose your balance and fall over. The therapist had to help Gary on this – he wasn’t yet able to do this on his own. He also practiced scooting – but not too much because of the bed sore. We also watched someone else practicing a board transfer, where the guy placed a little board from under his butt to over to the matt, then he scooted over on it. When Gary can accomplish that, he won’t have to be airlifted on that hoist appartus ;-) Unfortunately that sacral flap surgery means he won’t be able to scoot for a year (!) afterwards. Unless and until he gets strong enough to lift his body entirely off one surface to another, we’re not sure how he is going to be able to do transfers – I certainly can’t be lifting him. Someone is going to talk to us more about this. I know they had mentioned a mechanical hoist at Birmingham, but it’s still a two-person operation, one that requires more physical ability than I have, because of my back. So I don’t know if this means we’ll have to spring for an electrically operated hoist or what.

After that therapy session, Gary was ready to go back to the room, but they weren’t through with him. He was supposed to wheel around the place for another hour, taking breaks as needed. After forty minutes he said that was enough. It was enough for me too, since I had just started having a migraine aura and the floor was tilting beneath my feet. He went back to his room for a nap, and I went off for a massage at a place I had seen a couple blocks from my apartment. In the same building is a rolfer, an “energy work person,” a chiropractor, and an acupuncturist, in case I want to do a sampling :-) . In the evening I had a brief phone conversation with Gary’s cousin, who gave me choices from her books-on-tape and her DVDs, and a phone conversation with my older sister. After eating, I returned to the hospital just at the time cousin (cousin-in-law?) Helen was about to leave Gary’s room. She is letting us borrow a CD player along with her book and movie selections, so we are starting to line up our entertainment for when Gary can’t get out of the bed again.

So that was Tuesday. I got up a little early on Wednesday cuz Gary had run out of clothes to wear so I had to do laundry (I can hardly wait for him to become independent ;-)). I knew the volume of water had been low in my faucets in my apartment, but I didn’t anticipate how low it was in the laundry room. With the merest trickle coming out, I was afraid it would take a couple hours to fill the washing machine. Fortunately it didn’t, but the dryers sucked too, and since I didn’t want to spend all day there, I removed the clothes from the dryer after a half hour and hung them around the apartment. Next time I’ll use the washer and dryer provided for the patients on Gary’s floor; I may even try to sneak some of my own stuff in with his. When I got to Gary’s room I found he’d missed his “Alcohol and Drug” class (how spinal injury affects the ingestion of such). Not that he was all that dismayed by that (he will have to make it up), but the reason he missed the class is because his replacement chair hadn’t come. When he first got a wheelchair on Monday, it was definitely meant to be a temporary one until they had a better idea of what he needed. He got one on Tuesday that was supposed to be better – smaller, lighter, more mobile – but turned out to be worse. He was sliding around in it – it was too big and gave him no support around his midsection, and he couldn’t keep himself upright in it. So he was supposed to get another one this (Weds) morning. He didn’t want to miss his OT class, so I went to find his therapist to see if they could at least get the first chair he had been in so he could come to the class. She told me she would find a chair for him. When she came about a half hour later, it was with his new chair. This is not the one he’ll take home; when that time comes close, he’ll go to a seating clinic and they’ll customize one to him. The chair she brought is still one of the ones they pass on from patient to patient at the hospital. It is still too big for him, causing him to catch his arm on the bars that support the back when he wheels it, but at least it has “wings” that circle around him below his armpits and help keep him centered in the chair. He said it was significantly better than the one they had him in yesterday. But actually he didn’t spend much time in it then – I had brought up that Gary wanted to practice proning, which they want him to do after the sacral surgery if at all possible, and she thought this would be a good time for it. So she brought a wedge and a face cradle for Gary to try. The face cradle is similar to the type massage therapists use. If you are not familiar with that, picture a padded toilet seat, where your face would go into the hole part (okay, that is probably not something we’d like to picture ourselves as doing, but at least it describes it pretty well). Using the wedge instead of the cradle seemed more comfortable for Gary. The wedge goes under his chest, and he either would support his weight on his elbows if he wants to read, or he would put a pillow under his forehead to rest his head. He said it seemed pretty comfortable, though to me it didn’t look it. I can’t imagine laying like that for hours on end, but we’ll see what happens when the time actually comes. The therapist gave him some exercises in that position to stretch his shoulders, which have always been very tight, and to strengthen the muscles in his back (like his traps), both the strengthening and stretching intended to help him maintain that prone position.

After that session was a two hour break for lunch and “whatever” until his next scheduled activity in the early afternoon. This they called a “group activity,” and when we had first asked about it, they’d made it sound like fun – a scavenger hunt or some kind of outing. Some people scheduled for this group activity started playing pictionary. Gary was told to lie on the mat, another guy next to him, and the two of them started to do stretching (or rather, to be stretched). The area of the gym where Gary was was pretty crowded and noisy, and it didn’t look like there was room for me (besides, I’m not a game player) so I slipped off to work on the blog. When Gary came back, he looked worn out – definitely not like he had been spending a lot of time playing pictionary.

I asked him what activities he had gotten to do. “Some group activity,” he said with his tongue hanging out. “Me and that other guy got to do weights for an hour and a half.” I asked if he’d had to do that the whole time (they take breaks, of course), and he said, no, he’d gotten to practice going from a leaned back sitting position to a sitting forward position and then back again – which again, is work, because he doesn’t have his abs to help with this – it’s balance and hand and arm positioning and upper body strength. They had done this over and over again. Some fun .

