May 5, 2006
Gary is still on the trache collar as of this morning, no change out to the ventilator! Yea! The next step, the doc says, is to decrease the amount of oxygen they give him. Gary says this is cruel. The nurse said Gary is actually having to learn how to using his breathing muscles in a new way, so it is no wonder he finds it hard work.
I tested out the DVD player on a Remington Steele DVD last night. It works great, except even I would like the volume to go up a little more. We’ll see what Gary thinks when he uses it. I forgot to buy him headphones for it but have the pair I brought for my own use, so will lend them out to him for a while. I brought the player back to his room this morning so he could use it when he gets in the mood. Really, I did.
I woke up this morning about the usual time I’ve been doing here (4:30, blchh), shaking with cold. Not that anyone else would have thought the room was cold, but that is a tendency of mine. I realized that even though I’ve been keeping the room temperature up where I like it (and Gary would fry), maybe my temp is still dropping too low during the night, and on some subtle level that might be what is waking me up and preventing me from going back to sleep for a long time. At home, year-around, I use a bed warmer that fits over my entire mattress, and I had brought it here “just in case,” though I hadn’t thought it seemed necessary since I am the sole controller of the thermostat. I am going to bring it in from the car and test it out tonight. Assuming my car is still there ;-) (I probably shouldn’t joke about such things.) I’ll bring the comforter in too, even though I use the two supplied by the hotel, as an additional touch of home. Thinking of when the time comes for me to go home, do the Okie Transfers still exist? ;-)
I had the thought that when Gary is turned on his left side, it is harder to read what he is spelling out because his hand covers it up, and so he needed some kind of pointer. My solution was to ask the nurse for a spare suctioning tube – it’s light to hold; it works pretty well, though I am not quite satisfied with it – would like something with a more pointed end so there is no mistaking what letter he is pointing at. Probably by the time I figure something out they will remove his cast and he will be able to write.
We had a big mail call this morning. Since my name had come up on the townhouse list, they were evidently rerouting it to over there. What a pain! Hopefully they’ll now reroute it back to the ninth floor since I’m off the list, but who knows how long it takes for such things to get down the pipeline. The receptionist at the townhouses said she’d just mark it “return to sender,” and I had to hasten to inform her that we were still here (actually, I said, “Ack, don’t do that!”), and told her to have them send it up to the ninth floor as addressed. So, we’ll see.
Mail call: Thanks to the Harts, Paul Szeptycki, Bob Daverman, Gary Johnson, and Beth Fletcher. Beth sent a card that played “I will survive” when Gary opened it up, which made us smile – how true. Also, cards from Gary’s brother Bob, and one from Gary’s mom, who included another cute picture of Gary, this time from when he was thirteen, the eager schoolboy. Word of the accident has spread to Poland, and Gary got a joint card from Roman and Elzbieta Pol, Witek Marciszewski, Taras Banakh, Kazik Alster, Josek Chaber, Ryszard Engelking, Henryk Toruncyk, and Piotr Koszmider. The Vaughans sent a card and also a set of tapes of old-time radio programs. (When I left this morning, Gary wanted me to put on “Jack Benny,” and when I went back in the early afternoon, he said he’d really enjoyed it.) Gary’s sister Norma and her family sent along a big care package, and we had fun unpacking that. Books (I like the title of the one, “Weird History 101") and puzzles (Gary says he hopes the “Thirty-minute crossword puzzles” means they’re easy), and a huge stuffed cat from their family cat Jake, who knows we are missing our own kitties. Hopefully the nurses won’t make off with that. My sister nearly did ;-). In the letter Norma enclosed, she expounded on the merits of the Texan NFL draft, and Gary said he’d been wondering about her views on it.
After the morning visit, Di took me to a health food store. I had found one in the phone book that I recognized from years before (some hoary memory of a UAB Topology Conference was in the back of my mind), and the address seemed to indicate it shouldn’t be too far away. I tried to walk it this morning, but didn’t get quite close enough before my time was up to see if it was where I thought it should be. When we returned by car, we found it easily (for a change :-) , and I picked up a few essentials like shampoo – natural shampoo at Wal-Mart means shampoo stuffed full of chemicals and topped off with green apple blossom essence (no doubt synthesized).
The 2:30 visit consisted of going over an insurance form (my favorite activity), and making sure I was correctly deciphering everybody’s handwriting on the cards that were sent so I could make our thank yous. I hope I succeeded fairly well at that. I noticed my spell checker doesn’t think the Poles know how to spell their own names and kept changing them on me, so I hope I got them all changed back.
