August 26, 2006
Either it wasn’t the old smoke alarm, or at 5am I was dreaming I heard beeping. I tend to think it was the latter, and hope it was, as I haven’t heard the beeping throughout the rest of the day. (And if you don't know what I am talking about, read yesterday's entry.)
Displaying more energy than a person has a right to ;-), Janet Rogers came over this morning and helped me (or more accurately, I helped her), go through more boxes in the dining room. Progress is visible in the room. We filled up the large garbage can, plus Janet hauled at least a couple wagon-fulls of garbage down to the curb, plus she filled a recycling bin with glass jars. At one point as we worked in the room, the little beastie scurried by, so now I have an eyewitness that it still dwells among us. We didn’t see which way it went, but Janet opened the window in that room again (that task wasn’t easy!) and I opened the doors in the family room, in faint hope that the thing would take the hint. Our low expectations were met: late in the afternoon, Gary wheeled back to the bedroom, and moments later I saw the critter scamper in the other direction past the family room – I’m sure it went back to the dining room.
Janet pointed out a few possible water problems. Water is standing in the drain the garage people recently put in. I don’t think it has rained recently, so I don’t know what that would be from; I’m a little worried about mosquitoes finding it to their liking. Also, the threshold to the side entrance of our house seemed wet, and we can’t figure out why – the garage people put some kind of sealant there. Finally, there seemed to be water standing under the sink. I don’t know if these occurrences are related.
While Janet and I worked on sorting, there was a flower delivery: a vase of sunflowers from Gary for my birthday – unique and pretty (the flowers, I mean. Well, Gary too ;-)). Interestingly, the delivery man from the flower shop grew these sunflowers on his nearby farm! See the blog for a picture of them.
I got a message on the answering machine from another flower shop that they had a delivery for me, but I didn’t hear the message until too late, so I guess it will remain a mystery until Monday to find out what else I was sent and from whom.
After Janet left, I was ready for a nap ;-), but it was not to be. After lunch Gary and I needed to go to the grocery store and the health food store. I did take out time for relaxation after that (okay, I admit it – I watched part of a Remington Steele episode).
In checking my email, I found out the Prague postcards were instigated by Peter Nyikos. Thanks, Peter. Peter also left comments on the blog about travel to Prague and accessibility. You can see his comments by going to the August 7th or 9th entries.
Gary cut his hair this afternoon, and he asked me to finish up the back of it. I thought he surely was joking, but he wasn’t. He promised not to move ;-). I suppose it doesn’t look as bad as the last time I cut it ;-) but if this keeps up I’m going to have to find a book or something that tells how to shape the back of a man’s hair – or maybe I should just go around and stare at some napes.
Before starting our evening routine, Gary transferred to the bed using the board, me just supervising. He’s been doing this since last Monday, and it has gone well. He said he thought he was ready to do this without me being in the room, like if he wants to take a nap. I reminded him that he that isn’t all there is to it – he hasn’t been practicing what comes after the transfer. To begin with, lately he hasn’t been practicing getting his own legs up on the bed. And what about his shoes, I asked him. Is he going to take his own shoes off? If so, how (he hasn’t done that in bed before, and he’ll need to leave them on until after the transfer). If he thinks he wants to leave his shoes on during the nap, we need to test that it’s all right now for him to do so – at Shepherd they had him take his shoes off when he was lying on some surface because he was getting red spots (pressure sores) on his feet when he left them on.
He also would have to position and pad himself off properly once in the bed, and he hasn’t practiced that in this sort of situation; it would probably mean he’d need to keep the far bed rail on so he can use that to prop a pillow against his back to keep his hip up and the pressure off his sacrum.
He admitted he hadn’t thought about all the rest of this stuff, and that by the time he accomplished all of that, he might not be in the mood to take a nap!
So, anyway, tonight after he transferred and I mentioned all this, I put the leg bands on him (if alone, he’d have to do that himself in his chair) to see if they’d be of some help to him to get his legs up. They were – the goal is to get his legs up without their help, of course, but for now they make the job easier.
He was too tired to practice the rest of it tonight, though, so then we just went into our regular routine.