And of course he’ll have to start all this over from the beginning five weeks from now after the flap surgery. But I’m glad they’re having him do this rather than just languish, and he will know what to expect next time around.

A short time after he returned, Jamie, from my critique group, arrived. She had come to Atlanta to visit with us and to whisk me away for a short while. So she met Gary for the first time and acknowledged that he did indeed exist (having been skeptical of that fact for so long; Gary brought that up and she told him she knew he had to exist when she and others in the critique group found me on the floor, crying, at Paneera’s (the restaurant where we hold our meetings) – that was when I first got the message to call the emergency room and got the news of Gary’s accident and they told me he had a severe spinal cord injury and was paralyzed nipple level down; Jamie said no one was that good of an actor to fake my reaction (I didn’t tell them but I was petrified Gary was going to die)). After a short time she and her son and I left to find a restaurant. Her son, Jesse, is an interesting character (better not let him read this, Jamie). He’s just turned ten and has the energy of that age, but his talk is atypical (in my limited experience) – full of scientific facts about animals (they went to the zoo before seeing us), about chemistry, and about other areas of science, and how Bush is our worse president ever (of course his similes (and he used that word, his mother being an English teacher) were of the type “Bush is like barf” – not that he used the word “barf,” he merely pantomimed the act of upchucking). Such an intelligent young man. At first Gary and I weren’t sure Jesse would be allowed on the ward, having thought we read that no one under twelve was allowed, but I found out from the nurses that all he would have to do is stop at the security desk and answer a few questions about whether he had any infectious illnesses, including a cold. I forgot to tell Gary that, and when I told him Jesse was coming up too, Gary said he thought the boy wouldn’t be allowed. I explained about the security procedures and Gary started laughing. He’d thought that kids weren’t allowed not to protect the patients from childhood illnesses but to protect the children: the sight of all these cripples would scare them. A roommate of Gary’s overheard Gary’s explanation and started laughing too, and they both resolved to be on their best behavior so as not to scare Jesse. We all agreed that when we were ten we probably would have been scared in such a situation. Gary said he probably would have fainted, since he was known to do so whenever they’d shown medical films at his school.

But Jesse wasn’t phased at all, not batting an eye when Gary wheeled over to the other side of the room to do his weight shifts, and merely looking on with interest when Gary was hoisted through the air from his wheelchair to his bed.

Jamie had suggested we go to an Indian restaurant, having the idea I could order a big plate of rice. Through Yahoo we found an Indian restaurant that was only about a mile away, but when we got there we found the business was closed. We found another restaurant in easy walking distance – fortunately, since the $5 she paid for parking was nonrefundable. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a restaurant – I thought her paying $14 for a plate of roast chicken ridiculously expensive, but Gary told me afterwards it wasn’t. We thought it odd that the waiter kept removing and replacing drinks (Jamie and Jesse’s diet coke and lemonade) and refilling my water when they’d been only partially consumed. The place didn’t have anything I could eat, of course, but I had come prepared, bringing along a container of cooked rice. Fortunately they didn’t say anything about it.

It was great spending some time with Jamie. She left to go back to Auburn soon after we finished eating. I went back to the hospital for another hour, and Gary and I watched more of the Dylan DVD. I like it marginally better than the book, neither of them really giving me a feel for the man. At least the DVD has music, which is why Gary likes the DVD better, too.

I mentioned a little about that day of the accident a few paragraphs ago, and that reminds me. Gary mentioned that he can remember being at the intersection where it occurred, but then there is a gap. He doesn’t remember being hit. The next thing he remembers is being in the rescue vehicle. They found fluid in his lungs and told him they would have to put in a chest tube. They pounded it in just below and to the side of his armpit. It hurt a lot and that was the first time he had the thought he might be in a little trouble. He said he was never really worried, though, until days later, after the second surgery, and the doctors started mentioning things about infections (in the staples, etc), because he knew infections in a hospital were a serious thing.

According to the accident report, however, he wasn’t unconscious as long as the above makes it seem. The reporting police officer claims Gary made the statement at the scene that he never saw the other car (which is what Gary has told me and others). It seemed bizarre that here Gary was lying there with a severed spine and the police officer is taking his statement about the accident, but I suppose that’s standard operating procedure.

Jumping about here – Gary’s splint was removed from his index finger. Yea! Now all he has on it is tape – it is taped to his middle finger for a little extra stability. It hurts to bend it, but that will get better. Even his “good” fingers were stiff for a couple of days after they removed his cast.

Another non sequitur. The other day we were in his room when we heard someone call through the curtain, “environmental services.” I thought that was something to do with temperature control, Gary later joked that he thought it was someone to whom he could complain that he didn’t like the environment here. But it turned out to be someone who emptied the trash and swept the floor. So, they don’t have janitors at Shepherd, they have environmental service technicians ;-).

This morning (Thursday) when I arrived I found out that Gary had had his first shower since the accident. They put him in a special wheelchair that can go in the shower. He felt light-headed, so they had to put his pressure socks back on him, and in addition he wore the chest strap while he bathed himself. Both the socks and the strap help maintain his blood pressure. His doctor told him that the very first time he had had a shower, he had fainted. I assume it was because he hadn’t been wearing those extra supports – ideally, in the shower, they wouldn’t be wearing socks and straps.

