August 28, 2006

Well, sister Janet and brother-in-law John, that has to be the most unusual flower arrangement I’ve ever seen, let alone gotten – a flower cake! Wow, that is really something, thank you so much! (Gary, however, was hoping there really was a cake under the flowers.) Everyone else, see the blog for a picture of it.


And mom, thank you for the stuffed animal (blue-footed booby bird) from the World Wildlife Association and for all the mementos and pictures of my childhood – it was fun looking at the snaps of me from babyhood through high school. And Laura, thank you for your postcard from Sweden.

This morning Gary had a therapy session. The therapist asked him what was new, and he told her that for the first time he’d made it through the rehab place’s door without my help :-), which was true – it’s probably the hardest door he’s ever encountered. (It was kind of funny in an ironic way last week when we told her about shopping for mattresses and going to drug stores and so forth, she had asked if he’d had any accessibility problems anywhere, and he’d said, “Yeah, getting into here.” The ramp that they have in front of the building doesn’t level off at the top, so Gary has to get up it and take an immediate left while it is still sloping, and then at the entrance to the rehab place they have this really heavy door that slams shut the moment you let go of it; plus the sidewalk slopes slightly backward in front of the door, so he can’t let go of his wheels to grab the door or otherwise he’d roll backwards.)

I told the therapist that it was also new that yesterday he’d done his first-ever transfer to the shower bench with me only supervising, but that we had a question about what he would do with his wheelchair when he gets to the point where he can take a shower alone. After talking about this for a while, and after he and I transferred him to the exercise mat not from our usual position but from the angle we would take if the mat were a shower bench and then he and the therapist maneuvering the chair about as if he were in the shower, we came up with a plan A and a plan B. Plan A is that if there is room for him to maneuver the chair just slightly to the side, we could hang another shower curtain perpendicular to the one that is in there and Gary would pull that between the shower bench and his wheelchair (the hope being that that would keep his chair dry). If that doesn’t work, plan B is to push the chair forward out of the shower area and to have some kind of rope on it so Gary can reel it back in after the shower. If it can be accomplished, Plan A would be easier (plan B would also involve having to maneuver the chair so he can unlock both brakes after his transfer to the bench in addition to pushing the chair forward and pulling it back). We will have to test that.

Gary’s shoulders were feeling good this morning, and he was again able to add weight to some of his cable exercises! He did great, and the therapist said he looked noticeably stronger. I hope his shoulders continue to improve (I’m speaking specifically with regard to the arthritis, tendinitis).

After therapy, we stopped at a place where I picked up a stability ball for my exercise routine (I started back on that last week and I intend to continue doing it three times per week). Then we stopped at the grocery store where I got sushi for Gary’s lunch, and then I dropped him off at the university, where he stayed until five, meeting with a student and going to the Continuum Theory seminar.

When I got home after dropping Gary off, I found the beastie trap had been tripped, but no beastie. Darn. I wasn’t absolutely sure if any sunflower seeds had been eaten, so I put cat food in there along with the sunflower seeds, to see if that would lure the thing. Hopefully I won’t find Blackjack’s head stuck in there tomorrow morning.

After I picked Gary up, we decided to ask one of yesterday’s interviewees if she’d like the housecleaning job. She had impressed us with her interview, acting very professional. She said she’d take the job, so we’re hoping this works out.

In the evening Gary opened package number twelve – a postcard of Alaska and a booklet, “Alaska, a Scenic Wonderland,” with nice pictures. On the postcard Norma noted that she and Phyllis agreed that they could deal with being on a cruise for a long time, that there was something about being waited on hand and foot that really appealed to them.

I think it runs in the family.

JUST kidding, and I assume that you know that I am. Not that this is related ;-), but after I helped Gary transfer into bed tonight and he said he was tired and was just going to lay down (rather than work at getting his own legs up on the bed), I asked him when he was going to practice doing for himself the part after the transfer, since he was always too tired to do it at bedtime. I said I knew he wasn’t being lazy but –

He broke in and finished the thought, saying, “but how will I ever learn if I don’t practice, right?” Then he said he knew he needed to practice, but at night when he was tired and because it was no simple matter to get his legs on the bed himself and when he had a nice wife who would do it for him the temptation was to just have me do it. I guess I could have displayed “tough love” right then, but I suggested we practice that part on non-therapy days early in the day when he was fresh, so that is what we’ll do for now until he is more proficient at it. Or until I get tougher ;-)