Either it wasn’t the old smoke alarm, or at 5am I was dreaming I heard beeping. I tend to think it was the latter, and hope it was, as I haven’t heard the beeping throughout the rest of the day. (And if you don't know what I am talking about, read yesterday's entry.)
Displaying more energy than a person has a right to ;-), Janet Rogers came over this morning and helped me (or more accurately, I helped her), go through more boxes in the dining room. Progress is visible in the room. We filled up the large garbage can, plus Janet hauled at least a couple wagon-fulls of garbage down to the curb, plus she filled a recycling bin with glass jars. At one point as we worked in the room, the little beastie scurried by, so now I have an eyewitness that it still dwells among us. We didn’t see which way it went, but Janet opened the window in that room again (that task wasn’t easy!) and I opened the doors in the family room, in faint hope that the thing would take the hint. Our low expectations were met: late in the afternoon, Gary wheeled back to the bedroom, and moments later I saw the critter scamper in the other direction past the family room – I’m sure it went back to the dining room.
Janet pointed out a few possible water problems. Water is standing in the drain the garage people recently put in. I don’t think it has rained recently, so I don’t know what that would be from; I’m a little worried about mosquitoes finding it to their liking. Also, the threshold to the side entrance of our house seemed wet, and we can’t figure out why – the garage people put some kind of sealant there. Finally, there seemed to be water standing under the sink. I don’t know if these occurrences are related.
While Janet and I worked on sorting, there was a flower delivery: a vase of sunflowers from Gary for my birthday – unique and pretty (the flowers, I mean. Well, Gary too ;-)). Interestingly, the delivery man from the flower shop grew these sunflowers on his nearby farm! See the blog for a picture of them.
I got a message on the answering machine from another flower shop that they had a delivery for me, but I didn’t hear the message until too late, so I guess it will remain a mystery until Monday to find out what else I was sent and from whom.
After Janet left, I was ready for a nap ;-), but it was not to be. After lunch Gary and I needed to go to the grocery store and the health food store. I did take out time for relaxation after that (okay, I admit it – I watched part of a Remington Steele episode).
In checking my email, I found out the Prague postcards were instigated by Peter Nyikos. Thanks, Peter. Peter also left comments on the blog about travel to Prague and accessibility. You can see his comments by going to the August 7th or 9th entries.
Gary cut his hair this afternoon, and he asked me to finish up the back of it. I thought he surely was joking, but he wasn’t. He promised not to move ;-). I suppose it doesn’t look as bad as the last time I cut it ;-) but if this keeps up I’m going to have to find a book or something that tells how to shape the back of a man’s hair – or maybe I should just go around and stare at some napes.
Before starting our evening routine, Gary transferred to the bed using the board, me just supervising. He’s been doing this since last Monday, and it has gone well. He said he thought he was ready to do this without me being in the room, like if he wants to take a nap. I reminded him that he that isn’t all there is to it – he hasn’t been practicing what comes after the transfer. To begin with, lately he hasn’t been practicing getting his own legs up on the bed. And what about his shoes, I asked him. Is he going to take his own shoes off? If so, how (he hasn’t done that in bed before, and he’ll need to leave them on until after the transfer). If he thinks he wants to leave his shoes on during the nap, we need to test that it’s all right now for him to do so – at Shepherd they had him take his shoes off when he was lying on some surface because he was getting red spots (pressure sores) on his feet when he left them on.
He also would have to position and pad himself off properly once in the bed, and he hasn’t practiced that in this sort of situation; it would probably mean he’d need to keep the far bed rail on so he can use that to prop a pillow against his back to keep his hip up and the pressure off his sacrum.
He admitted he hadn’t thought about all the rest of this stuff, and that by the time he accomplished all of that, he might not be in the mood to take a nap!
So, anyway, tonight after he transferred and I mentioned all this, I put the leg bands on him (if alone, he’d have to do that himself in his chair) to see if they’d be of some help to him to get his legs up. They were – the goal is to get his legs up without their help, of course, but for now they make the job easier.
He was too tired to practice the rest of it tonight, though, so then we just went into our regular routine.
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:22 PM
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