We have noticed that Gary always gets cold after they bathe him, and this was true of the shower. So I first warmed him up with hugs ;-), then brought him some hot tea. Soon after that he asked to be put in his chair so he could go to his class, and that’s where he is now, in a class on male sexuality. No females allowed. We had thought maybe I could attend, but they kicked me out ;-). (We can see where other men might not want other people’s female partners to attend. So I will have wait to find out what went on in the boys’ club meeting. ;-))

Non sequitur. In the restrooms at Shepherd they have these paper towel dispensers that you just hold your hands under and the dispenser senses you and out rolls a small bit of paper towel (I always have to hold my hands under there twice because they are too stingy with their toweling). Restrooms are getting so automated these days. Toilets flushing automatically, towels rolling out automatically . . . Of course, such automation in our world can lead to false expectations. When I went to get my massage, I couldn’t figure out where the buttons were to call the elevator to go up to the second floor. The only button that registered as a button had the symbol of a fire chief hat on it, so I didn’t think I should press that. At the top of the panel where I thought the buttons should be, it read “automatic elevator.” So I thought maybe all I had to do was stand in front of that panel and it would sense me and the elevator would come (you’re probably thinking that was stupid, aren’t you? :-)). After a couple minutes it became clear the elevator wasn’t sensing me or reading my brain waves. I heard someone down the hall so I called out, “How do I call the elevator?” “Push the button,” came the reply. “I would if I saw one,” I muttered under my breath. I told the guy I knew this was stupid, but I couldn’t find the button. He came over, and pushed it. It was on the bottom of the stainless steel panel, made out of the same stainless steel, and nearly flush with the panel. Okay, it was round, like a button should be, but there was no “up, down” arrow next to it, and it just didn’t register that that was something to push.

Non sequitur. It is interesting seeing the various spinal cord patients here. Some have quite a bit more functionality than Gary will ever have, and I can’t help feeling a bit, what?, envious? That’s not quite the right word I don’t think cuz it’s not me in the situation. Others we see have C-level injuries, and will have to operate their wheelchairs the way I think Christopher Reeve did, the “sip and puff,” method, blowing through a straw-like device to steer their wheelchairs. We were told they could use similar methods to operate a phone or the TV. If they have the use of even one finger, it may be possible to even drive a car by pushing a button.

But I am glad we don’t have to take advantage of the wonders of science and technology to that extent.

All for now.

May 23, 2006

I was told it was time to get Gary some athletic shoes, and he also asked for some long-sleeved T’s, so on Sunday evening I took another shopping trip. Blcchh, this one was not fun. At Target I went through the entire men’s department and scrounged up only two long-sleeved T’s. Fortunately Gary likes the Braves (that’s a baseball team, for my French friend), as the shirts bear their logo. In the shoe department, the sizes were only mostly together. Same with the styles. So I ended up looking through the entire wall-full of shoes, and found only one pair with velcro straps, which is what he needs at the moment. Unfortunately they were not the correct size. The Target salesperson sent me off to another store (I have told you how much I hate driving in traffic, haven’t I? At least Atlanta’s was easier than Birmingham’s). The store was closed. No way was I going to head back in the direction I’d just come from and hack my way through the jungle of Lenox Square Mall searching for shoes. I chalked the trip up as a failed attempt and consoled myself by going to a Publix grocery store and perusing their “organics and natural” section. I got Gary some organic yogurts and smoothies and milk, some definitely nonorganic Hershey’s cocoa, some zukes for me, and also such exciting things as natural toilet bowl cleaner.

Gary had told me that in talking to his mom Saturday night he’d found out that he had a cousin who lived very close to Shepherd, about a mile away (give me a second – this is actually related to the above paragraph). This cousin, Helen, called on Monday. We talked a bit and she asked if there was anything we needed. Not really serious, I said Gary needed tennis shoes (I had been planning to go out to find them a couple of hours hence). She said she was doing errands and would be near the place I had been told might have them, so would check it out and give me a call. She did this, found the place didn’t have velcro shoes either, but found them at a nearby place. She picked them up for us and said she would bring them when she came to visit that evening! We knew it was her when she walked through the curtain shortly after seven. Okay, there were some giveaways: she said she was coming about seven, and she was not dressed like one of the medical personnel. But I could tell she was of Groteleuschen stock because she has the same facial features and coloring as Gary’s mother. She was full of stories, and kept us well-entertained. She brought a beautiful begonia, and the tennies – which she probably has no idea how grateful I am that she got them so I didn’t have to hunt them down.

Okay, to the medical stuff. Gary will have to have the “sacral flap” surgery for his bed sore. The doctor’s opinion is that it wouldn’t easily heal on its own – could take five months to do so – and wouldn’t heal as well with the natural scar tissue as opposed to having a skin flap put over it. The doctor came in the afternoon to take another look at the sore (bellowing “Gary!” as he walked through the curtain, thus destroying the nap of the person in the next area who had recently asked us to turn down our tape recorder because he wanted to take a nap – we had turned it off because if we turned it down Gary wouldn’t have been able to hear it). I immediately liked the guy because he asked if I was Gary’s daughter. (Of course, this could have just been very bad news for Gary, not good news for me.) Anyway, the doctor said the sore was worse than when he’d seen it on Friday and that it was sitting right on the bone.