Gary is still on the trache collar as of this morning, no change out to the ventilator! Yea! The next step, the doc says, is to decrease the amount of oxygen they give him. Gary says this is cruel. The nurse said Gary is actually having to learn how to using his breathing muscles in a new way, so it is no wonder he finds it hard work.
I tested out the DVD player on a Remington Steele DVD last night. It works great, except even I would like the volume to go up a little more. We’ll see what Gary thinks when he uses it. I forgot to buy him headphones for it but have the pair I brought for my own use, so will lend them out to him for a while. I brought the player back to his room this morning so he could use it when he gets in the mood. Really, I did.
I woke up this morning about the usual time I’ve been doing here (4:30, blchh), shaking with cold. Not that anyone else would have thought the room was cold, but that is a tendency of mine. I realized that even though I’ve been keeping the room temperature up where I like it (and Gary would fry), maybe my temp is still dropping too low during the night, and on some subtle level that might be what is waking me up and preventing me from going back to sleep for a long time. At home, year-around, I use a bed warmer that fits over my entire mattress, and I had brought it here “just in case,” though I hadn’t thought it seemed necessary since I am the sole controller of the thermostat. I am going to bring it in from the car and test it out tonight. Assuming my car is still there ;-) (I probably shouldn’t joke about such things.) I’ll bring the comforter in too, even though I use the two supplied by the hotel, as an additional touch of home. Thinking of when the time comes for me to go home, do the Okie Transfers still exist? ;-)
I had the thought that when Gary is turned on his left side, it is harder to read what he is spelling out because his hand covers it up, and so he needed some kind of pointer. My solution was to ask the nurse for a spare suctioning tube – it’s light to hold; it works pretty well, though I am not quite satisfied with it – would like something with a more pointed end so there is no mistaking what letter he is pointing at. Probably by the time I figure something out they will remove his cast and he will be able to write.
We had a big mail call this morning. Since my name had come up on the townhouse list, they were evidently rerouting it to over there. What a pain! Hopefully they’ll now reroute it back to the ninth floor since I’m off the list, but who knows how long it takes for such things to get down the pipeline. The receptionist at the townhouses said she’d just mark it “return to sender,” and I had to hasten to inform her that we were still here (actually, I said, “Ack, don’t do that!”), and told her to have them send it up to the ninth floor as addressed. So, we’ll see.
Mail call: Thanks to the Harts, Paul Szeptycki, Bob Daverman, Gary Johnson, and Beth Fletcher. Beth sent a card that played “I will survive” when Gary opened it up, which made us smile – how true. Also, cards from Gary’s brother Bob, and one from Gary’s mom, who included another cute picture of Gary, this time from when he was thirteen, the eager schoolboy. Word of the accident has spread to Poland, and Gary got a joint card from Roman and Elzbieta Pol, Witek Marciszewski, Taras Banakh, Kazik Alster, Josek Chaber, Ryszard Engelking, Henryk Toruncyk, and Piotr Koszmider. The Vaughans sent a card and also a set of tapes of old-time radio programs. (When I left this morning, Gary wanted me to put on “Jack Benny,” and when I went back in the early afternoon, he said he’d really enjoyed it.) Gary’s sister Norma and her family sent along a big care package, and we had fun unpacking that. Books (I like the title of the one, “Weird History 101") and puzzles (Gary says he hopes the “Thirty-minute crossword puzzles” means they’re easy), and a huge stuffed cat from their family cat Jake, who knows we are missing our own kitties. Hopefully the nurses won’t make off with that. My sister nearly did ;-). In the letter Norma enclosed, she expounded on the merits of the Texan NFL draft, and Gary said he’d been wondering about her views on it.
After the morning visit, Di took me to a health food store. I had found one in the phone book that I recognized from years before (some hoary memory of a UAB Topology Conference was in the back of my mind), and the address seemed to indicate it shouldn’t be too far away. I tried to walk it this morning, but didn’t get quite close enough before my time was up to see if it was where I thought it should be. When we returned by car, we found it easily (for a change :-) , and I picked up a few essentials like shampoo – natural shampoo at Wal-Mart means shampoo stuffed full of chemicals and topped off with green apple blossom essence (no doubt synthesized).
The 2:30 visit consisted of going over an insurance form (my favorite activity), and making sure I was correctly deciphering everybody’s handwriting on the cards that were sent so I could make our thank yous. I hope I succeeded fairly well at that. I noticed my spell checker doesn’t think the Poles know how to spell their own names and kept changing them on me, so I hope I got them all changed back.
posted by Peg Daniels at 7:39 PM
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