So on Friday Gary will be wheeled over to Piedmont Hospital, which is connected to Shepherd through a tunnel. He will be put under anesthesia (just the usual general type – he won’t be put on a breathing tube). Then the doc – a plastic surgeon – will debride the area (“debride” sounding so much better than “digging the icky stuff out”). He will also remove Gary’s tailbone (!) because evidently it is more trouble than it is worth for Gary’s condition. Then he will take muscle from Gary’s glutes to fill in, then fold his skin over the area and use staples and sutures on it to close it. Gary will then have to lay flat, or nearly so (no more than a 20 degree angle), for three weeks. If he can tolerate “proning” (laying on his stomach), the success rate of this surgery goes up significantly. During the last of these three weeks he will undergo gentle stretching of the scar tissue until they have increased the stretch of the hips to 110 degrees. Then they will start to gradually sit him up in bed, then get him gradually used to sitting in his wheelchair again – in total, it is a five week healing process. At which time he will be back to where he was about the time he first arrived here. Sigh. The good part about this is his finger should be just about healed then, so he can better take advantage of the rehab.

So a lesson for anyone who reads this: bed sores are a very serious matter, and don’t trust your nurses to be taking the proper preventive care of them.

On the plus side, Gary’s coughing problem seems to have improved (keep your fingers crossed). Those first days here sometimes it was so bad that he was totally exhausted by it. But now they are thinking of reducing his nebulizer treatments to twice a day, then as needed, so with any luck I soon won’t be able to joke “put that in your pipe and smoke it” anymore (he breathes in the medicine through something that looks like a pipe and “smoke” comes out the end of it). (Another phrase we bandy about is “knock on plastic” (there no being any wood around), whenever an improvement seems in the making. It got us to wondering how that phrase had originated. Normally I would immediately go on the internet and track the phrase down, but I haven’t had the time.)

May 24, 2006 (12:47pm)

Much of what I’m going to say here about Gary’s injuries I already said at the beginning of this blog or in the emails sent out, but for those who’ve jumped in recently, here it is again – we had it recently reviewed for us in a conference with Gary’s doctor, Dr. Lin, on Monday. First Gary’s orthopedic injuries were reviewed, complete with newly-taken x-rays: fractures in the spine, the pelvis (two such fractures), and the finger. The doctor explained how the spinal column has a two-fold function. It acts as scaffolding for the head, neck, and shoulders, giving rigidity to support their weight and flexibility for bending. Secondly, it gives protection for the spinal cord, which functions like wiring to the body, allowing our movement, perception of sensation, sense of orientation; it also is responsible for bowel and bladder functioning, ability to breathe, heart rate, temperature control. The top part of the spine, the neck area, is the C spine (cervical), then comes the T spine (thoracic = chest), then the lower lumbar L spine. The cord is like a garden hose, says the doctor. Pinch it somewhere, and the messages have a harder time getting through. Pinching it closed or severing it makes it very difficult for signals to get through (doctor’s words). The spinal cord, like the brain, doesn’t really get better after being bruised (the doctor likened it to a bruised banana); it doesn’t heal well at all. Gary’s injury was at T4, nipple level. When he had his first MRI in the emergency room, the docs saw a hematoma choking the cord. They went in to try to relieve the pressure. When they did that, they saw the spinal cord had been severed, separated, disconnected – take your pick of words, they all mean the same thing. They took the pressure off the spine, and in a later operation stabilized the spine with rods and pins. We saw the x-rays of this. The doctor pointed out how they had removed some of the bone to take off the pressure (they removed 5 of the bony ridges that you could see if you look at the back a skeleton model of the body), then later put in the rods as “replacement.”

His pelvis has two breaks. They heal by not putting pressure on them, which with all the bed rest he’s been getting satisfies that requirement.

The doctor said that perhaps down the line stem cell research could possibly help restore some functioning, though with the political climate of today who knows when such breathroughs might happen. He also mentioned China was better able to do the research, having an abundance of fetal tissue, but that they were so disorganized over there that no useful data was coming out. He mentioned them having some success in Portugal . . . But anyway, for practical purposes this is still very much in the future.

The doctor’s own spinal cord was severed at T1, by the way – armpit level – giving him less functionality than Gary. That surprised us greatly, given the way he moved in his chair.

Medically Gary has no great issues, according to the doctor. But there are four reasons why he is in such a place as Shepherd.

First is for medical stabilization. The trachea hole, broken bones, skin sore, need healing. The breathing issues. Etc.

Second is mobility issues. Learning first how to get from bed to wheelchair, later such things as participating as fully as possible in the community – driving a car, etc. A paraplegic with Gary’s level of injury is expected to be fully independent (though he probably won’t be cleaning gutters, the doctor demurred). Shepherd consistently rates as number one or two as a Model Spinal Cord Injury Center in the nation, meaning this is a very good place to go for this purpose.

The third reason is body acclimatization. Checking the skin frequently for pressure sores (the doctor warned that once a person has had a problem with them, things never get completely better – like trying to smooth a crumpled paper back to its original look), checking the legs for blood clots. Learning the bowel and bladder routines – neither operate as they normal would, so Gary has to learn catheterization for urine removal and rectal clearing (sphincter stimulation) for bowel evacuation. The doctor says it takes about six months for a paraplegic to learn his body well enough to have these routines down.

In addition, the digestive system in general is slowed down and doesn’t operate as well. I mentioned I though Gary’s belly looked swollen and wondered if that was a part of it, but the doctor said that Gary no longer has control of the abdominal muscles, so they go slack and result in the “beer belly look.” That had confused me because Gary hadn’t looked like he had lost weight around his middle, but I noticed his legs were definitely skinnier, and maybe even his arms. I thought it may be due to atrophy, but it turns out that in addition to that, he really has lost weight – he’s dropped 13 pounds since the accident.

The fourth reason for Gary being here is OT (occupational therapy): learning to dress, wash, shower.

And after he’s done with the program here, Gary’s work is, of course, not done. He will still want to work at increasing his fitness, strength, stamina.

Since I’m behind in posting stuff, I’ll get this off now.

Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 20, 2006 (2:10pm)

I think that when Gary was worse off and I wasn’t with him as much, my writing of the emails/blog might have been more coherent. Now that I’m spending more time with him, I have time only for snatches of writing here and there. So if you’ve noticed a decrease in quality, that is why. (Or so I’ll say ;-))

Okay, catching up on the last mail we got at B’ham. Thanks to Mom Gruenhage, Beth Fletcher, Lois Staving, the Barjenbruchs, and Wanjun Hu.

And I would like to mention the email from Bob, Gary’s younger brother – I hope Bob won’t mind. It was very sweet. Bob mentioned how one time when both he and Gary were living in California, Bob got mad over some trivial thing, and Gary told him not to get mad, but to solve the problem. Bob said he always remembered that, that it helped him, and how he could see how Gary still lived by that. I was reminded of Bob’s email yesterday, when the counselor assigned to Gary came by to meet Gary and tell him they had an appointment scheduled for some time next week. She asked if Gary had any questions, or if there were any issues he wanted to discuss. Gary told her he thought everything had pretty much been covered – then later worried she might not appreciate the way he had put that, indicating she wasn’t necessary :-). I told him that it had seemed to me he had taken this pretty well from the beginning, and asked if that was really the case (since communication had been somewhat limited there for a while). He said maybe he was kidding himself (I don’t think he is), but he felt he had accepted that this was the way it was going to be, and that the only thing to do was to make the best of it. I mentioned how I had felt that it was useless to ask the why’s because I felt there was no answer (at least that I could comprehend). He said even if he knew the answers to why the accident had happened, it wouldn’t matter because it didn’t change how things were.

Broadening that from this specific instance to a life-view, that has pretty much been my guiding philosophy for years now – beliefs, understanding, *in a sense* don’t matter – it’s how you live your life (I put “in a sense” because I know there are those who would argue that it is beliefs and understanding that guide how life is lived).

Besides a counselor, Gary has an entire “team” assigned to him: his doctor, case manager, physical therapist (for mobility issues, like sitting up, transferring between surfaces, rolling, and also for working on his lower body (keeping it flexible)), occupational therapist (for functional issues – learning how to bathe, dress – the details of daily living – and strengthening his upper body), speech therapist (for learning how to speak with the hole in his trache), recreational therapist, counselor.

I got a homework assignment from the OT the first full day we were here: to do a house survey, where particulars about our house are filled in (width of doorframes, details about bathrooms and bedrooms, etc.). Based on this they will make recommendations for alterations that should be made.

Jumping to a new topic, Saturday Gary wheeled himself around for the first time, the trip being down to the gym on the second floor (he’s on the third). So he had to maneuver down the hall to the elevators and then to the gym (the PT told him he should do all the driving himself, not to let others push him – needs to build up those muscles). To get into the chair from the bed, and from the chair to the gym mat, he was lifted by a device the nurses call a “hoyer,” maybe named after the manufacturer :-). He lays on a “net.” Hooks then go into eyes on the net on both sides of his shoulders and hips. He pushes a control button, and the hoyer lifts him. Then he lowers himself onto the chair (or mat). The PT gave him arm and shoulder exercises to do – bicep curls, flyes, tricep extension. I loved lifting weight when I used to be able to. I loved it almost as much as swimming. So when the PT walked over to the other mat to help someone else, I couldn’t resist correcting Gary’s form, telling him to slow down so he was using the muscle and not momentum, that quality was more important than quantity, telling him how he should be breathing out on the exertional phase, informing him when he had miscounted and still had more to go (cheater! ;-)). The PT told me I should have been a PT. Gary told me I was a hard taskmaster. I said he probably wanted to fire me, but he said no, it was good. He is supposed to do his arm exercises twice a day. Even if he has the skin flap surgery done on his bed sore, which will again render him on his back for at least two weeks, he is supposed to continue with the arm and shoulder exercises. Building these muscles will be vital for his rehab. We are expecting him to be quite buff by the time he goes home ;-).

Today, Sunday, he was more active in the chair. He wheeled down to a Sunday service on the third floor for the singing, then we went down to the first floor and outside to the garden they have here. They had a ramp down from the door of the building to the garden level, and I had to hang onto the wheelchair so Gary wouldn’t go flying down it. I almost lost him in the bushes (just kidding – though I did have to hang on tight). The garden was a very small area – I had been hoping for something larger. While we were there, a person came around with a dog, a black lab. She was from “Canine Assistants,” which trains dogs for people with mobility issues – the dogs open doors, pick up items, pull wheelchairs, go for help, turn on lights, etc., and the service is free. She said the dogs came with eighty commands, which made me laugh, since it made the dogs sound like programmable machines. That impression was reinforced when she said the dogs could then be customized to their owners’ needs. Gary asked how they do with cats, and she assured him that the dogs were raised with cats and so took to them very well. I couldn’t help saying, yeah, but I doubt our cats would take to a dog. She said the dog would so identify with Gary that the cats wouldn’t think of it as a dog, but I am dubious. Besides, I don’t really want to take care of a dog (not to mention I am afraid of them, though I’m sure the ones chosen wouldn’t justify any fears). Of course, if Gary really wants one, I wouldn’t deny him. (I just asked him – he said he’d rather try to get along without one first, but it was a nice program.) We left the garden after a little while, Gary not quite able to make it up the slope of the ramp on his own – but all I did was prevent him from going backwards, not push him up it. (There’s a reason he calls me a hard taskmaster – he later said, “I see you took those words to heart about not pushing me in the wheelchair :-).) We then went along the hall on the first floor where they have pictures of various people up. I still haven’t taken the time to see exactly who these pictures are of, but I recalled seeing one of Christopher Reeve, so we went looking for it. We found it – it was a poster for the ’96 Para Olympics which were held in Atlanta. By this time Gary had been active for two hours – definitely more active than he’s been at any time in the past five weeks. So we went back to the room, and he turned on the TV and watched golf. I got out the laptop and am composing this, later to be sent out as emails and put on the blog.

For some reason meal times are crowded together today – we’re not sure if it’s because it’s Sunday. Normally he’s been having breakfast around seven, lunch at twelve, dinner at six. But today’s breakfast was at 9:30, lunch at 11:30, and now dinner is here at five! They are really pushing protein on Gary – fish/meat at every meal, plus ensure, plus a protein drink – they say this will help heal the bedsore. But we are not usually impressed with the meals (I in particular raising an eyebrow at it). “Southern cooking,” Gary declares it. Fried steak, stuff smothered in gravy, tough, overcooked veggies. The beef they gave him for lunch was so tough he could hardly chew it. Fortunately we still had some salmon from the kabob in the fridge, so Gary had that, and I reminded him that I would get him whatever he wanted from elsewhere and cook it for him if he so desired – I think good nutrition is supremely important right now, though of course he and I are not always in agreement as to what good nutrition is ;-).

He has to be very careful and concentrate with his chewing, because they saw signs that some of his food is going down the wrong tube and ending up in his lungs. This could cause an infection. Everything is such a balancing act. If he has the surgery for the bed sore, he is supposed to lay flat for the incision to heal properly, but the respiratory people don’t want him lying flat because of breathing and eating issues – we’ll see how they resolve this dilemma if it comes to that. And for bladder issues first he was on a foley and now they do “ic’s” on him (incentive catheterization (sp?)), which he will be doing to himself, once his finger heals up. But now he has a bladder infection, I assume from having those tubes in him.

Speaking of that bed sore, it is amazing to us the trouble it causes. If he has the surgery, it turns out it will affect how he is able to take care of other personal issues for about a year. And he will have to be vigilant to make sure it is healing properly and doesn’t return.

And we still have the breathing issues. Because of the damage to his lungs during the accident and also probably due to all the various breathing tubes he had to have in him during this ordeal, he still has problems with congestion. He has been getting breathing treatments every four hours, as he did at B’ham.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned his hearing in a while. It seemed to slowly improve at B’ham. They tested him again the day before we were to leave B’ham (no doubt not wanting Shepherd to think they hadn’t followed through ;-)), and found him to be on the edge of normal. They still think it will completely clear up once he is more active. At least I don’t have to yell anymore, just have
to raise my voice slightly above normal.

Another thing that will come into play that we hadn’t realized is temperature regulation. Evidently his body won’t do that so well, so he may need to layer clothes, or at least to bring jacket with him when he goes to school, etc. They said even in hot weather, sometimes people like him find they might suddenly need a jacket for a while.

And to finish, some parting lessons I learned at Walmart in Birmingham: 1)Their instant ice packs are worthless – you will get a hernia trying to crush them so as to release the magic crystals. 2) If you are a woman and you accidently walk into the men’s room, it is best not to emit a loud “oops.” And if you do, be like me – stay in the women’s room extra long so as to avoid meeting up with anyone you accidently got too personal a look at.

Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 20, 2006 (9:25am)

Another thing I forgot to mention: Judy Roitman has discovered you can send electronic messages to Gary here, if you wish. The URL is http://www.shepherd.org/shepherdhomepage.nsf/Message!OpenForm

The message will be hand-delivered by one of their volunteers. Thanks, Judy.

We got some mail that last day at B’ham, but I have left it out in my car (I am currently sitting in a Paneera’s a couple blocks from my apartment, as the hospital library is closed on the weekends), so will have to wait on sending out our thanks. I do remember that the Rogers’ DVD of Dylan arrived. We will probably start that next, as we just finished “Good Night and Good Luck,” which we really enjoyed.

It feels good to be getting some decent sleep again. This morning a bird did wake me, but I fell right back to sleep. The previous night was good too, except for waking up with a nightmare at 3am. Zombies were after me. I wished I could go to Shepherd and crawl into bed with Gary for a short time, but as that wasn’t possible, I had to settle for locking the bedroom door. I know, that was silly. I mean, the zombies could have come right through that archway from the living room. But they didn’t get me – or if they did, I am not aware of it, kind of like the Stepford wives.

Gary said he is sleeping pretty good here too, but unfortunately one of his roommates has a speaker phone he uses, and he uses it at late hours – the previous night 2am, last night at 11:30. I told Gary if I were him I’d have to kill the guy. Gary said if I were him, I wouldn’t be able to. I said I’d find a way. Gary then mimicked someone giving a report: “Peg’s rehab is going well.”

Gary is in a room with three other patients. They are separated from each other only by curtains, so it isn’t all that private. Fortunately Gary isn’t as sensitive to noise as I am. There isn’t much room for maneuvering in the area assigned him, and it’s full of hospital equipment so is not homey-looking. It’s not a big deal to him, so I haven’t done anything to “decorate.” They had mentioned he could be reassigned a room at any time, so to me it’s not worth the effort, since he doesn’t seem to care. I’d rather spend my energy just being with him than on sprucing the place up.

Turned out the nurses bugged the orthopedic surgeon enough yesterday that he looked at the x-rays and decided Gary didn’t need a brace. So when I returned from lunch yesterday it was to find Gary upright in his loaner wheelchair (he will be getting one fitted especially to him later). The PT showed me how to do a “weight shift” with the chair, which is something he is supposed to do every half-hour for a minute until his bed sore heals (and before I forget, there is a 70% chance he will have to have surgery on that, according to a doctor, but the final determination will be made Monday). Anyway, this involved lowering the back of the chair until he is in a prone position. I told the PT I didn’t think I could hold his weight as I was lowering the chair, but she guilted me into trying it. I wish I hadn’t, as I think it wrecked up my leg more, and especially as it turned out the nurses were completely willing to do it for me. I did wheel him around the floor for a few minutes – the chair was very easy to push. We checked out the patient snack area, which has a fridge for the patients if I want to bring things in (which I already have – I broiled him a salmon kabob I picked up at a yuppie market just a block away, “Fresh Market,” since they want him to get in lots of protein to help heal that bed sore). The snack room also has juices and milk and coffee and water for the patients. We also looked at the gym where he will be doing most of his rehab exercises, and the laundry area which looks too high for him to be able to use so looks like I’m going to be stuck doing his laundry for a while ;-) (I hope he doesn’t think I’m going to suddenly become domestic. He probably doesn’t – he asked with amazement the other day, “You made the bed?” when I told him I had had to make up my bed in the apartment. I told him only because I had had to put the bed warmer on.) I also found out where the towels and blankets are, just down the hall, so now I won’t have to bug the nurses when we need those. Then I wheeeled him back to his room. He still feels weird when he first sits up, but is okay after a while. They had him sit for two hours yesterday, and they are shooting for longer today.

Speaking of which, time to go back.

Blog at http://drpeg2003.blogspot.com/

May 18, 2006 (4:41pm)

Oops, I forgot an important thing. Our address! Want to encourage those cards and letters to Gary. Send them to:

Gary Gruenhage
Shepherd Center
2020 Peachtree Rd. NW (Don’t forget to put the “Road” – there’s a million Peachtree something-or-others in Atlanta)
Atlanta, Ga. 30309

Address anything to me identically to the above, since there are no mailboxes at the apartments.

Anything that didn’t make it to us by the time we left Birmingham will be forwarded to our home address, and from there to here, so it should make it eventually.

Warning: Moaning and Groaning Ahead.

Neither Gary nor I had a real great day Wednesday. Gary had been significantly more congested and doing a lot more coughing starting the day before we left UAB, so much so that he wasn’t getting much rest and commented that he wished everyone would just leave him alone. I commented on the coughing to the nurses but they kept saying it was good he was coughing the stuff out. But then the night nurse indicated that in fact Gary was not coughing it up and that he needed to be doing his breathing exercises with the “incentispirometer” (incentive +spirometer, apparently) to help clear the congestion. “With the what?” we asked. The nurse seemed surprised Gary hadn’t been given the device. He got one for Gary and showed him how to use it. To me the nurse’s tone was chastising, saying Gary should be doing this or he risked getting pneumonia. After the nurse left, I groused to Gary, “Yeah, well, you would have been doing it had you known about it.” I couldn’t help asking when the nurse returned why we hadn’t been told of this earlier. The answer was basically because the other nurses hadn’t paid close attention to what was going on with the coughing. I don’t know, maybe I’m just too much of a perfectionist. It just makes me mad that here was another thing that Gary had to suffer for because the nurses didn’t recognize the signs in time. Another irritation, excuse the pun, is they hadn’t changed for several days the special pressure socks that Gary has to wear to prevent blood clots, and when they took them off, Gary had a big blister on the top of his foot. But I’m mostly mad about the bed sore. He was never turned until after he already had it. And bed sores are such a stereotypical hospital complication. Ah, well, I suppose I should let it go. Shepherd told us they treat bed sores aggressively, so I don’t think I have to worry about it now. Time will tell if I end up bitching as much about the nurses here ;-) At least they look older – I swear most of the nurses we had at UAB looked about twenty, and I’m wondering if they just didn’t have the experience for the job.

Anyway, Gary was having a lot of trouble breathing during his ambulance ride to Shepherd, he told me later, and he ended up back on oxygen. Meanwhile I was coping with the traffic from B’ham to Atlanta (I do want to thank Lex Oversteegen here . Lex came at my call and helped me pack up my car – that was a fantastic help). Six miles out of B’ham we slowed to a stop then continued at a crawl. Turned out the three-lane highway was gradually being thinned down to one. My timer went off for me to get off the highway and stretch, but no way was I going to exit and then try to get back on. My right calf was cramping, my left leg was tingling from bun to toe, my back was aching. We eventually got to the fifty yards where the actual construction was taking place. The traffic cleared after that point and I saw a road sign for Atlanta. “Great,” I muttered, “only 135 miles to go.” There were more parts of the highway where traffic slowed way down for construction, but nothing as bad as that. I was pooped by the time I hit Atlanta, my mind starting to play little tricks on me, but I gutted it out. Fortunately Shepherd had provided great directions to their place (even to one who “directionally impaired,” as sister-in-law Norma puts it), and I found it easily. I checked on Gary, who I knew had arrived safely because Sheryl had called me while I was driving (thus becoming one of those dopes who talks on their cell phone while driving) to say he had gotten there and to tell me where to pick up my housing packet. Gary looked somewhat tired out, but said he felt very positive about the people he had met, commenting that these people seemed to know what they were doing. He seemed like he wanted my company, so I stayed a couple of hours, then left to check out my new digs. The part I was dreading was carrying just what I would need for the night (including my cooking stuff) up to my second (top) floor apartment (not condo – I don’t know where I got that). My first impression was positive. The housing guy had also called me while I was driving (yikes!) because he wasn’t going to be there by the time I got there. That had its positive aspects, cuz I asked for top floor (I don’t like people walking above me) and in a quiet part of the complex, not facing the street, if such existed. There are twenty-five units on a dead-end street off Peachtree, and he gave me the apartment on the back, far side, opposite the side where the parking lot is. I noted a small living room, a small kitchen, and a small bathroom (as Norma said, at least the kitchen and bathroom are two different rooms). I looked out the windows, which face the rear, and saw trees lined the area right off my balcony. Through them, down a small hill, is another apartment building. And out the kitchen window I could see another apartment building a reasonable distance away. Can’t get much better than that in terms of location for housing in Atlanta. And the apartment is free! But only for thirty days, and since I will definitely be here longer than that, I guess I’m going to end up in a hotel again. Anyway, after checking out the windows, I realized I had seen no bedroom. I wondered in dismay if I was supposed to sleep on the couch. As I looked at the couch, my eye was caught by the big arch-shaped mirror that hung behind it. In the mirror I could see the reflection of a bed. Confused, I looked behind me. Nope, there was a dining table behind me, and the rooms to the side of it were the kitchen and the bathroom. Looking back at the “mirror,” I realized I was looking thru an arch-shaped hole in the wall. I wondered if I was supposed to crawl over the couch through that hole to get to the bed. (Hey, I was tired.) It dawned on me that didn’t make any sense, so I went to the long narrow hall I had entered through, and saw the door to the bedroom. If that door had registered at all when I first entered, I had put it down to leading to a closet. I unloaded from the car what I needed, and by that time I was shaking. I got my dinner started, meditated, then called Janet and Norma to spread the word to both our families that we had arrived safely – seeing that I wasn’t going to be able to send out the word over the internet. Then I ate and got ready for bed.

It felt nice to be in “my own place” rather than a hotel, and it seemed fairly isolated so I was hopeful that it would be quiet. I taped up a sheet over that archway between the bedroom and the living room – I like a bedroom to be like a cave, not open to the rest of the place. I turned on the hotel-like environmental controls in the living room to “fan,” then turned on my own two small fans in the bedroom, all for the white noise value. I took a bath and discovered that unfortunately the one thing this place lacks is really hot water. Then I climbed into bed, stuck a cold pack on my leg, and eventually fell asleep.

Until a damn bird woke me up at 6am. As I lay there listening to Tweetie-Pie, I thought it unfortunate that they didn’t allow cats here. I wondered how they felt about guns. A couple hours later I drifted back to sleep for another forty-five minutes. Then I got up and soon made my way over to Shepherd.

Some more about Shepherd (be prepared for some upcoming non sequiturs). They have about 45 SCI (spinal cord injury) patients here and they group them by age. When Gary is ready for the intensive rehab, he will be in the senior program, which is ages 50 to 65 (Gary asked if that meant he got a senior discount) and consists of a group of eight patients. I found it surprising, and ageist, to learn that they don’t take anyone older than 65 on the theory that such a person would not be returning to a vigorous lifestyle.

The case manager we’ve been assigned, according to Sheryl Hope, is a rehab-specific nurse, so she’ll be familiar with rehab-specific medical issues, unlike a “regular” nurse, so we should have less difficulty with BCBS from this point on, again according to Sheryl.

One thing I noticed here – the nurses are much quicker to answer the call button. While eating his lunch Thursday, Gary started choking, it seemed to me, so in a panic I pressed the call button. The nurse came right away. Fortunately Gary had managed to clear the food on his own by then.

Thursday the occupational therapists did some testing of Gary’s ability to sense touch – a light with a cotton swab, the dull and sharp tests with the two edges of a safety pin. No surprises – Gary’s sensations end at the T4 level, just as the x-rays would indicate. It is called a “complete” injury, because all sensation and movement is lost below it. They also did some spatial testing, to see if he could tell how his limbs were oriented. He couldn’t do this with his legs. Finally was some muscle testing. His right arm was weak (triceps, etc.) but this is felt to be because he was in that big heavy cast for so long, and not due to any nerve damage.

They are wanting to get him in a chair soon and wheel him around the facility and to the gym to do some therapy there, but can’t until the doctor looks over his new x-rays, taken yesterday (Thursday), and decides if Gary needs to wear a brace at first. Gary was disappointed because he had been told he would be in the chair this morning (Friday), but the O.T. came in and said the doctor still hasn’t looked at the x-ray. After that Gary told me he needed to listen to something funny and I went out to the car to find a tape of Car Talk. While we were listening to it the OT came back with some 3,4,5 pound weights and showed Gary some exercises to do. Gary cheered up at this (he told me he had wanted to listen to something funny because he was disappointed about not getting to get up in the chair) – he said it felt good to be getting in some movement again, instead of just laying there all the time.

All for now.